Flavour Heroes  is a collection of clever, flavour-forward, sweet and savoury recipes that, thanks to a capsule of global pantry ingredients, will satisfy every craving.

With the help of his 15 favourite pantry heroes, Gurdeep Loyal demonstrates how any home cook – of any ability – can elevate their daily cooking with minimal effort for maximum reward.

Those essential ingredients are? harissa, pecorino Romano, gochujang, Thai green paste, yuzu kosho, tamarind, mango chutney, chipotle paste, toasted sesame oil, miso, ‘nduja, Calabrian chilli paste, dark roasted peanut butter, instant espresso powder and dark maple syrup.

Each of the 90 recipes shines a spotlight on the unlimited ways these pantry ingredients can be used. From including the smoky-heat of chipotle chilli paste in a Nacho Cauliflower Cheese, to using a spoonful of miso to add savoury-umami depth to Sticky Lemongrass-Miso Lamb Ribs, or even adding instant espresso powder to intensify the chocolatiness of Treacle-Mocha Brownies, Flavour Heroes showcases just how easy it can be, to pack any dish you make with flavour.  

In Flavour Heroes, Gurdeep revels in his new and liberating approach to playing with pantry ingredients; one where we can drop the supposed rules of how ingredients ought to be used, and instead lean into the full spectrum of flavours that every ingredient has the potential to produce.

If you are looking for delicious dishes, that you and your loved ones will really want to eat every day, then this is the book for you.

‘Amazing, original, boundary breaking.’ Diana Henry

‘One of the most gleeful cookbooks of 2023.’ Stylist Magazine

‘His recipes have a dynamism that is genuine, personal and flavour-led? dazzling and yet warmly inviting.’ Nigella Lawson

With recipes for everything from Coconut Crab Crumpets to Kasundi Keema Lasagne Rolls, award-winning food writer Gurdeep Loyal celebrates the hybrid third-culture cooking of second-generation migrants around the world today.

Born in Britain to Indian parents, Gurd felt constantly pulled by the clashing expectations of both cultures. But through his passion for food and cooking he was able to embrace the delicious contradictions of his plural British Indian identity.

In Mother Tongue he explores his culinary upbringing that combined ‘authentic’ home-cooked Punjabi food, with ‘inauthentic’ curry-house Tikka Masalas, the Western foodie cannon, and a wanderlust for travel in pursuit of flavour. What results is a flavour amplified intercultural cuisine, that is a delicious culinary self-expression of his second-generation experience of the world today.

Gurdeep serves up over 100 knock-out recipes, including a mouth-watering Miso-Masala Fried Chicken Sando, Sweet Chilli-Gunpowder Roasted Cauliflower, Desi Kofta Meatballs with Sticky Mango-Lime Tomatoes and Chocolate-Orange Jalebis, all combined with expert know-how on building, blending, and remixing global flavour combinations. Mother Tongue is bursting with vibrantly spiced, colourfully flavour-forward recipes for home-cooks to explore and be inspired by every day.