Sarah Woods - Desi Kitchen

After her TV debut on BBC Ones Britains Best Home Cook, Sarah Woods left her corporate role at a leading pharmaceutical company to pursue a career in food. She honed her cooking skills at Ashburton Chefs Academy in Devon, prior to taking the leap. During the Covid lockdown she established a thriving desi food collection business, and now hosts regular supper clubs and pop-up restaurants in her home town of Wilmslow, in Cheshire. She has a passion for making authentic Indian home cooking accessible to all.

My dad as a child with my granny, grandad and my aunty

Desi , a definition:

noun

a person of birth or descent from the Indian subcontinent, who lives abroad

adjective

local; indigenous

Being the child of an immigrant has its own issues because your identity is so torn. You are part British, part not, not really accepted by Britain but not fitting in to the Asian community. I wanted to pursue artistic things, but my parents wanted me to be a lawyer or a doctor or something. But having worked hard (for so long) a few years ago my parents started to see the value in what I was doing. Ive come to a point where this is me, Im not going to be something for anyone, just be me.

Afreena Islam, performing artist

Sarahs passion for making authentic Indian home cooking accessible to all is commendable, and I am thrilled to hear of her achievements, including the publication of this mesmerizing cookbook filled with gorgeous recipes from desi kitchens all over modern Britain. Following on from her television debut on BBC Ones Britains Best Home Cook, which led to her leaving her day job to launch a successful desi food collection business during lockdown not forgetting the fantastic supper clubs and pop-up restaurants in Cheshire Sarahs story is truly inspirational.

Few cookbooks cover the diaspora of the Indian subcontinent in such depth and with such authority. Each of the books stories and recipes are an absolute joy to read and cook through, and draw on tradition but also explore the desi cuisines that make up modern Britain with exacting attention to detail. All in all its a great motivating step for the reader to take on board, growing the heritage with cooking and culture while spreading awareness of these diverse communities through their food traditions. With the publication of Desi Kitchen, I wish Sarah and her lovely family all the best of everything. May the cross-culture cooking continue to grow in the UK!

Migration, the movement of people and food cultures, has created some of the best and most recognizable dishes in the world. What could be more British than the iconic fish and chips? Yet this originated from the Jewish immigrant community in London in the 1800s.

This book is a culinary roadmap of the South Asian diaspora in Britain today, for the lovers of masala baked beans, tandoori roast dinners, bacon naan rolls and the like. Ive taken a look at the various communities from the Indian subcontinent, the dishes they brought with them to the UK and how these tastes have evolved, as well as how they have adapted to the regions in which they have settled. Each community is unique. Regional cooking varies hugely in technique, ingredients and produce each has a different provenance and Im excited to accentuate that.

In these pages Ill explore what it means to be second generation in Britain today, as far as our food culture is concerned. For me, Britain is my motherland, the country of my birth, and as such the food narrative starts with modern Britain as the source of origin. Our culture is unique, a hybrid of East meets West. Being second generation is a dichotomy of identity and food, it represents that delicious collision, the alchemy of bringing very different food cultures together. Im setting out to tell that story and Ive woven an immigrant vignette into each chapter to bring the communities to life; authentic voices from first-, second- and third-generation diaspora. We are united by a language of food, it breaks down the barriers: we are here, and this is what we contribute.

Becoming a finalist on the BBC One TV show Britains Best Home Cook was a wonderful experience and set me on a path to follow my passion food and feeding. The corporate world lost its lustre, as it was never my true calling. Retraining as a chef at Ashburton Chefs Academy gave me the confidence to take the plunge and start a food business. The plan had always been to start off with supper clubs and then work towards having my own restaurant. Covid was a curveball to the best-laid plans not to be deterred, my workaround was to launch a food collection business instead. I cant think of a better way to serve my community than through the sharing and breaking of bread, or roti as the case may be. Having now moved on to hosting restaurant pop-ups and takeovers, I hope that one day the restaurant dream will come true and I will have my very own.