How do our food experts cook and eat? This week, food blogger of My Baking Journal, Hafsa, takes our Q&A!

Your first memory of cooking?
From a very young age, I always loved playing sous chef, doing all the peeling and chopping, I even enjoyed scraping coconut! I come from a family of talented cooks and bakers and I learnt to bake long before I learnt to cook. I remember baking buns and pizza to take to school in my lunchbox. My mom would make the filling for the buns and I’d proudly share my bakes with my friends during break time.

What has been your funniest kitchen mistake when you were starting out?
So back when recipes were not so freely available at our fingertips, I tried a Kerala Chicken Curry recipe which I had jotted down from somewhere. I used ground fenugreek instead of ground fennel and the curry turned out so bitter that we had to discard the whole gravy!

Your favourite childhood meal?
My mum’s pani roti – pol roti stuffed with pani pol. She made it for us every weekend and I remember how we would lick the treacle that would ooze out along our arm with every bite. I make it whenever I miss home which is too often nowadays!

Dead or alive, who would be your dream dinner-party guests?
Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson – they are such an inspiration with their style and attitude.

What dish would you eat but never cook?
CRABS! They look so alive even when they are dead and I’ll just freak out trying to clean them, let alone cook them!

What food trend do you dislike?  
These baseless, meaningless fusion food that people come up with. There’s more to food than what you see on a plate and I sometimes find certain food innovations an insult to the culture it hails from.

What is your go-to, fail-safe dish at a first-time restaurant?
I’d read the reviews before visiting a restaurant for the first time and I’d always order a salad first because regardless of how simple a salad sounds, there is so much that could go wrong!

It’s your last day on earth, where are you?
At home in Sri Lanka, eating my mum’s biriyani with all the sides and of course, watalappam!

What is your love language when it comes to food?
For me, food is all about love and nurturing and I associate it with showing someone you care and making them happy. Could there be a better way of showing someone how much they mean to you than cooking their favourite meal from scratch and going that extra mile to present it beautifully?

The easiest meal you’d whip up to impress someone?
Naan, Kofta curry, dhal and my signature butterscotch pudding.

What’s the most adventurous food you’ve eaten?
We went on a staycation to Scotland last year with some family friends and one of them hunted down some wild pheasants which we cooked later. Watching someone skin the bird that I just saw running around just moments ago was no fun though!!

What’s a food that you miss from Sri Lanka that you can’t get in the UK?
Thankfully, I live in an area where I have access to a lot of Sri Lankan food but fresh Sri Lankan fish and Jackfruit is still a luxury. I also miss all the fast food and short eats freely available to buy in Sri Lanka!

Your favourite odd food pairing?
I love cold wood apple juice with warm rice. It’s quite popular among Muslim households, especially during Ramadan.

Your proudest food invention?
My watermelon popsicles because I love how they turned out to replicate wedges of watermelon. My hot butter cauliflower is a close second!

What’s a dish you’d love to relive for the first time?
Cheese Fondue I had in Switzerland.

You have such a knack for food styling as well so - eat with your eyes or think with your stomach – which one wins?
As much as I love making food look pretty, all that effort would be worthless if it didn’t taste good so the latter definitely wins!

Your favourite leftovers?
RICE! Leftover rice is so versatile, you can make tempered rice or fried rice or toast the rice in the oven and make aggala or even turn it into fritters or vadey…. The possibilities are endless.

Do the cooking or have someone cook for you?
Do the cooking – I love it and enjoy it. But of course, there are days I wish someone would cook for me!

If you are put on the spot to prepare a dish – savoury or sweet?
Definietly sweet! Gulab Jamuns are always a hit!

If I’m back in Sri Lanka, the first thing I would eat is ____?
A good fiery kottu or a chicken submarine from Dinemore!