Nadiya Hussain Quotes

If we behave like the kitchen is for adults, they become more wary of it and reluctant to go in it because it feels like it’s a grown-up space.

Sometimes my feelings need to come out of my mouth and my head so the universe can have them. That’s what the universe is there for: to take my bad thoughts away.

Brexit makes me uncomfortable. It feels like we’re in no-man’s-land, and it doesn’t feel safe. People who voted to leave did so because of the scaremongering. It was all about immigration, but immigration is a great thing.

Growing up, I didn’t see that many Muslims on TV and we don’t see many now. But essentially I am a mother and that’s the job I know best.

Saying it out loud as a child is scary, but saying I felt unstable out loud as an adult with children was really scary. The fear of losing your children stops you from saying anything. It’s a never-ending battle.

The longest I’ve gone without a panic attack is about two months. Even then I can feel it bubbling away under the surface.

I’m a morning person so I like to be up by 6 am to wash and pray before the sun rises, and then have a tea at the kitchen table.

Give me buttered white bread with Marmite crisps and salad cream and I’m a happy girl.

Nut butters are so versatile, especially peanut, and whenever I run out, I just make my own. It’s cheaper and easier.

I had an arranged marriage, and learnt you have to persevere and remember we are all human and all have faults. Obviously my husband Abdal has more faults than I do!

I spent a lot of time with extended family when I was young. Every weekend, Dad would buy half a sheep and Mum would cook for about 50 people, and we would all eat on the couch, in the kitchen, spilling out into the garden.

I take everything out of the fridge and see what we can make. We talk about what we could possibly create, and if there is something on the turn that we could save, we chop it up and put it in the freezer.

When I watch a TV show I wouldn’t notice if someone was Muslim or wearing a hijab. It’s nice to be on a show where your skin colour or religion is incidental.

But I understand the importance of being a brown, Muslim woman of faith who is in the public eye, because there aren’t that many of us.

My mum was slightly disgruntled with cooking and being in the kitchen.

When you are one of six, your brothers and sisters become your best mates.

For me, it’s important to instil in my children that they can do whatever they like, that no matter what their religion and colour, they can achieve what they want through hard work.

My own kids are absolutely allowed to help me cook it. They of course have the added bonus of knowing how to bake. That wasn’t really a concept when I was a kid – I learned it at school in home economics, then started properly when I was home with my children. They love helping me.

As a child, I loved being outdoors. Our house had a railway track going past it. Of course, Mum told us not to go near it and, of course, we did. There were amazing blackberry bushes growing all along it, and we collected the fruit.

I didn’t know my husband, and then we had two children, and then I fell in love with him.

How my parents are in the kitchen is a good indicator of their parenting style. Mum cooks for sustenance, wants to get in and out, the job done quickly. My Dad wants to prance around in the kitchen, create a curry – and a mess – and entertain everyone.

Traditionally baklava is made by using honey – but I’m making it extra sweet and extra sticky by using golden syrup.

Being a parent you want to be strong for your kids and ninety percent of being a parent is not telling the truth.

I am as average as they get – there is nothing special about me. I’m just getting by.

Islamophobia first appeared in my life on 11 September 2001. I was coming back from college and didn’t know what had happened. A white van stopped and a man got out. He spat on me, yelled a profanity, and then threw a can of coke in my direction. I cried as I walked home.

I really want my daughter to see that she can go out to work, but equally I want my sons to see it.

Arranged marriages get a bad reputation. Do they always work? No, but that’s true of all marriages. As long as you aren’t forced, who cares how you get together?

Cod and clementine is one of the things my grandmother cooked for my mum when she was a child. Never one for waste, she’d keep the peel whenever she had a clementine, and this dish puts it to work.

I first met my husband on the day we got married, when I was 20. I moved to be with him in Leeds, 165 miles from Luton. The kitchen was absolutely tiny. But I got my first hand-held mixer and first set of scales and first blue cake tin from Tesco and that was very exciting.

Growing up in Luton, we’d always eat on a cloth, placed on the floor of the living room, with no TV allowed. There were no chairs back in Bangladesh and Dad wanted to keep the tradition, so we never owned a dining table.

There’s nothing wrong with using frozen and canned food. There’s nothing in this series I’m ashamed of. It’s the way I cook.

My dad’s an amazing photographer, and he loves a Sunday market. So the house was full of all the stuff he’d buy, and frame.

We have this rule in our marriage, there’s no such thing as 50/50. Somebody is always putting in more.

When I am scared, I push myself and get the best out of myself.