Iit's no coincidence thatSabrina Gayuru's latest cookbook is all that easy.
She wrote Persiana Everyday during a major change in her life. She has just become a stepmother to her two boys, and her new family has began into lockdown due to the pandemic.
Writing her new cookbook was a whole different experience, she says. “I was previously unattached, never married, and had no children. Then I wrote with my two sons-in-law while homeschooling. But I think that's what made it an 'easy' book."
After spending most of her life inLondonleft Tehran at the time), the 45-year-old chef now lives in Yorkshire with her husband Stephen. Nine-year-old Ollie ("Little Tasmanian Devil") and her 13-year-old Connor ("a man of few words, but equally mean") stepsons.
Ghayour admits that it was a "miracle" that the book was written, but she takes pride in her work and clearly recognizes her role as a new parent. I enjoy my role. The book's daily theme may have come at a good time, but it is the culmination of her stylistic shifts over the years. When writing she said: Whereas there [on the recipe in her new book] this definitely doesn't need the final sprinkles or I don't think those nuts really made much of a difference so I leave them out
'Simple, economical, flavorful' - three things Ghayour says he wants his food to bring to people. "So I always try to get rid of as much material as possible because it's cheap. It's consistent with what's going on in the world, so that's not a bad thing."
Ultimately, Ghayour has a sense of humor about his food . That's why she not only focuses on 'flexibility', but also 'giving people a feeling of freedom and confidence knowing they're fine without having squirrel toenail extracts or anything like that. They can just use carrots – we are all human.
This is Ghayour's sixth cookbook, and she regularly criticizes her stepson's ruthless
"Anyone who isn't afraid to say, 'Oh, there's no recipe I can't do, it doesn't matter who it is,' is lying." she says. Ghayour even panicked when a Michelinstar chef tried to make her recipe.
She continues: Familiar...it's not my own domain of how I cook.
Ghayour remembers when he overcame this fear. "For a long time I was nervous about making British roast potatoes and roasts. This was in my early twenties and I had a catering job. I used to go to this random school and there
"I remember calling one of my friends and saying, 'How do you make roast potatoes?' , no kidding.They just came up with it to me last minute,they want British roast potatoes.she just told me about it.never done it before But when you realize there's a trick, you use hot oil to fluff it up and all that sort of thing and you're like, "Oh my god, this is so easy." , and it becomes second nature to you.
Well, almost all of Ghayour's attempts are second nature. "The choux pastry still stresses me out," she admits. "I refuse it."
ButPersian cuisine is her specialty, and she has spent much of her career giving cooking a great platform.
"It's nothing likeMiddle Eastern food," Ghayour points out. “We don’t think of ourselves as Middle Eastern, and we don’t like being labeled as Middle Eastern … They [the Persians] think of themselves as a completely independent tribe.
"And in a way we were not influenced by Arab cuisine, so you can understand that we were not influenced or conquered by Ottoman cuisine or empires..
``We were responsible for selling a lot of material to faraway places along the Silk Road. One is that the Persians don't use spices.We harvest 92% of the world's saffron.There may be a bit of cumin seeds as in one rice recipe, but The use of spices is over.It's amazing.
That's the real difference between Persian and Middle Eastern cuisine.Middle Eastern food is full of bold, spicy flavors, but she says: According to Ghayour, Persian cuisine is much simpler, which is why she calls it "a great place to start" for new cooks.
She even compares Persian cuisine to the delicacies of her home in Yorkshire. "There is an unfair labeling of meat and potatoes in the north of England" - but Persian cuisine is similar and not necessarily negative, she says. It goes very well with the because we like our meat to be cooked all the way through, but we slow cook it.We like stews and we like white rice.England,potatoes too.
“So there are a lot of similarities. Persians don't like spices very much."
Persiana Everyday by Sabrina Ghayour (published by Aster, £26, photographed by Kris Kirkham), available now.
