■ YouTube cooking sensation Rachel Ama tells Metro she loves living with her mum and why their Victorian terrace in London is the star of the show…
RACHEL AMA is working her way through her wish list at an impressive rate. She’s already ticked off an award celebrating 100,000 subscribers on her YouTube cooking channel (she now has more than 200,000) and her first book, Rachel Ama’s Vegan Eats, is out this week.
And if all goes to plan, the talented social media star hopes to buy her first flat before her 30th birthday (she still has a few years left to go).
Suffice to say it’s been an exciting year for the London-based cook, who launched her channel 18 months ago. And what has made it all possible is the fact that, like many 20-something city dwellers, Rachel is part of the intergenerational living community, sharing the home she grew up in with her mum, Tiffa.
‘I know a lot of people who still live at home. It’s so expensive for people to rent and so unrealistic to get on the property ladder, especially in London,’ says Rachel.
‘Sometimes I’m not proud of it because I want to be able to move out. But I don’t want to spend all my income on rent, so I stay at home to focus on saving up for a deposit to buy my own place.
‘I’m lucky because mum loves having me here and I absolutely love living with my mum.
‘She has a beautiful house with a fantastic kitchen, it’s so lovely to film in.’
It’s certainly a bonus that the pair share a close relationship and that their charming Victorian terrace in London’s leafy Crouch End is a joyful, light and airy space filled with family portraits, childhood memorabilia and quirky artefacts collected from Tiffa’s travels to India and Africa.
It was Rachel’s roots (her dad is from St Lucia and Tiffa is half Welsh and half Sierra Leone Creole) that inspired her to experiment with spices and flavours from the regions. She films her lively YouTube videos in the kitchen and trials new recipes on her mum, who runs a gift shop nearby.
‘I went vegan four years ago overnight after watching documentaries on animal welfare and having been diagnosed lactose intolerant.
‘I didn’t know anyone who was vegan then and many people thought vegans existed on nothing but kale,’ she laughs.
‘My mum studied nutrition and exposed me to many different foods growing up. She was a big influence, but I’m now the main cook of the house.’
Rachel is also an accomplished dancer and musician — she plays piano, cello and guitar.
She has included a playlist in her cookbook for the tunes to move to while making signature dishes like spicy jerk tacos with roasted mushrooms and ‘chuna’ — her intriguing take on tuna mayo made from chick peas.
‘I always dance and sing while cooking — it’s become my trademark — and the songs are personal to me and reflect my recipes by setting the mood,’ she explains. ‘But really, I just want people to have fun while cooking.’
The kitchen is a true chef’s space with a French Lacanche range and rows of seeds and pulses in glass display jars on the shelf.
‘When I get a place of my own I will really miss this range and our Smeg fridge!’
Rachel was born in the front bedroom upstairs and the house, which Tiffa has owned for 30 years, is regularly reinvented by mother and daughter.
‘We pore over Pinterest and change it up every few years. Mum likes my input because she says it keeps her youthful!’
The hallway is lined with treasured black and white family portraits, including one of her great-grandfather David in Sierra Leone and another of her Welsh namesake and great-great grandmother Rachel, sitting with her parents and 16 brothers and sisters.
‘This house really reflects our heritage and I feel very proud because my heritage has influenced everything about me and certainly my cooking.’
Their musical tastes are reflected throughout the three-storey home, with framed black and white prints of Bob Marley in the hall and Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis above the mustard, green and maroon-tiled Victorian fireplace in the living room.
Oriental rugs cover the terracotta and wood floors and African artworks are displayed in every room. A wooden and bead fertility sculpture studded with shells, a decorative necklace/chest plate adorned with feathers, parchment Japanese prints, Indian figurines and elephants are all trinkets which have been collected on Tiffa’s globe-trotting adventures.
There’s even an old advertising poster of Rachel modelling as a toddler with her mum for Clarks’ Shoes (she was also a child model for Gap and Next).
Rachel’s room is in the loft extension and her most prized possession — after her cockapoo, Marlee — is an old chest of drawers which were handed down from her grandmother, Mary.
The small but immaculate garden is where she grows her herbs and veggies; coriander, flat leaf parsley, strawberries, kale, carrots, mixed leaves, lettuce, fig and lemon trees.
If it’s all sounding a little too good to be true, Rachel confesses there are occasional flash points if she doesn’t abide by Tiffa’s strict house rules. ‘Mum is a minimalist and likes everything to be cleared up, so I’m in trouble if I leave stuff lying around, especially after cooking,’ she says with a grin. ‘She likes the house to look like a showroom. And what mum says, goes.
‘We share a bathroom, but we’re usually on different schedules so all works quite seamlessly as mum runs her gift shop, while I cook and film my videos. The rule is to communicate — and to always leave the place as I find it!’
And while Rachel is clued up on how best to navigate millennial intergenerational living, her advice is to enjoy it.
‘Don’t feel guilty for still living at home,’ she says. ‘Embrace the home comforts because one day you won’t be there and you will really miss them!’
■ Rachel Ama’s Vegan Eats, Ebury Press, £20, is on sale from Thursday
AFRICAN PEANUT STEW
Rachel’s cookbook features tunes to accompany dishes. For this recipe, she suggests Magic System’s 1er Gaou, a classic you’ll hear at African weddings and celebrations
Serves 4
■ 1-2 tbsp peanut oil
■ 500g sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
■ 1 × 400g tin of black-eyed peas, rinsed
■ ½ fresh red Scotch bonnet chilli, deseeded and kept whole (optional)
■ 3 tbsp tomato purée
■ 1 × 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
■ 500ml vegetable stock
■ 125g natural smooth peanut butter
■ Salt and black pepper
■ 200g spinach, chopped
■ 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
■ Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
■ 2 spring onions, finely chopped
■ Fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
For the paste
■ 2 onions, roughly chopped
■ 5 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
■ Thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
■ 1 tsp paprika
■ 2 tsp ground coriander
■ 1 tsp ground turmeric
■ 2 tsp ground cumin
■ 1 tsp ground fenugreek
■ ½-1 fresh red Scotch bonnet chilli (to taste), deseeded and chopped
■ Pinch of salt
Method
■ Place all the paste ingredients in a food processor and blitz.
■ Heat 1 tablespoon of the peanut oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan or shallow frying pan. Add the paste and sauté over a medium-low heat for ten minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a little more oil if the paste starts to stick.
■ Add the sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, Scotch bonnet chilli (remove before serving for a gentler heat) and tomato purée and mix to combine. Pour in the tinned tomatoes and vegetable stock, add the peanut butter, season with salt and pepper and stir in well. Cover the pan with a lid and bring to the boil, then simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
■ Remove from the heat and stir in the spinach, leaving it to wilt in the pan for five minutes. To finish, add the lemon juice, coriander, spring onions and sliced chillies and check the seasoning, adding more salt and pepper if needed.
