Using Middle Eastern flavours

Yasmin Khan chats about her love of Persian food culture and cooking

- Yasmin Khan

Inspired by her husband's vegetarianism and the food of her grandparents' farm, chef and food writer Yasmin Khan wants to bring the Iranian and Pakistani flavours of her mixed heritage into plant-based cooking at home.

"I feel so passionately about sharing the positive, personal connections I have with the Middle East, which is such a beautiful part of the region, but which unfortunately only makes news for the wrong reasons," says the 44-year-old, after air strikes by Israel and the US on Iran, in the midst of the war in Gaza. "It's so heartbreaking."

Khan's grandparents were farmers in an agrarian region of northwest Iran. "That's really where my love of food, food growing and vegetables came from," she says.

"Like anyone who's been around fresh produce growing up, you just get such reverence from it, because you know how hard people work to grow it."