This is as close as Nadiya Hussain comes to all-out bada** rebellion.
The Bake Off winner turned author and presenter reels off controversial ingredients: “Tinned potatoes, garlic paste; if you cheat, so what?” It’s fighting talk.
She’s like an anti-Ottolenghi — there are no obscure herbs, no elaborate preparation (who has time to sweat aubergines?), and everything she uses can be bought at the supermarket. Before you think she’s gone off the rails completely, Hussain reminds us that she only takes short cuts with cooking when there’s a legitimate reason — she doesn’t cheat at board games.
The premise of Nadiya’s Time to Eat is not original — long working hours make cooking a chore. It’s what Jamie Oliver addressed with his 15-Minute Meals, and the reason why Nigella Lawson’s catchphrase became “How easy is that?”
Now it’s Hussain’s turn to show that you can make dinner for your family and still have the energy to enjoy it. She may have made her name making elaborate cakes that you would never dream of tackling after work on a midweek evening, but she’s not above using a food processor to speed the chopping of onions .
Dressed in a pale pink jumper and headscarf to match her vast, pastel-coloured kitchen, she freshens up the format. First, she hears from a working mother who wants to break her reliance on ready meals. Hussain shows her a more mindful way to peel garlic.
There’s also a trip to a mushroom farm to see where her favourite quick-and-easy ingredients come from. This is the best part of the show as it feels the most original — that and the section at the end where her children try what she’s made. They are naturals on camera and give their mother what they think is the ultimate compliment: “This looks like something you’d serve to Gordon Ramsay.”
I prefer more aspirational cookery programmes — Rick Stein catching crabs or Nigel Slater picking pomegranates in the Middle East — but Hussain is charismatic and she can’t be faulted for trying to make our lives a bit easier.
Nadiya’s Time to Eat airs at 8pm on BBC Two on July 15.
