Tamarind & Saffron

Become captivated by Claudia Roden's middle eastern delights in Tamarind & Saffron.

"I don't think there's a recipe I don't want to cook in TAMARIND & SAFFRON" Nigella Lawson

Aubergines in a spicy honey sauce; baby onions in tamarind; sweet jewelled rice; and saffron caramel cream. These are just some of the sumptuous recipes in Claudia Roden's collection of new and updated recipes, suffused with all the heat, spice and sensual aromatics of the Middle East.

Claudia Roden's Book of Middle Eastern Food (1968) was written for readers who had never eaten an aubergine, let alone cooked one. Today, Middle Eastern foods are enjoying amazing popularity, largely thanks to Roden's books. In Tamarind and Saffron, Claudia Roden has brought together a fresh collection of recipes for this new generation of cooks, illustrated throughout with luscious photography.

Praise for Claudia Roden:

'Claudia Roden is no more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a biscuit baker. She is, rather, memorialist, historian, ethnographer, anthropologist, essayist, poet ...' Simon Schama

'Every one of Claudia's books introduced us to a delicious new world' Sam and Sam Clarke 'Roden's great gift is to conjure up not just a cuisine but the culture from which it springs' Nigella Lawson

'Claudia Roden's writing has the fascination of her conversation. Her books are treasure-houses of information and mines of literary pleasures' Observer


As well as writing cookbooks and presenting cooking shows on the BBC, Claudia Roden is also a cultural anthropologist based in the United Kingdom. Born and brought up in Cairo, she finished her education in Paris before moving to London to study art. With the publication of her bestselling classic, A Book of Middle Eastern Food in 1968, Claudia Roden revolutionized Western attitudes to the cuisines of the Middle East. Since then she has published nine other books, including the award winning classic, The Book of Jewish Food, and has won no fewer than six Glenfiddich awards for her writing. Her other books include Arabesque, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, The Food of Italy, Mediterranean Cookery and The Food of Spain.