[VIDEO] NYC's Chef Ayesha Nurdjaja Takes Lamb Tagine To New Heights

Watch the below video as Chef Ayesha guides three recent ICE culinary school graduates through a hands-on cooking class, teaching them how to prepare a Middle Eastern feast comprising three classic regional dishes.

Chef Ayesha’s lamb tagine is slow-cooked, aromatic and deeply spiced; her jeweled couscous is bright, colorful and layered with texture; and her spicy carrot salad is fresh, vibrant and perfectly balanced.

After enjoying these dishes, the three ICE alumni surprise Chef Ayesha with their own interpretations of her favorite flavors.

Along the way, there are culinary insights, hot takes on the industry and how to navigate it as a newbie culinary school grad; and jokes — a lot of jokes.

(Chef Ayesha, if she weren’t a spectacular chef, could easily find success as a standup comic. A fave nugget from the video is when, in response to pressing hand-made pasta with an ICE alum, Chef Ayesha suggests it’s a kind of “baklava raviolo,” quickly adding, “I feel like that would be my drag name… or my dog’s name.”  

Cooking runs in the family

As for her culinary journey, Chef Ayesha comes by cooking naturally.

“I came from a home where my mother and father were both amazing cooks,” she says.

“My father actually was a chef for merchant marines, so he was technically trained, and my mother grew up in an Italian household and just had the instincts to do it.”

From ICE to “My life is insane”... in a good way

Chef Ayesha decided to enroll at ICE because she felt like she needed to learn the basics.

“You learn knife skills, you learn butchery and how to cook perfect eggs,” she says, noting that the design of the Culinary Arts program “runs you through the gamut of all the cooking techniques.”

And she puts those cooking techniques to use daily: “My life today is insane. I have two restaurants. I do a lot of TV stuff. I’m writing a cookbook.”

“I feel very fortunate,” she says. “I never knew when I was in culinary school how all these things would unfold. And now I feel like all the things I ever wanted came to fruition.”

The alumni Chef Ayesha teaches in the video are hoping the same — and are all well on their way.

Megan Johnson, who graduated just five months ago, is a commis chef at Eleven Madison Park; Jillian Blair Elliott, a spring 2025 grad, is an editorial assistant at Delish magazine; and Jason Forello is the program manager for Wellness in the Schools, a non-profit that provides food and nutrition education to NYC kids. (He also recently styled the food for Netflix’s smash hit, Nonnas.)  

What’s your culinary raison d’etre?

The reasons for attending ICE were different for all of Chef Ayesha’s charges.

Megan wanted to work at EMP since she was a kid, and she felt ICE could equip her with the skills and confidence to apply.

Jillian didn’t have connections to pursue the career in food media that she desired, so she “came [to ICE], got the training, and made the connections” needed to open doors.

And Jason, who had worked front of house in restaurants while pursuing a theater career, found himself increasingly curious about health-centered culinary arts.

So what inspired the ICE alumni?

“I hope the students take away today that flavor combinations are endless,” Chef Ayesha says early on in her class.

In addition to learning more about the three recipes, which Chef Ayesha says are “really significant to Shuka and Shukette,” the alumni got to establish a personal connection with a celebrated NYC chef. It's a key reason for attending culinary school in one of America's premiere food cities (i.e. access to chefs and industry networks).

They also got Chef Ayesha’s infinite wisdom on everything from lamb shoulder — “It’s really good for braising because it takes a long time to cook and imparts a lot of flavor;” to Ras al Hanout — it’s so fragrant, “you could almost wear it as a cologne.” (Again with the jokes, made even better because they’re spoken in Chef Ayesha’s warm Brooklyn accent.)

Watch the video and let us know what you think. (I suspect you’ll agree Chef Ayesha is as fun and lovely as she is talented.) 

* Experience varies by student, with outcomes contingent on factors including graduate aptitude, job market, place of residence and work history, among others.