The sweet and savoury side of simple spices with Nadiya Hussain (2024)

— Nadia's Simple Spices is streaming now

—

“Often when people think about cooking with spices, I believe there is a notion that there will be hundreds of spices, huge ingredients lists and prep work that can go into the double digits of hours,” Nadiya Hussain writes in Nadiya’s Simple Spices. This book accompanies the TV series of the same name. “Well, you’re not wrong, it can be like that… But at its core, the cooking I grew up with was delicious but simple. We almost always used only a few spices.”

In the book and the six-part series, she focuses on just eight spices, ones you probably already have in the pantry: cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, bay leaves, fennel, chilli, cardamom and curry powder.

“My mum, my Nani and my great-Nani before her all made incredible meals with just a few humble spices and now I want to teach you what they taught me, to create a host of mouthwatering meals for every occasion,” she says in the television series, which features traditional and new ideas, “from the Bangladeshi dishes of my childhood to British classics with a spicy twist and my own deliciously cheeky mashups that fuse both my worlds.”

That translates into savoury dishes – comforting, hearty things like a juicy, colourful saag aloo chicken jalfrezi or egg fried rice – and sweet creations, such as milk fudge flapjacks that bring together oaty flapjacks and spiced Indian fudge.

Here’s a sample of the dishes she cooks up in the show:

"This includes two of my favourite things and I have made their worlds collide: flapjack – sticky, sweet and oaty – topped with a spiced Indian milk fudge. Why have one world when you can build a bridge between two," she says of this sweet combination recipe.

“You can’t beat a hug in a bowl and this warming recipe is exactly that,” she says in the show's first episode while making this bay leaf and turmeric daal, topped with garlic and chilli tarka.

"This is the kind of dish that you often see being served up at an Indian restaurant and while it may look complicated, it doesn’t have to be at all. This is like the Bengali stir fry you never knew you needed. It’s spiced, fast and a feast for the eyes."

Perfect for a speedy mid-week meal, this egg fried rice will give takeaway a run for its money. Fried rice is a great way to

use up leftover rice, but you can also use a packet of 90-second rice.

"Kulfi ice cream needs nothing else, but when you make this easy, no-churn kulfi ice cream with cardamom and then sandwich it between soft biscuits, kulfi just got better," she says of this double-the-deliciousness recipe.

With juicy chicken smothered in a zingy spiced yoghurt marinated, this is a great dish to serve a crowd and can be cooked in the oven or on a barbecue.

This one comes from the first episode of the show, which has a 'Feel Good Food' theme. With its delightfully springy centre and crisp punchy crust, a cheese and onion loaf laced with chilli and cumin doesn't just feel good to eat, it's great to make too.

Looking for a big, hearty savoury tray bake? Meet Nadiya's dhansak bake, a twist on cottage pie. A dhansak is a simple but flavourful beef and lentil curry. Here, she's created a baked version, with rich beef and lentil curry under an onion, cheese and garlic-flavoured potato mash. Eggs on top are optional - leave them out if you'd like to freeze the bake.