The Hubb Community Kitchen opened after the Grenfell fire, providing women who had lost their homes with a place to cook for their families and for each other. The diverse – and always delicious – dishes that they share highlight the vast range of cultures in the area. And above all the Kitchen shows the power of food to bring people together and restore a sense of home.
A cookbook collating some of their top recipes, Together: Our Community Cookbook, has shot straight to the top of the bestsellers chart. Each recipe tells a story, of the chef who created it and the people they cook for, and proceeds will help keep the Kitchen open. Meghan Markle pitched in and last week she and her mother helped with the launch. Here’s a taste of what’s cooking.
Vegetable Samosas
Munrira Mahmud“Grenfell was a real community and my neighbour Rania and I used to party with food all the time. The first time I made these samosas for her, she ate 10 of them. Really! They look like a lot of work, but if you have a food processor to chop the vegetables it’s very easy. Use my quick way of folding them too, to save time. Just be sure to make enough…”
- Vegetable Samosa
- 1 potato, about 150g
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil, plus extra for brushing
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
- 1 onion, finely sliced
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- About 120g white cabbage, finely sliced
- 1 large carrot, about 120g, peeled and grated
- 100g mixed red and green peppers, cored, de-seeded and finely chopped
- 50g frozen peas
- ½ tsp granulated sugar
- 12 spring roll pastry wrappers, 25 x 25cm
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- salt
Note: You can also make spring rolls with this filling. Filled samosas can be frozen for up to eight weeks. Bake them from frozen for 20 minutes.
Method Boil the potato in salted water for 30 minutes until soft. Drain and leave to cool, then peel and dice. Heat the vegetable oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat. Add the spice seeds and fry for 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and cook for about two minutes, until translucent. Add the turmeric and cinnamon and stir for a few seconds until the onion is coated with the spices. Add the cabbage, carrot and peppers and cook over high heat for 4-5 minutes or until soft. Add the diced potato, peas, ½ teaspoon of salt and the sugar and stir for a couple of minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Transfer to a large plate or a tray and leave to cool. Cut each pastry square in half to make two rectangles. Keep the pastry covered with a clean, damp tea towel to stop it drying out. Working with one strip of pastry at a time and with a long edge facing you, fold the bottom right-hand corner of the strip to meet the top edge, forming a triangle, then fold the top right-hand corner over to meet the top left-hand corner of the strip, forming a square. Brush the single layer of pastry (bottom left) with some beaten egg and fold over to form a triangular pouch. Open the pouch and fill with about three tablespoons of the samosa filling. Brush the triangular flap with beaten egg and fold over to seal the pouch. Place on a tray and keep covered while you make the rest of the samosas. To bake the samosas, preheat the oven to 200°C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Place the samosas on the baking sheet. Brush the tops with a little oil and then with some beaten egg. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn them over, brush the other side with oil and egg and bake for another 10 minutes.
Green Rice
Ahlam Saeid“I have a Master’s degree in chemistry, but when I came to Britain from Iraq it wasn’t easy to combine that with family life, so now the kitchen is my laboratory. With the mixing, pouring and measuring, I feel like I am back in my old world. This is a version of a traditional dish, which I made up. It’s a good centrepiece because the colour is so striking.”
- 500g lamb neck fillet or boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 3cm cubes
- 1 litre chicken stock (made with two stock cubes)
- 300g basmati rice
- 250g frozen broad beans
- 4 tbsp sunflower oil
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 40g fresh dill, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp dried dill
For the cucumber, dill and yoghurt sauce: