In our house Sunday smelled of pilau. You could tell from the stairs: cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves toasting in oil, then onions going slowly golden, then the beef. My grandmother cooked it, then my mother, and eventually — after many burnt pots — me.

Learning by watching

Nobody in my family measures anything. When I asked my grandmother how much cumin, she poured some into her palm and said, "This much." When I asked how long to fry the onions, she said, "Until they are ready." It took me years to understand that she was right. You learn pilau with your nose and eyes, not a recipe card.

Our pilau, roughly

• Beef on the bone, boiled with garlic and ginger until soft — keep the stock.
• Onions fried slowly until deep brown. This is where the colour comes from.
• Whole spices toasted in the oil, then ground pilau masala.
• Garlic, ginger, the beef, then washed rice stirred until every grain is coated.
• Hot stock to cover, lid on, low heat, and do not lift it to check.

Serve with kachumbari — tomato, onion, coriander, a squeeze of lime and a little chilli. Pilau without kachumbari is only half a meal.

"Until they are ready" is the most accurate cooking instruction I have ever been given.

Food as inheritance

Pilau came to the coast through centuries of trade across the Indian Ocean, and every coastal family has made it their own. When I cook it in my small Nairobi kitchen, I am cooking something that has travelled a very long way to reach me — through my grandmother's hands, and my mother's, and now mine.

[Ayeesha — add your grandmother's name or a small story about her here, if you'd like.]