The star of Netflix’s Chef’s Table and owner of London\u0027s Darjeeling Express charts a lifetime of cooking in her second cookbook, Ammu.
It took the silence of a global pandemic for chef Asma Khan to capture a lifetime of love. Unable to travel from her home in London, England to Kolkata, India to see her mother, she turned to her memories instead.
“I needed to see light breaking through the dark,” says Khan. “It kind of felt like this was what I was also doing through the book: bringing hope and how food can be this great healer and also a way of communicating.”The first thing her mother would ask when Khan got home from school or anywhere else was, “What do you want to eat?” She would give it to her, then sit and watch her devour it. Khan never understood but found herself doing the same with her sons during the pandemic.
This experience helped the book’s final chapter, “Being Ammu” flow easily, she adds. Recipes such as her— halfway “between a chicken nugget and a spicy pakora” — merge Khan’s culinary heritage with foods her sons, Ariz and Fariz, enjoy.