Globetrotting author maintains Pakistani roots through food

When Saman Shad decided to call Sydney home more than a decade ago she was determined not to ­forget her Pakistani roots, especially when it came to cooking for her family.

Author Saman Shad with her children, Nyle, Milan and Kaiden Shad-Sharpe at their home in Chatswood. Picture: John Feder/The Australian

When Saman Shad decided to call Sydney home more than a decade ago she was determined not to ­forget her Pakistani roots, especially when it came to cooking for her family.

“I started out by teaching my kids how to cook chicken keema because they’ve grown up in Australia and it’s not something they have easy access to, and I want to introduce them to the spices and foods I grew up eating in Pakistan,” she said.

“These kinds of meals have always been a part of my life, and a dish like keema is easy to make and teach, and everyone has a different recipe of their own. It’s commonly made and eaten in Pakistani households, just as it once was in the Mughal courts.”

When The Australian asked some of our best-known novelists, playwrights, journalists and critics which recipes were most important to them and why, Shad shared a recipe which she’s since adapted for her three children.

Her keema recipe, which will appear in Monday’s edition of The Australian, is a nod to her childhood in Pakistan, as well as a celebration of her life in Australia.

“When I’m cooking it for my children, I don’t add any chilli powder, but you don’t really need to add chilli to enjoy the spices that make it such a flavoursome and much loved dish,” she said.

“There is not one keema recipe, but there are many. Everyone in my family makes keema a different way … How I’ve written it for the summer cookbook is what I usually do, though with experience I season by the eye like most Pakistanis do.”

Shad, who lived in Pakistan, the Middle East and the UK before settling in Australia, is set to publish her debut novel, The Matchmaker, at the end of January. The much-anticipated book focuses on the Sydney-based Pakistani diaspora and professional matchmaker called Saima.

“Through Saima and her clients, the book explores different cultural backgrounds and different ways of thinking,” Shad said.

“She doesn’t want it (the matchmaking) to be about pairing people from the same background or family, she wants it to be about who’s the best match. She’s trying to change all that.”

While it was tempting to write a “misery book” about arranged marriages and matchmaking, Shad said she was determined to produce something that was humorous and positive.

“I’ve read a lot of miserable books about people who have had tragic experiences, which of course needs to be told,” she said.

“But there is the other side of the coin, where many people have great and even funny experiences of arranged marriages, and lead very happy lives. This is the kind of story I wanted to tell.”