Northern Ireland Home Cook Hero Suzie Lee back with new BBC television series

In Suzie Lee: Home Cook Hero, the inspirational chef is back with a first-class menu of new recipes to tantalise your taste buds, whatever your culinary skills.

She’s on a mission to show that home cooking needn’t be a chore, and everyone can make lovely lunches, delicious dinners and perfect puds with some simple and affordable recipes.

This series has something for every occasion, from dinners with friends and weekend brunches to show stopping spreads for Christmas and Chinese New Year.

It covers everything from fish to street food and finds creative ways to make the most of store cupboard staples.

Always keen to stretch her budget, Suzie – who is from Lisburn – is full of hacks and tips for viewers to get more for their money, be it from using cheaper cuts of meat to foraging for ingredients.

Recipes span cuisines from Greek and Mexican to Chinese. With dishes inspired from her heritage, Suzie is keen to use the Asian flavours we’ve all come to know and love and encourage viewers that they too can be home cook heroes.

Suzie said: “This is the most exciting and varied series yet for me, there are dishes from a full spectrum of genres but all still with my home cook spin on them. I hope the breadth and ease of my dishes will draw people to this new series and entice them to try out new recipes for themselves. For me, getting people back into the kitchen and enjoying the process of preparing and cooking for themselves or friends and family is something I think is so important.”

So what are the four must have ingredients Suzie would recommend everyone should have in their store cupboard to make most of the recipes in the new series?

She said: “This is a very difficult question to answer, but ok if we are just looking at store cupboard - a selection of dried spices, such as garlic, ginger, chilli, paprika, oregano and basil, tinned tomatoes, rice and flour.”

What does Suzie say to people who just believe they ‘simply cannot cook’?

She insists: “That it is simply not true, practice makes perfect, and use your instincts! Each person's tastebuds are different so I always tell people to taste and adjust to what they like - add more seasoning, salt/pepper, sharpness with vinegar, sweetness with sugar or honey. Cooking from a recipe is a guide so use your gut and keep tasting while you are cooking, if it tastes good then you have done it!”

And what’s the fastest / easiest meal in the new series?

Suzie says: “Eggy bread! Ingredients you have to hand and you can jazz it up with other ingredients you have in your fridge and freezer making it sweet or savoury! But also helping you reduce food waste with leftover bread.”

And her favourite meal from the series is Turkey Noodle Bowl.

She explained: “It is delicious and quick and packed full of flavour, but also it lends itself to being made with literally any meat leftovers or veggies etc. Yet again it reflects how I like to cook and eat, using up odds and ends and being mindful of food waste.”

Suzie Lee: Home Cook Hero is a Waddell Media production for BBC Northern Ireland, and begins on BBC One Northern Ireland, Monday, October 30 at 7.45pm.