In her first cookbook for seven years Madhur Jaffrey sets out to show that curries don’t have to be complicated.

Eat this with plain rice and make the sauce as hot as you like.

Vegetables are often very simply prepared in southern India.

Prawns with garlic and chillies is easily one of my favourite first courses for dinner parties, one that I have served repeatedly over the years, says Madhur Jaffrey.

This is such a soothing rice dish – slightly sweet and salty, with just a hint of black pepper.

This is a Delhi/Uttar Pradesh-style dish.

We eat these with eggs on Sundays, ensconced between slices of bread as sandwiches, or I put them into a curry.

Simple Mexican-style chilli and lime flavours from Thomasina Miers, the creator of restaurant chain Wahaca.

After the bland smooth gloop sold in supermarkets, Miers’ chunky, lime and chilli spiked guacamole is a revelation.

This chilli jam, somewhere between a tomato chutney, a chunky ketchup and a salsa, is easy to make and utterly delicious not only with grilled lamb chops, but with cheese, sausages, or just tortilla chips.