Andaza: A Memoir of Food, Flavour and Freedom in the Pakistani Kitchen by Sumayya Usmani

  • Saffron black cardamom fudge

    Saffron black cardamom fudge (page 25)

    from Andaza: A Memoir of Food, Flavour and Freedom in the Pakistani Kitchen Andaza by Sumayya Usmani

    • Categories: Candy / sweets; Cooking ahead; Pakistani
    • Ingredients: sweetened condensed milk; unsalted butter; Demerara sugar; saffron threads; edible dried flowers; pistachio nuts; whole milk; black cardamom pods
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Notes about Recipes in this book

  • Nani Mummy's prawn karahi

    • Frenchfoodie on August 18, 2023

      Delicious, fresh, light and lets the prawns shine through. Really really quick to come together too - though I gave up grating my tomatoes and just chopped finely.

  • Boat Basin chaat plate

    • h0lly on March 10, 2026

      This was delicious. Made as written. I used Spicewalla brand Chat Masala.

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  • ISBN 10 1922616192
  • ISBN 13 9781922616197
  • Linked ISBNs
  • Published Apr 06 2023
  • Format Hardcover
  • Page Count 312
  • Language English
  • Countries United Kingdom
  • Publisher Murdoch Books

Publishers Text

From a young age, food was Sumayya's portal to nurturing, love and self-expression. She spent the first eight years of her life at sea, with a father who captained merchant ships and a mother who preferred to cook for the family herself on a tiny electric stove in their cabin rather than eat in the officer's mess. When the family moved to Karachi, Sumayya grew up torn between the social expectations of life as a young girl in Pakistan, and the inspiration she felt in the kitchen, watching her mother, and her Nani Mummy (maternal grandmother) and Dadi's (paternal grandmother) confidence, intuition and effortless ability to build complex, layered flavours in their cooking.

This evocative and moving food memoir - which includes the most meaningful recipes of Sumayya's childhood - tells the story of how Sumayya's self-belief grew throughout her young life, allowing her to trust her instincts and find her own path between the expectations of following in her father's footsteps as a lawyer and the pressures of a Pakistani woman's presumed place in the household. Gradually, through the warmth of her family life, the meaning of 'andaza' comes to her: that the flavour and meaning of a recipe is not a list of measured ingredients, but a feeling in your hands, as you let the elements of a meal come together through instinct and experience.

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