lystn

The London restaurant Darjeeling Express is the place to go for an outstanding mutton kebab, and for celebrity sightings. But the chef behind this hotspot has no formal culinary training. Asma Khan started her cooking career hosting secret supper clubs in her apartment, when her husband was traveling for work. Now she's staffed her restaurant entirely with women, all of whom learned to cook as housewives and nannies. As she tells Dan, her advocacy is driven by the pain she faced as the second daughter in her family, in a society that prized boys over girls. We also hear the unlikely story of how her restaurant was funded, why she will absolutely never put papadams in a tuna sandwich, and her new cookbook, Ammu.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Johanna Mayer, Tracey Samuelson, and Jared O'Connell. This episode was mixed by Marcus Hahm.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.