Recipes That Made Me

Nisha travels to the West Midlands, which has the largest population of Punjabis living in the UK, to discover all she can about Punjabi food from the north of India. Punjabi cuisine is famous for its rich dishes and she wants to understand more about the ingredients, cooking techniques and culture that has given this cuisine its unique characteristics.

Nisha is in London to discover more about food from the tropical island of Sri Lanka. The cuisine is rising in popularity, especially in the capital city. She starts her exploration in an unlikely setting: a lakeside cafe in London's Victoria Park. Here there is a group of Sri Lankan guys cooking in the kitchen who have started introducing their authentic recipes from home. They serve incredible Sri Lankan breakfasts with a kind of noodle called a string hopper that is right at the heart of their cuisine. In the kitchen, Nisha meets Thivian, who shows her how they make these unique string hoppers, as well as rustling up one of their legendary coconut rotis (a kind of flatbread) for her to try.

Nisha travels to Yorkshire to meet families with connections to Kashmir in northern Pakistan. Kashmiri food has little exposure in this country and Nisha wants to discover all she can about it. She starts her exploration at the Cafe Regal where Pakistani families head for hearty Kashmiri breakfasts at the weekends. She loads up her plate with spiced omelette, chickpeas, curries and breads, but the most surprising dishes on the buffet bar are lambs livers and trotters. She meets Yazi here, an expert in Kashmiri food. She learns that lamb is a central part of Kashmir's cuisine - the mountainous landscape makes it the perfect environment for rearing lamb and Kashmiris use it in a variety of delicious fragrant dishes.

Nisha travels to Greater Manchester to meet incredible home cooks from the Bangladeshi community. Eight out of ten restaurants referred to as Indian across the UK are actually owned by Bangladeshis, so Nisha starts her exploration into this cuisine in one of the many Bangladeshi-run curry houses in this area. Most of the regular favourites served in curry houses, like chicken tikka masala and baltis, are dishes that were created in this country to suit a western palate and don't even exist across the Indian subcontinent. At the Last Monsoon, restaurant owner Shahin is trying to change things and introduce more traditional Bangladeshi dishes to his customers. However, the most authentic Bangladeshi dish made in the kitchen is a well-kept secret that isn't even on the menu. Every night, as in many curry houses across the country, the staff sit down to a home-style meal cooked in the kitchen, quite different from many of the dishes on the menu. Nisha is invited to see how this staff curry is made and sits down with the staff to enjoy it at the end of everyone's shift.