Award-winning chef, journalist and founder of Marylebone restaurant Jikoni, Ravinder Bhogal, will release her second cookbook, Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen on 28th May 2020.
Ravinder Bhogal is a “self-confessed greedy girl about town” and your new best friend in the kitchen. Winning the “Fanny Craddock for the new generation” award from Gordon Ramsay on his F-Word programme, she has a huge appetite for good food and an unhealthy addiction to high heels, which inspired her debut cookery book Cook in Boots (published to rave reviews and awarded Best Debut Cookbook at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards).
Her second book, Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen, is named after her 2016-born restaurant Jikoni, the product of Ravinder’s lifetime ambition. And one that saw her journey from accomplished journalist and author (The Guardian, Vogue.com, Channel 4’s Food: What Goes in your Basket? and BBC2’s Great British Curry Trail, to name a few) to chef and restaurateur extraordinaire.
Growing up in London with a mixed heritage, Ravinder is a versatile and sensitive chef whose flavour combinations and subtle use of spices have garnered her much praise amongst her peers, from Salman Rushdie crediting her “lawless spirit [for] recipes that deliciously combine her culinary heritage with the new possibilities from a global larder” to Jay Rayner commending her “brilliant understanding of spicing and pitch perfect taste.”
Jikoni, which translates as “kitchen” in Swahili, takes inspiration from Ravinder’s heritage and travels. Born in Kenya to Indian parents, she moved to Britain as a child where she reconciled her “pining for what we had left behind with the wonder of our new landscape”. What emerged was a plethora of hybrid dishes that were, in part, acts of self-preservation unshackled by rules or cultural accuracy.
Sharing her restaurant’s name, Ravinder’s new book contains over 100 exciting recipes that borrow from a diverse global larder, including Cauliflower Popcorn with Black Vinegar Dipping Sauce; Spicy Aubergine Salad with Peanuts; Herbs and Jaggery Fox Nuts; Skate with Lime Pickle Brown Butter; Tempura Samphire and Nori; Lamb and Aubergine Fatteh; and the Banana Cake with Miso Butterscotch and Ovaltine Kulfi, which has a cult following at her restaurant. Woven throughout, amongst the recipes, are sensual and evocative stories that illustrate the powerful relationship between food, people, place and identity.
About the book, Yotam Ottlenghi says:
“This is a wonderful mess of a book: inventive, fresh and deliciously irreverent. Duck Rendang and Paneer Gnudi with Saag are at the top of my cooking list.”
Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen will be available in bookshops nationwide on 28th May 2020. It can also be pre-ordered on Amazon here for £20.28.
Words by Alba Martin