My kitchen is … a building site in Essex, so I’ve temporarily recreated my kitchen in our shop, Persepolis in south east London, where we are also living. I’m as happy as a sandboy here. It is very small, in the back of the shop, and within two yards I’ve everything I need to cook for up to 20 customers at a time: bottles and bottles and jars and jars and all sorts of bits and bobs all within hand’s reach. It’s almost like doing tai chi – my kitchen is basically my gym. It’s also like the inside of my head: very, very cluttered but we get there in the end.
My favourite kitchen tool is … my measuring jug, I sit with it next to me when I write. Looking at it, I can somehow judge quantities. It follows me around the kitchen.
My storecupboard staple is … pickles. I put pickles in everything. As a cornershop owner, I love storecupboard cookery, and as long as I have pickle in the house I know I can produce something good. I never liked them until I married an Iranian. I particularly love ambeh – an Iraqi mango pickle with an awful lot of spices. It’s really sweet and salty. If you have a load of veg, you chop it all up, rub all over with anbeh and a tiny bit of water, and bake it – it makes the most wonderful supper / side / sandwich filler.
When I’m starving I … have spelt toast with butter. I’ve always been a toast girl, but in recent years I’ve developed an intolerance to wheat and some dairy (I can have butter, but not cream, milk, yoghurt and cheese), so now I always have good spelt bread around.
My culinary inspiration is … being a closet synesthete. Often I’ll pluck a smell from the air and create a dish in my head. Peckham is a great foodie paradise – the colours, the produce, the smells – and living here is an education and a privilege. There are so many specialists from so many countries to learn from.
My best-kept kitchen secret is … knowing how to cook with salt. I’ve learned a lot from the Iranian principle of balanced eating. All foods have different properties, and in order to create good food, you need to know when to add salt, and how much. It can prevent some things from cooking, it can make meat tough … When used right, good sea salt is such a pleasure.
My current obsession is … eggs. Breakfast at the moment is this ancient dish of eggs, dates and Baharat Iraqi spice mix; very sweet with lots of cardamom.
Everything tastes better with … spice. We’re such wusses in England with our spices. You can kill a dish with too much spice, but ½ tsp here or there just doesn’t cut the mustard.
When I go shopping I … go out with an empty head and an empty shopping basket. I know all the shop owners, the fishmonger, the butcher, the stallholders at the farmers’ market. I ask them all what’s good, what’s fresh, and I come back with a full basket of things. I get terribly excited about new ingredients.
For dinner tonight … I’ve got a lot of kale, so I’m going to make kale and split pea soup with cumin and marinated feta. Mr Shopkeeper is a rampant carnivore, so I’ll make some meat to go with that for him.
