Brin Pirathapan says he’s “probably a much nicer person” since leaving the long hours of a stressful job as a veterinarian behind to pursue cooking full-time.
The now chef and content creator won BBC’s MasterChef in 2024, impressing with his bold, innovative flavours, technical skill and a few learnings of his Tamil Sri Lankan heritage.
As a vet in Bristol, Pirathapan was “always waiting for the weekend”, saying: “It was bloody stressful, food was my complete release.” He either looked forward to lunch to eat leftovers from the night before or getting home to “lock” himself away in the kitchen. “I remember doing these 13-hour shifts and coming home decompressing [by cooking].”
He quit immediately after filming the 20th series of the popular TV show finished, and has now amassed more than 200,000 followers on Instagram, sharing recipes and home cooking hacks.
“I feel like the new self is the person I’m meant to be,” he says, now he’s able “to realise the potential that my happiness and contentment has”.
The 31-year-old has released his debut cookbook, Elevate, which aims to help home cooks elevate basic ingredients, upgrade cooking techniques and improve mood with food.
While Tamil food is “very much” part of who he is, Pirathapan more so uses what he has learned from that cuisine, as well as the food of his British upbringing and influence from global travels, which makes up the eclectic mix of what he cooks at home and shares with his followers today.
“I just love flavour – flavour that is bold from all over the world,” he says, “I haven’t restricted myself to any geographical or cuisine-based boundaries, it’s just what works together.” From Sri Lankan street food like mutton rolls and Tamil chicken curry pie, to comforting sambal mac and cheese and duck leg lasagne, alongside global influences, such as Brazilian fish stew, or peanut butter chicken udon soup, his food really is eclectic.
Sri Lanka is made up of a lot of different cuisines, he explains, “even within the Tamil culture [which is mostly found in the northern and eastern parts of the country] different villages will be different, but it’s all quite rich, quite deep – it could be spicier than what you might be used to in Northern India, for example.”
One key thing Tamil cuisine taught Pirathapan was to handle big flavour profiles. He would often put an array of dishes on the table that could easily clash, but manage not to – “I think this is something the culture does well. That taught me so many lessons in how to balance flavours.
“When I came into the food world, I would step back and realise that I was doing that balancing without thinking about it – and that’s a complete testament to the fact that our culture is so good at doing it, and I’ve just grown up with plates of food with so many different things on them.
“Spice, of course, is a huge influence. I find it very easy to work with spice, and not just spice from our culture, but spice from all over the world. That’s something you can’t necessarily teach – I’m really, really lucky to have that kind of basis.”
Pirathapan’s main passion, though, is taking humble ingredients that we all have in our cupboards or buy regularly at the supermarket, and making something special out of them. It’s a skill he picked up while learning to cook at university, without the budget to buy gourmet food.
“You’d bring home those ingredients and think, what should I do with this? I’d do a bit of research into different cuisines and try something new. After five years of doing that, I was loving cooking so much.”
Lots of the recipes in his book are influenced by early memories of food. “My favourite dish my mum makes is a tinned fish curry,” he says. Tins of pilchards can cost around 90p – “but it was my favourite curry growing up”.
“And thakkali kulambu, which is a tomato curry – just so basic in terms of ingredients, like taking tomatoes, and you make them great. It’s the best representation of elevation I think.”
“There’s so much out there that we could be doing with the most basic ingredients to ensure everyone’s eating really vibrantly and really deliciously,” he says. “But I don’t think everyone has the means or the knowledge.”
It’s fantastic, he says, if you do have the ability to buy the high-quality ingredients, but he’s “worried this is alienating a population that might not be able to do that, and then saying, oh you can’t create good food if you don’t [have] the best produce every time.” It’s an agenda he doesn’t want to push.
“I want everyone to know that whatever background you’re from, whatever part of the population you’re in, with the most basic ingredients, you can still create really vibrant, delicious food, that elevates those days where you’ve been working really bloody hard to get whatever you can and then you go and buy whatever ingredients with this.”
Cauliflower can be transformed into jerk cauliflower wedges; a ratatouille of basic veg can be baked into a tarte tatin; and even bread can be the star of the show – roti can be used in a salad, like the Italians do, for his kothu panzanella.
The act of cooking itself can be calming, Pirathapan says. Making a curry is “very meditative if you’ve had a rubbish day, because instead of doing a million things at once, you’re thinking about one pit that you’re trying to build from the bottom up. And at the end, after you’ve done each step, almost like a breathing exercise, you have this really delicious, warming, comforting [dish]”.
But ultimately, colourful food can lift the mood. “The world is so rubbish at the moment, but if you take this book into your kitchen, the vibrancy itself, I think it’s impossible to ignore. I like to think it brings a bit of happiness. If you get a recipe that’s bring, enjoyable and playful, I like to think we can change a lot of things.”
Sausage pakoras with mango and coriander chutney
“I love using sausage meat in a whole range of recipes – it provides a bit more flavour and structure to whatever you’re creating,” says Pirathapan.
“The heavy fennel notes in these bites goes perfectly with the pork, and the slightly fiery but sweet chutney packs a moreish punch. A great snack for any spread or a crowd-pleasing start to a dinner party.”
Makes: 20-24
Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: 2/3
Ingredients:
For the sausage pakora mixture:
8 sausages of your choice (about 450–500g)
1 red onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
2 garlic cloves, grated
2.5cm of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 tbsp gram flour
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp groundcoriander
1 tsp chilli flakes
½ tsp ground fenugreek
Vegetable or sunflower oil, for deep-frying
For the mango and coriander chutney:
1 ripe mango, peeled, stoned and roughly chopped
2 tbsp Greek-style yoghurt
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime
1 green chilli
30g fresh coriander leaves
1 tsp sea salt
Method:
1. Make the pakora mixture. Slice open the sausage skins and scrape out the meat into a mixing bowl. Add all the remaining pakora ingredients, except the oil for frying, then get your hands stuck in to mix.
2. Leave the sausage mixture to sit for about 10 minutes – the onion and carrot will start to release some water and help to bind everything together. If there’s not enough water to bring the flours together after 10 minutes, add 2 tablespoons of water and mix it in.
3. Shape the pakora mixture into 20-24 small rounds, about the size of a small meatball.
4. Heat enough vegetable or sunflower oil in a deep-fat fryer (if you have one) or in a heavy-based saucepan (don’t fill the pan more than two-thirds full) to 180C (or until a small piece of bread browns in 30 seconds).
5. Deep-fry the pakoras in batches for about 8 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Use a slotted spoon to remove them and place on kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil while you deep-fry the rest.
6. Alternatively, to cook the pakoras in an air fryer, spray them with oil and then air-fry in batches at 180C for 15 minutes until cooked.
7. To make the chutney, add all the ingredients to a blender and blend together well to form a vibrant green chutney. Serve with the warm pakoras.
Sambal mac ‘n’ cheese
“All the hearty naughtiness of a classic mac ’n’ cheese but with the moreish, spicy flavours of a coconut sambal,” says Pirathapan. “The sambal is folded through the pasta, as well as topping it with a spicy crust. Sambal was always a staple in our household, as it’s a great accompaniment for most Tamil Sri Lankan dishes, but especially string hoppers and egg hoppers.
“Growing up, I’d begun stirring it through all sorts of dishes and realised it elevated anything you put it in, be it a sandwich or a bowl of noodles, and that’s what gave me the idea for this number.”
Serves: 4
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: 2/3
Ingredients:
100g desiccated coconut
1 tbsp boiling water
3 tsp medium chilli powder
3 tsp sea salt
1 red onion, finely diced
20g fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped
Juice of 2 limes
250g dried macaroni
60g butter
60g plain flour
600ml whole milk
150g Cheddar cheese, grated, plus a little extra for the top
25g Parmesan cheese, finely grated, plus a little extra for the top
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/200C gas mark 6. Add the desiccated coconut to a bowl with the boiling water. Mix well, cover and leave for 5 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, add the chilli powder and salt to a pestle and mortar and grind to a fine powder.
3. Add the red onion and coriander to the desiccated coconut, along with the chilli salt powder and the lime juice. Mix well and set aside.
4. Cook the macaroni in a pan of boiling water until al dente, then drain and set aside.
5. Place a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the butter. Let it melt and then turn to a very slightly brown colour – this will bring out a nutty flavour. Once the butter is ready, turn down the heat to low, stir in the flour and mix well – you’re looking for a wet sand-like consistency.
6. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, and cook until the sauce is thickened and smooth, then simmer for a couple of minutes. Now go in with both cheeses and stir over a low heat until they have melted. Add about two-thirds of the coconut sambal mixture to the cheese sauce, along with the cooked macaroni. Stir everything together until it’s all evenly mixed in.
7. Pour everything into an ovenproof dish and top with the remaining coconut sambal mixture and an extra grating of Cheddar and Parmesan. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden and bubbling, then rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Paratha de nata
“It’s fair to say I’ve just taken two of my big culinary loves and combined them to create this recipe,” says Pirathapan.
“[My wife] Anna and I head to Portugal fairly regularly and my pastel de nata count is usually embarrassingly high by the second afternoon. It’s not rare to find me sneaking off for secret PDNs while we’re out and about, or taking myself off to breakfast before anyone else so I can sneak in a couple without judgement.
“Naturally, I’m also a big fan of parathas – there’s always an industrial-sized pack in the freezer ready to mop up any curry I make. However, their buttery, flaky texture makes them perfect for this intercontinental fusion that none of us realised we needed.”
Makes: 6
Time: 50 minutes plus cooling
Difficulty: 3/3
Ingredients:
125g caster sugar
4 green cardamom pods, roughly bashed
3 egg yolks
25g cornflour
300ml whole milk
½ vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
3 frozen parathas, defrosted
Method:
1. Add the sugar, 125ml of water and the cardamom pods to a saucepan and place over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Then increase to a high heat and cook, without stirring, until the syrup reaches 115C, which will take about 5-10 minutes. Keep checking the temperature as you don’t want it to go much higher than that.
2. While the sugar syrup comes up to temperature, combine the egg yolks, cornflour, milk and vanilla seeds in a heatproof mixing bowl. Whisk together until fully combined.
3. Once the sugar syrup gets to temperature, remove it from the heat and slowly drizzle it into the milk mixture, whisking continuously, until everything is dissolved and combined. Pass through a sieve into a clean saucepan to remove the cardamom pods.
4. Cook over a medium-high heat, stirring, until the mixture starts to thicken. This will take a few minutes but will go quickly once it starts – you want it to easily coat the back of a spoon. Decant it into a heatproof bowl and set aside to cool.
5. Preheat the oven to max – ideally 220C fan/240C/gas mark 9.
6. Cut each paratha into 2 rounds using a 10cm diameter biscuit cutter (or the rim of a suitable-sized bowl). Press the 6 paratha rounds into 6 cups of a non-stick muffin tray (press one into each cup). Use a knife to clean up the edges, then evenly fill with the custard to 1cm below the edge.
7. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the tops start to develop dark spots. Remove from the oven and let them cool completely in the tray before turning them out and tucking in!
Tip: Don’t waste the paratha trimmings! Fry them off as you normally would and dip them into leftover curries for a little mid-bake snack.
‘Elevate: Everyday Ingredients, Incredible Flavours’ by Brin Pirathapan (Pavilion, £22).
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