Rachel Khoo is back to share the simple pleasures of cooking

Rachel Khoo talks about the joy of cooking, fundraising for charity and filming her new show in lockdown.

Source: Matthew Gormly

--- Rachel Khoo's Simple Pleasures will be available at SBS On Demand after episodes air each week.  --- 

 

“Cooking, regardless of whether you are a beginner or a pro, can be a joy. And you don't need fancy ingredients or equipment to cook up delicious food,” says Rachel Khoo, when SBS chats to her about her new show, which features the kind of simple, comforting food that’s a joy to make and eat: chocolate pudding, lentil dhal with homemade flatbreads, fish finger sandwiches, pan-fried dumplings.

Rachel Khoo's fish finger sandwiches Source: Rachel Khoo's Simple Pleasures

And that food is helping more than just those of us looking for some ideas for dinner: the recipes from the show are also raising money for a charity working to end domestic violence against women and children. All proceeds from the Simple Pleasures e-cookbook, with the recipes from the show, (it's available from Khoo’s website) go to UK charity Women’s Aid.

How did Khoo become involved, we asked.

“The charity approached me to be an ambassador when I had contacted them to see if I could help fundraise for their charity through the sales of my e-cookbooks. The work they do is even more vital than ever with the rise in domestic abuse against women and children,” she explains. (Along with the Simple Pleasures e-book, Khoo is also donating the proceeds of another book, Rachel Khoo’s Chocolate.)

Six-part series Rachel Khoo’s Simple Pleasures is an excellent example of making something wonderful with what you’ve got. Not just the food (although there is an episode devoted to cooking when you’re short on ingredients) but the series itself, filmed in lockdown.

You’d never guess watching the charming series what a whirlwind it was to make – as Khoo puts it, “from pitch to production in under four weeks”, the result of a planned project being put on hold due to COVID, leaving Khoo with time on her hands.

“We filmed it out in the countryside (to avoid the Stockholm COVID hotspot) at my mother-in-law’s house. We were a very small team of Director of Photography operating three cameras as well as doing sound and lighting, Matthew Gormly (another Australian), the director, skyping in from the UK, and a local cook and his assistant helped prep the dishes,” she tells SBS when we ask how it all came together.

“I was an executive producer on the show which involved me dealing with everything from insurance papers to COVID procedures as well as being the presenter, food stylist, hair, make-up and wardrobe, set stylist... basically anything that needed to be done.” (You can read more about how it all comes together – from rummaging through the attic and garage for props to juggling shooting around everyday life with her two children – here).

Rachel Khoo with one of her comforting recipes, rice pudding with Chantilly cream and caramel crisps. Source: Matthew Gormly

In many ways, the food in the show reflects the way many of us have cooked over the past two years: food made with what we have at hand, food that brings comfort, and food that brings us a taste of the world, even when we can’t travel.

"I love the fact that in your kitchen you can travel the whole world,” says Khoo in the show. “You literally can open up your cupboard and you’ve got ingredients, you know, this recipe, it’s going to Ireland; another recipe, you could go off to South America, so you can go around the world with all these different ingredients, only from your kitchen.”  The series features an episode called ‘A Taste of Travel’, with recipes including Irish soda bread and her take on a traditional Swedish cookie, but there are other global flavours throughout the series, too, from pan-fried dumplings to pesto.

Rachel Khoo's thumbprint cookies Source: Rachel Khoo's Simple Pleasures

And then there’s the sweet 'Timeless Favourites' episode, with recipes including semolina pudding and stuffed capsicums, of which Khoo says “There’s something comforting about knowing that this recipe has been made before by many people." Which prompted us to ask, what are her favourite hand-me-down and traditional recipes?

“I have recipes from my Austrian grandma like her chicken soup with semolina dumplings or her apple strudel that are close to my heart. But I also love my mum's beef rendang curry (she learnt it from my Malaysian granny, her mother-in-law). As a mother myself I love that I am starting to create new food traditions with my own children. It's a total hotchpotch of cultures (Swedish/British/Malaysian/Austrian) but so much fun.”