Features / Brin Pirathapan
The art of elevating everyday dishes
A lemon, a red chilli and a handful of curry leaves drift across the cover of Elevate, the debut cookbook from MasterChef UK 2024 winner Brin Pirathapan. Suspended mid-air as if gently tossed, they hover above a waiting bowl with what looks like a sauce bottle nearby. It’s a humble arrangement but an intentional one: a visual representation for the book’s central idea – elevating ordinary ingredients into something “vibrant, bright and happy on a plate”.
Brin, who lives in Bristol but was brought up in Chelmsford, started cooking as a university student, browsing the reduced shelves at supermarkets to find affordable ingredients that he could turn into wholesome meals.
Speaking to Bristol24/7, he said: “I didn’t have a huge amount of money, but I had a huge love for food and wanted to eat quite well.” When he decided to write a cookbook after winning MasterChef, Brin was certain it would be rooted in this idea of elevating basics.”
Brin’s book is a culmination of his relationship with food over the last three decades – photo: Josh Campbell
Brin continued: “I know there’s a movement towards trying to always use the best produce, but there’s a big population in our country that can’t necessarily do that. I don’t want to alienate anyone by saying that if you can’t buy the best every day, then you shouldn’t eat lovely food.”
To celebrate dishes from the book, Brin joined forces with Lido head chef Pash Peters to host a special supper club at the Clifton-based restaurant. Mutton rolls, a crunchy courgette and feta salad, chocho chilli ragu, and a ginger and cola stick toffee pudding. A steady stream of dishes – all from Brin’s book – kept flowing onto diners’ tables, each a little different from the previous, each an elevation of basics.
Pash said: “I am biased – but I really think the Lido is a great space. What makes it great is hosting someone else, also from Bristol, who is doing something really interesting and unique.”
The restaurant at Lido was packed with hungry diners for the supper club on Wednesday – photo: Karen Johnson
Brin recalled texting Pash a while ago when his wife couldn’t stop praising Pash’s food after a visit to Lido. “It’s always on point, the products they use and the way they showcase it,” he said.
But what would happen if Brin and Pash were to switch roles for a day?
“I feel like the team at Lido wouldn’t know what was going on. Running around like a headless chicken,” said Brin, explaining that he definitely does not have Pash’s expertise in the kitchen. Food wise, Brin thinks he would use the basis of Pash’s dishes but sprinkling a bit of “unexpected spice” or other elevation ingredients, depending on the dish.
And if Pash were to fill in Brin’s shoes and write a book, he is certain it would be “a book of old lady Greek cooking”.
He said: “Not too many twists. I think it would be a lot of beige and green. Greek food, covered in olive oil and lemon.”
Brin’s courgette crunch recipe from the book elevates the humble seasonal veggie to new levels, with feta cheese, pistachios and asparagus also featured on the dish – photo: Karen Johnson
Every recipe in the book, Brin said, has bits of essence from the last three decades of his life. “There’s food from all over the world because I love to travel and explore new cuisines,” he added. “But there’s also an undertone of my Tamil-Sri Lankan upbringing with all the flavours that my parents introduced to me.”
When asked to choose a favourite recipe from the book, Brin admitted having a different answer every time someone asks him this. On this occasion he was drawn to the Kottu Panzanella, a dish he said “breaks boundaries by bringing things together you would never expect”. He said: “It takes a classic Italian dish, and the base and elements of one of the best Tamil-Sri Lankan dishes and brings it together.”
In Brin’s reimagination of the two classics, the bread in a panzanella is replaced by chopped roti, which is the foundation of a Sri Lankan kottu. Tempered spices for a base, help marry the fresh tomatoes, giving the dish a vibrant flavour.
Have you ever tried a chocolate-flavoured ragu? – photo: Karen Johnson
Inside the book there are more than just recipes. Little tips and tricks to help home cooks hone their culinary skills and most importantly, the book is written with the aim of enhancing a diner’s eating experience.
“I think we eat three times a day and we should kind of get happiness out of that. Whatever your means, you should be able to do that.”
Brin’s cooking expeditions rise from a gentle nostalgia of the food he grew up eating, his parents’ recipes and flavours from his childhood. “I don’t think I realised how lucky I was for the kind of food I got every day. Incredible, bold, rich dishes that also manage to be lovely, light and balanced.”
Brin’s book is a blend of flavours and recipes from his childhood, that he admits taking for granted back then. His mum’s aubergine curry and dad’s lamp chomps, which both feature in the book and are two such reminders of his years growing up in Essex.
Through Elevate, Brin wants people to explore cooking without being intimidated by the cost of ingredients needed. “The premise of the book is to be able to go to your supermarket and find a lot of the ingredients,” he said.
“Each recipe has a basic ingredient that is being elevated. So you can just be like, oh, I’ve got three chicken thighs left over. What do I do with that? You stick to one of those recipes and find those ingredients. After you start to cook with it more and more, you’ll start to build up a pantry of staple ingredients that feature regularly in the book. Everything will be really vibrant and exciting – that’s the key with it.”
Elevate, published by Pavilion Books, is now available to purchase from selected bookshops and websites
Find out more about Elevate at lnk.to/ElevateBook
Main photo: Pash Peters & Brin Pirathapan at the Lido – photo by Karen Johnson
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