Cooks shouldn’t get ‘too hung up on authenticity – there’s no way of achieving it’

Sanjay Aggarwal’s now-booming business was based around a family heirloom: a 100-year-old spice mill.

He started selling spice blends with his mother in 2012 almost by accident.

“It wasn’t meant to be a business,” the 40-year-old admits. “It was only started as a retirement hobby for my mum. What started off as a silly little idea, so to speak, just grew. We started online and moved after a few years to selling in shops.”

Spice Kitchen has been wildly successful, and now Aggarwal is adding another string his company’s bow by writing a cookbook. Above all the success, he’s really just appreciated spending time with his 72-year-old mother, Shashi.

“She’s incredible – she’s a whirlwind. She was born in Kenya and raised in India, so she’s got a really eclectic mix of culture. And she’s a real spice expert – we’ve got a 100-year-old spice mill in our family that’s travelled the world and I’ve got it here now; we started the business using that.”

Aggarwal says it felt “natural” to work with his mother, after helping his parents run their Birmingham shop when growing up.

But he’s “learned loads” from her during their new venture.

“It’s certainly made me realise how entrepreneurial my mum is, how creative she is… I’ve been really impressed by how similarly we think.”

He says: “We’re certainly closer for it. It’s got the ups and downs and challenges that everything has, but we’re still talking!”

While there are plenty of flavour-packed Indian dishes in the new cookbook – including coriander and tandoori fishcakes, chickpea curry and tarka dal – the recipes have a decidedly global outlook. Think fish tacos, jerk-inspired pork, crispy duck with pancakes – and Aggarwal credits this to growing up in the diverse city of Birmingham.

“I was born and brought up there, so for me, that was all I knew. But for my mum, it was very much a big influence on her,” he explains.

When she came to the UK as a young married woman, “her cuisine and culture was all very Indian” – something that soon changed.

“My mum has really seen that development of food and culture, and that cosmopolitan nature of Birmingham. It’s had tidal waves of immigration – my mum being one of them from India – and from West Africa and Asia and all different places. She’s witnessed that, when she came to the UK.”

Aggarwal recounts how in the early days of living in Birmingham, Shashi would grind her own spices – you couldn’t buy blends at the time – which “reminded her of home and made her less homesick”, but then her palate expanded.

“She’s vegetarian, but got to try all these amazing different sorts of vegetarian food from all around the world, be it Middle Eastern, Chinese or Japanese or whatever. Some of those things weren’t accessible when she first came, but were as time went on – and my mum’s very experimental.

“She’s a real foodie. She loves trying new things and experimenting – probably more than anyone else I know. I think she’s quite unique, because I think a lot of people from cultures where they’ve got a really strong food culture – certainly like Indian culture – a lot of my aunts and uncles, they don’t really eat or experiment outside of Indian food. They find it quite scary, not very flavoursome, or quite bland. But my mum really gets it – she’s got a really deep palate, and she can really appreciate different cultures.”

This love of different cuisines means both mother and son are quite free with the way they cook– and they want other people to be the same.

For example, if you’re making a frittata and you don’t have any Italian seasoning, Aggarwal says: “Try it with Mexican [spice blends], try it with jerk and you could still create something amazing. Don’t be afraid to experiment.”

One of the more unusual combinations he’s tried? Mexican spices in a shepherd’s pie: “It actually tastes amazing in there. We’re just trying to get people to be a bit more free thinking and adventurous. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Aggarwal says he’s often asked how to make an “authentic” dish – a question he struggles to answer.

“It’s very difficult to understand what they mean by that – what is the meaning of authenticity? I’m a second-generation British-born person… Food has evolved over time. We wanted to make sure the dishes [in the cookbook] were authentic in terms of linking back to the original recipes and what they’re all about, and especially the blends being as authentic as possible – trying to respect the tradition.

“But we’re also trying to say, we can only take our take on things. I can take my take on things and my mum can take her take on things – and things have changed over time.”

That’s why Aggarwal advises against getting “too hung up on authenticity, because there is no way of achieving it”.

Instead, he recommends taking a dish you like and “play with the flavours a little bit” to “make it your own”.

‘Spice Kitchen’ by Sanjay Aggarwal (Quadrille, £22).