The face of change

Television’s most forgiving chef Nadiya Hussain is the accidental saviour in a year dedicated to eating in.

- Sonal Ved

Never have I ever...interviewed a chef who cooks out of a can. Especially in the last few years, when even forgivable ingredients that are okay to pop out of a tub—ketchup, mustard or mayo—are made from scratch by accomplished chefs.

I was told real chefs take pride in laborious curries that are slow-simmered until the meat falls off the bone or loaves of bread that take 24 hours to crack. But then came Nadiya Hussain, a Bangladeshi chef from England, who made her Netflix debut last year with Nadiya’s Time To Eat and convinced us that it was okay, at times, to take shortcuts.

On the show, Hussain nonchalantly whips up meals like a marmalade haddock tray bake or a raspberry cheesecake croissant within minutes, using kitchen hacks that will make a purist cringe. But her confessions make her all the more relatable. “Sometimes when I’m making a potato salad I don’t boil the potatoes, I take them straight out of a can,” confides the 35-year-old in episode two. Indeed, from a hustling professional-turned-homeschooling parent in lockdown, you’ll hear a loud “Preach!”