Spreading the love for my curries has been a dream come true. And I owe it all to my mum, my aunties and my naan
From amateur cook to high fryer
When Yasmin McDonagh booked herself on a cooking course, she never imagined it would lead to her being crowned Curry Queen of Scotland.
Yasmin has never worked in a restaurant in her life.
But she fell in love with the idea of setting up her own cooking school, teaching others how to make her family’s much loved Punjabi dishes from the kitchen of her home in Balfron, Stirlingshire.
As well as offering cooking classes, Yasmin runs a successful business selling curry kits for many of her most popular dishes.
She is sure her late parents would be deeply proud their family recipes are proving such a hit.
Yasmin, 49, said: “I grew up in a house full of the wonderful aromas of Punjabi cooking.
“Both my parents were amazing cooks and I always remember everyone saying to my mum that the fragrant curries she made were so good, she should teach curry-making classes.
“But other than some demonstrations at her local women’s club, she never did.
“As I got older, I would often cook curries for friends, and they would say the same thing to me.
“I’ve always loved cooking – I’m the type of person who reads recipe books in bed – but I never really dreamed I might do it for a living until my brother and I visited a local cookery school.
“At the end of the class, I told the chef I loved his cooking but what I would really love was a job like his.
“I told him I had this idea in my head of doing what my mum never did, and teaching others to cook. He was so encouraging and told me I had all the knowledge and skills I needed to run my own cooking classes.
“He said people wanted to know how to make the food I had grown up making. He just inspired me to give it a go.”
Yasmin spent much of the next year planning what to teach, and writing all the recipes down.
She said: “No one in my family had ever written the recipes down before – we just instinctively knew what to do.
“Even when I was young, if I asked my mum how much of a spice was needed, she would just say, ‘Let me show you’, and it was a pinch of this, and a pinch of that.
“So writing the actual recipes was a challenge but I loved it.”
Mum-of-two Yasmin started teaching groups of up to three people at a time how to make the authentic Punjabi dishes she had grown up on.
She ran all the classes from the kitchen of her home.
She also started making small jars of chilli jelly to sell at local fairs.
She said: “My chilli jelly sold really well, then one day I met someone who runs a hamper business and I said I wished I could put my cooking courses into a box to sell.
“He told me to come and see him, that he would find me a box to suit . It was a real eureka moment.
“I started thinking about what I could include and decided I could d put in recipe cards, photos of the e dishes and packets of spices.
“I made up the cookery kit, took k the boxes to a local fair and they sold ld out in just two hours.
“I made up more boxes for other her fairs and they sold out too.
“Before I knew it, I had people ple knocking on my door asking for the kits.”
With the help of friend and business ness partner Paul ine Neison, 44, Yasmin launched her Scotia Spice authentic Punjabi curry kits, containing everything but the
fresh ingredients needed to make dishes ranging from chicken curry and whole masoor dhal to sweet potato and red pepper pakora.
As well as selling the kits at farm shops and fairs across the country, she sells them online through her website.
And they have proved such a success she was crowned Curry Queen of Scotland at the Scottish Curry Awards earlier this year.
Yasmin, who was born in England and moved to Scotland with her husband Stuart almost 20 years ago, said: “It was such a huge honour and a great surprise.
“For the award to come from people within the curry industry made it particularly special – especially since I’m not a restaurant or part of the conventional curry industry.
“I got it for innovation and because I was doing something different but really, I’m just doing what I love.”
Yasmin, who once worked in the finance industry and is mum to son Kalim, 18, and daughter Anisah, 15, now employs a small team of people who come to her home to help make up her cookery kits.
She said: “I gave up a career I enjoyed when I had my children because I wanted to be at home for them when they came home from school.
“Now I have a small team of people who live here in Balfron, who come in after dropping their children at school and are finished in time to go and pick them up.
“This is very much a familyfocused, lifestyle business, and I’m delighted with how it’s grown.
“What I’ m doing comes from my roots and from my family – and I think my parents would be pretty proud of what their love of cooking has inspired me to do.”