Sabrina Ghayour: 'Why there is nothing wrong in taking shortcuts while cooking'

“We all lead such busy lives we don’t have time to shop or cook with a million ingredients, so I don’t see the problem with taking a few short cuts and swapping ingredients if you don’t have what the recipe says.”

Life for the British-Iranian chef, who lives in a village near York, has got particularly busy in the last few years after getting married to Stephen Lynn in 2021 and now has two stepsons, aged 16 and 13.

The 49-year-old, who shot to critical acclaim with her debut cookbook Persiana in 2014 and has since published seven more, says sometimes people are scared, particularly with Persian cooking to change things.

“You get told by your mother you cannot do this any other way and then someone like me comes along, who is a bit lazy and loves a shortcut.

"I’m thinking, ‘Why can’t you do it this way?’ That’s how a lot of my Persian and traditional recipes are perfected.

“I know what changes I can make and which would compromise flavour and which wouldn’t, so I’m thinking, let’s make it easier. We don’t need to soak rice 500 times.

"If you don’t like minced lamb, use pork. I am not a poster child for authentic cookery, I am a poster child for let’s get food on your table as quickly as possible that might be a little bit unfamiliar but is essentially a stew or a pie or whatever.”

Her latest cookbook, Persiana Easy, sticks to the Persian food we know and love her for, alongside dishes from near and not so near regions, but this time, stripped back and simpler.

"Partly due to the pandemic but mainly because I married someone with kids it really changes you priorities.

"You don’t have the time but also you have all these other people’s opinions that you didn’t have before.

"There are five of us (Ghayour works with her mother a lot ) all with their own likes and dislikes and you can end up cooking four different meals.

"I now really focus on simplicity – and I think that’s most people in the country.

“We all have less time, we all have less money, we all have people to feed – there’s so many reasons to keep things pared-down as much as possible.

"I’m certainly more pared-down [rather] than hunting after the authentic version of something.”

Ghayour’s food is often cited as Middle Eastern, but the term doesn’t always feel right to her.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just a bit broad. Some of my recipes are more authentic than others, but I have my own style – maybe its Middle Western rather than Middle Eastern, ” she says.

“I just think sometimes we generalise it and go, yeah, the Middle East. Because idiots like me cook recipes from Morocco and Turkey, and then they get batched in with my books. Of course, neither of them are in the Middle East.”

Self-taught from the age of five (“my mum can’t cook at all, no one taught me, I just watched telly”), Ghayour grew up trying things out in the kitchen, eventually launching Sabrina’s Kitchen supper clubs from her London flat, and is now a regular on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen as well as Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch.

She has dialled back in the supper clubs for the time being, just running ones at Castle Howard. The fact that she’s a home cook, rather than a professional restaurant chef, isn’t a disadvantage though, she says.

“You’re providing value from what you’re asking [cookbook readers] to buy, if they don’t already have it – that’s because I’m a home cook, so when I do recipe tests that I’m staring at in my kitchen, and I realise that’s actually not a weakness, that’s a strength.

"I’m always using the same things in my kitchen. So that’s kind of given me confidence.”

She’s “not afraid” to use the same store cupboard ingredients over and over again.

“Sometimes you’ll have recipes of mine that will maybe have, let’s say, eight ingredients, but six of them are the same. The key ingredient and something else is different, they taste totally different to one another,” she says.

“I used to think that made me a bit of a charlatan or an imposter, and then I realised, actually that’s really good because people [at home] are using the same ingredients.

"It has made me think when writing recipes do I actually need to add that, does it really make that much difference and if it doesn’t then I am no longer afraid to leave it out or offer an alternative.

“The most important things are probably already in your pantry anyway, including good sea salt, pepper, chilli flakes, oregano, garlic granules and curry powder.

“In God’s honest truth, most of the Persian and Middle Eastern ingredients are readily available in supermarkets – and yes, in the last 10 years, pomegranate molasses, sumac, and all these things have been added to that. Cooking has evolved and moved on.”

As well as pairing back on ingredients she has also cut down on the length of time some things take to cook.

"I ask myself does this really need to be cooked in three pans or can I do it in one? Can this be a quick cook rather than a long slow cook. I don’t people to be stressed out about cooking.

"I do have responsibility to bring people new recipes and new flavours, but I am going to break to rules.

"Ultimately people need to be able to make it. I want this to be a book that people will cook from, not just sit on a shelf.”

Persiana Easy by Sabrina Ghayour is published by Mitchell Beazley, £28. Photography by Kris Kirkham.