About Me

I’m Anjali Pathak. My love for food and cooking started when I was super young, probably around the time my senses came alive. I grew up in a home filled with spice aromas and my love affair for Indian food began.

As you may have guessed from my surname I am part of the Pathak family, although we dropped the ‘h’ many years ago when we established the brand in the late 1950s. Growing up in the kitchen I was lucky to have been exposed to all sorts of exotic ingredients that my mum and grandma were experimenting with, and I soon learnt the tricks of the trade. Cooking has been my passion ever since I can remember and I love playing with different flavours and aromas to see how they can liven up our senses.

Being born in Britain I have had to teach myself a lot about the culture and the cuisine. I learnt most of what I know about Indian cooking from my family and professional Indian chefs across the world. I have travelled around most of India (well as much as I can) trying to absorb the nuances of regional cuisines but there is still so much to learn so I go back there regularly. For me this does not just relate to Indian cuisine, but to cooking in general, and so I decided to study at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London. It was some of the toughest few months of my life, but by far the best! I worked with flavours all day long and got some excellent teaching which would be too boring to read in a text book. Some may say what does an Indian chef need to learn British and French cooking for?! But I love bridging the gap between traditional Indian and contemporary International cuisine. That is what this website is all about. A collection of my foodie thoughts and recipes to match. Spices are some of the most exciting ingredients to work with and when you have mastered the basics, all you need to do is practice and find what you like best. All my recipes are foundational and so use them as a template to create your own dishes for your own tastes. After all, isn’t that what cooking is all about? Having fun in the kitchen and trying not to lose control!

I am always thinking of new recipes which I will add onto the site so keep checking back regularly for some culinary inspiration.

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