From a young age, food was my portal to nurturing, love and self-expression. I spent the first eight years of my life at sea, with a father who captained merchant ships and a mother who preferred to cook for the family herself on a tiny electric stove in their cabin rather than eat in the officer's mess.

When my family moved to Karachi, I grew up torn between the social expectations of life as a young girl in Pakistan, and the inspiration I felt in the kitchen, watching my mother, and my Nani Mummy (maternal grandmother) and Dadi's (paternal grandmother) confidence, intuition and effortless ability to build complex, layered flavours in their cooking.

This is my evocative and moving food memoir – which includes the most meaningful recipes of my childhood – tells the story of how my self-belief grew throughout my young life, allowing me to trust my instincts and find my own path between the expectations of following in my father's footsteps as a lawyer and the pressures of a Pakistani woman's presumed place in the household. Gradually, through the warmth of my family life, the meaning of 'andaza' comes to me: that the flavour and meaning of a recipe is not a list of measured ingredients, but a feeling in your hands, as you let the elements of a meal come together through instinct and experience.