Lilette’s love of gathering people together around a table radiates through in her recipes. Her cookbook is inspired by her childhood in Mauritius – the light breeze whistling through the mango trees, the heat of the sunshine, hour upon hour playing on the beach, big noisy dinner parties and trips to the local food market in Port Louis.

Lilette’s grandfather, a Southern Indian named Saravanah “Sam” Moorghen, and his cousins owned a row of shops in the market and Lilette would go there every Saturday morning. She’d drink tea, demolish chilli cakes, and watch her grandfather sell spices – memorising the name and smell of each one.

Having been brought up in a home where large mealtimes (with family, friends and neighbours were always invited), Lilette adored the array of home-cooked curries, fish, rice, chapatis and pickles. However, her mother – a wonderful cook – wanted Lilette to swap the kitchen for studying. Her parents encouraged her ambition and so at the age of just seventeen, Lilette moved to the UK to read law at City University. She funded her education by working tirelessly, working in a hotel and sharing a room with five other chambermaids. However, Lilette still struggled to make ends meet, so dropped out of her law course and switched to nursing at St Margaret’s Hospital in Epping.

When her children were born, Lilette endeavoured to make fresh, healthy meals for the family. She taught herself to cook, visiting Southern Indian supermarkets, buying the spices she recognised and experimenting with the tastes and textures she’d known so well as a child.

Now grown up, Lilette’s children have always adored her cooking, as does her husband, Rashid. To Lilette, cooking is about providing for her family and delighting friends. When she visits Mauritius, she loves the hustle and bustle of the races, the buzz of the markets, the taste of the street food and visiting friends and family.

It is these little puzzle pieces of her life that come together to bring you a recipe book that you’ll wonder how you ever lived without.

A self-taught and passionate cook, Lilette was asked by her daughter to gather a collection of recipes together for her birthday. Her natural knack for cooking and combining different ingredients meant that Lilette’s Kitchen was born, and she couldn’t be happier to share it with you all to enjoy it too!

- Lilette Ebrahimkhan -

“This book has been a labour of love – a birthday present to my daughter and a thank-you gift to all my family for inspiring and supporting me. It’s also a tribute to my Mauritian mother, who passed away before my children were born. She couldn’t keep me out of the kitchen after all. I wish she could have enjoyed my cooking the way I enjoyed hers.”

Meet Lilette