Hello, I’m Sanjana, a British-born food writer and recipe developer with Indian and East African roots.
Inspired by beautiful ingredients, people and stories, my passion lies in creating Asian vegetarian soul food recipes for the way we eat today. My love of food began with the traditional South Asian dishes I ate growing up as a first generation Brit. Very often it was daal (lentils), bhaat (rice), shaak (vegetable curry) and rotli (chapatis) on the menu. My parents were African-born immigrants whose ancestors came from Gujarat, on the Kathiawar peninsula in western India. My family’s culture has taught me to believe is that food transcends borders and that a bowl of good daal can fix anything.
My Recipes
I’ve been curious about vegetarian food ever since I could see over the top of our cooker. I hope to share with you the feelings of excitement I had when I rolled my first wonky chapattis with miniature kitchen utensils that looked like they’d been manufactured in toy town. I’d use my hot pink chapatti board and rolling pin to make terrible-tasting rotlis which my mum would cook and my pa would wolf down with gusto, whilst telling me I was a fabulous chef even though they were utterly dreadful. And that was all it took – I had discovered my love of Indian food. Forget your typical puff of glitter – for this alternative little Indian girl, childhood was all about that magical cloud of chapatti flour. Typical home-cooked Gujarati cuisine was where my journey began.
