Nadiya's Kitchen: Over 100 Simple, Delicious Family Recipes Hardcover – April 1, 2017

I'm probably one of the very few who purchased this cookbook without having ever actually SEEN the Great British Bake-Off or Nadiya on the small screen...chalk that up to several overseas moves and the last couple of years without a TV or cable. However, I was intrigued by the snippets of information out about her debut cookbook, and decided to preorder from the UK. Despite the lack of TV, I regularly follow the careers of former GBBO contestants and own cookbooks by several, including the excellent "Crumb" by Ruby Tanoh (one of my blog's top cookbooks of 2014) and Edd Kimber ("The Boy Who Bakes").I love a good curry (Meera Sodha's books are some of my favorites), but due to a hectic work/life balance, I really fall for doable, delicious recipes with easy results, and "Nadiya's Kitchen" delivers on both counts. Nadiya grew up in a British Bangladeshi family in Luton, where she taught herself to cook from cookbooks and YouTube videos. In 2015, she was chosen to appear on Great British Bake-Off and won. An audience favorite, Nadiya now has a spinoff BBC documentary "The Chronicles of Nadiya" as well as several book deals ("Nadiya's Kitchen," the children's book / cookbook "Bake Me A Story," as well as her first novel).In her first cookbook, Nadiya collects familiar (British) favorites like the Full English (here presented as a frittata), meat pies, and cherry Bakewell with a hefty dose of the international (chilli cheese burritos, gnocchi with cheese, pine nuts and rocket, grilled halloumi with pomegranate salsa, kofta kebab, Asian-inspired seafood) as well as Indian and Bengali fare (meat samosas, korma, curry, kedgeree). True to her word, many recipes do come together quickly and are fairly simple. Thanks to the detailed step-by-step photographs for more involved recipes, even novice cooks can turn out a delicious dinner.The chapters are arranged by theme rather than meal (teatime, dessert for dinner, dinner date, cosy evenings and midnight feasts, etc.), so it may take a bit of flipping to locate the recipe or type of dish you're looking for.For this review, I made several recipes from "Nadiya's Kitchen" including the showstopping oven-roasted sweet tomato and Parmesan tart, mustard and kale mac and cheese, quick boiled egg curry, and sour cherry and almond Bundt cake. The tomato Parmesan tart has you essentially candy cherry tomatoes with a touch of sugar, balsamic and olive oil. If pressed for time, an all-butter refrigerated pie crust can be substituted for the homemade one. You first blind bake the crust before layering with half the tomatoes and adding a rich cheese-enhanced custard (I also added some sprigs of fresh thyme to add a little extra flavor). This was absolutely lovely served with a simple green salad (and I actually prefer eating it cold rather than warm).Next up was the quick boiled egg curry. I usually have a surplus of hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator (I steam them in batches in my rice cooker), and am always looking for new ways to use them, so I loved the idea of adding them to a curry. You start by cooking down tomatoes, onion, and spices into a dry paste, then frying up the eggs separately. Two observations here: first, the amount of paste hardly seems generous enough for six eggs / several servings if you like your curry a bit heartier / saucier (I ended up with maybe 1.5 cups of sauce after cooking down, which would yield 1/4 cup per person if serving six as Nadiya recommends). Second, I had less success with frying up the eggs. You're supposed to score them then crisp in oil, but mine browned unevenly and didn't result in the crisp "shell" shown. I ended up using peeled hardboiled eggs and mixing them into the curry, and loved the final result.The mustard and kale mac and cheese was a great update on a beloved classic; I added some panko breadcrumbs to the top as I love crunchy mac and cheese! If you can't find Coleman's mustard powder in your neck of the woods, French mustard or Japanese mustard powder is a respectable substitute. Kale being a tougher green, it froze and reheated beautifully and didn't turn slimy or mushy on reheating.And as Nadiya is primarily known as a baker, how do the selection of baked goods hold up? The first recipe I tried was the sour cherry and almond Bundt, and it was every bit as gorgeous as the photo. My coworkers loved the balance of cherries and subtle hint of almond (the recipe uses both almond flour, although not entirely gluten-free, as well as almond extract). The crumb was moist and the cake held up well through several days of snacking.There are also recipes for mocha macarons, homemade candy (peanut, black sesame and ginger brittle, chocolate-dipped honeycomb, candied orange peel, guava Turkish delight, salted pretzel fudge, speculoos hazelnut truffles), cookies galore (candied lemon, coconut and strawberry Anzacs, chocolate and date, matcha and milk chocolate), chocolate and hazelnut profiteroles, chocolate and star anise fondants, pavlovas and cream pies, nutmeg and orange baked cheesecake, raspberry jam puddle brownies, and a recipe for Her Majesty's Cake.From comfort food (hello, mushroom, cheese and mustard croissants!) to more elegant fare (fresh sea bass fennel ceviche, crusted rack of lamb with aubergine bortha, crispy filo with seared tuna), "Nadiya's Kitchen" offers something for everyone, from beginning cooks to the more experienced.

I bought this book after having watched Nadiya in "The Great British Bake Off." All of her bakes looked so interesting, I wanted to taste everything she made! I have had this book for about a week and I have made 5 of the recipes so far...Ovaltine Bedtime Biccies (I've made these twice! Sooo good!), Hot Cookie Dough and Ice Cream and Mint Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Mousse Pots, plus the Bengali Korma and Cod and Clementine dishes. They have all been delicious!The photos in the book are colorful and personal. I love how she has written about her emotional connection to each recipe.At first, I was not sure about the metric measurements, but I have been using my scale and just set it to grams or mls, then on the second go round, I've weighed, then measured with my teaspoons and cups and penciled those numbers in. It's totally fine. There are also conversion sites on the web that you can use if you don't have a scale.The other tricky part for us Americans is the temperature. I think the first number is for electric and the second is for gas, but I'm not sure. I just used a conversion calculator on the internet and it was easy. They are totally normal settings and all of my bakes have come out fine.There are a few ingredients that I don't normally use (like rose syrup and candied lemon), but they can be easily made. I think it is fun to do it. The flavors are just amazing.

Until I get a chance to actually have time to try out some of these recipes (I bought it for the Cod and Clementine curry, which will be the first one I try), I think this is a charming book! I'm in the US but I don't let metric measurements scare me, you can google metric converters and they will work out fine. I'm a fan of "Great British Bake Off" and that is how I "met" Nadiya (and I'm so glad she won!). The pictures of her children and husband really give the book a cozy, happy home feeling and the family pics alone I think will boost your spirits. I think this is a worthy cookbook to have in one's kitchen.

I bought this cookbook for our house after we saw Nadiya crush it on the Great British Bakeoff. We were impressed by her skills and adored her personality and wanted to support such a great person in her business venture. The cookbook did not disappoint, and her sparkling personality fills every page. The recipes are fantastic and her stories about her family make us glad we supported such a good person. I believe every house needs at least two cookbooks: Nadiya's kitchen and How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson.