Nadiya Hussain: ‘Constant pressure to prove how British I was’

The host of Nadiya’s Cook Once Eat Twice talks Bake Off, anxiety and the joys of eating banana peel.

Unsurprisingly for one of Britain’s best-loved cooks, one of Nadiya Hussain’s earliest memories is of food.

She recalls her father toiling all day and night to cook a whole sheep for her extended family. “I must have been about five,” the Great British Bake Off winner says. “I remember my dad digging a hole in the garden and creating a huge fire.”

This memory taught her two important things, she says: that food has the power to bring families together – and how to make the most of your ingredients.

“I grew up in an immigrant household,” she says, and her parents never threw any food away.

These early experiences inspired her latest series, Nadiya’s Cook Once Eat Twice, all about finding delicious solutions to food waste.

Recipes include a carrot soup that transforms into a fish curry, as well as a dish using banana peel. “It doesn’t taste like banana is all I’m going to say, because I think that’s the fear,” she says.

The latter recipe is central to what Nadiya wanted to achieve with her new series. “People are much more conscious of what they’re wasting. And they want to save money. Even if it saves a few pennies, it makes a world of difference.”