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Gurasa
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Gurasa

Thick wheat flatbread

Gurasa is a thick, soft, round wheat bread from Sudan, especially the north and west (Darfur and Kordofan), cooked in a covered pan rather than an oven. It is torn and eaten with mullah, ful or salata aswad, and for breakfast with sugar and a little oil or butter. The dough is a loose, yeasted batter, closer to a giant crumpet than a flatbread. Chef's tip: cook it covered over a low heat; a hot open pan burns the base before the thick centre cooks.

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16 minThaiSidesVegan
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Orecchiette con cime di rapaOrecchiette with turnip tops

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Tofu adoboTofu braised in vinegar and soy

Adobo is the dish Filipinos call national, cooked in some form in nearly every home from Ilocos down to Mindanao, and the meat versions are what most people know. In Catholic households, though, Holy Week and the Fridays of Lent call for a meatless table, and adobong tokwa (tofu adobo) is the answer many families reach for. Firm tofu is fried until it has a golden skin, then simmered in a reduced sauce of cane vinegar, soy sauce, a whole head of garlic, bay leaves and whole peppercorns until the sauce clings, sour and salty with a little sweetness. It tastes even better the next day and is eaten with mounds of plain rice. Chef's tip: press the tofu well and fry it properly; a dry, golden crust is what soaks up the adobo sauce instead of turning it watery.

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Ohn no khao swe with tofuCoconut noodle soup with tofu

Ohn no khao swe is the comforting coconut noodle soup that Burmese families serve for weekend lunches and for crowds at donation feasts, especially around Mandalay and Yangon. Wheat noodles sit in a rich, mildly spiced coconut broth thickened with chickpea flour, and everyone adds their own toppings: lime, sliced raw onion, chilli flakes, coriander and crispy fried noodles. It's normally made with chicken; tofu and chickpeas take its place here. Chef's tip: stir the coconut milk in at the end and keep it at a gentle simmer; a hard boil makes the coconut split and turn oily.

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ZapiekankaOpen baguette with mushrooms and cheese

Zapiekanka is Polish street food born in the 1970s and perfected at the hatch windows around Plac Nowy in Kraków's Kazimierz district, where students and night owls queue for one at midnight. Half a long baguette is topped with mushrooms fried with onion, covered in grated cheese and baked until crisp at the edges and bubbling, then finished with a zigzag of ketchup and chives. The classic version has no meat at all. Use a hard cheese made with vegetarian rennet (many supermarket mild Cheddars and Goudas are). Chef's tip: fry the mushrooms until completely dry before they go on the bread; wet mushrooms make the baguette soggy instead of crisp.

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Hawaiian tofu pokeMarinated tofu bowl

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Tofu and pumpkin amokSteamed tofu and pumpkin custard

Amok is the dish Cambodians proudly serve to visitors, especially around Siem Reap and the Tonlé Sap, where it is traditionally made with freshwater fish. This home version keeps everything that makes it amok, the fragrant kroeung, thick coconut cream and a beaten egg that sets it into a soft, spoonable custard, but fills the banana-leaf cups with firm tofu and sweet pumpkin instead. Noni leaves (slok ngor) usually line the cups; young spinach gives the same green layer. Serve it with plain jasmine rice for a special dinner. Chef's tip: stir the custard in one direction only while you mix the coconut cream and egg; Cambodian cooks say this keeps it silky, and it also stops air bubbles that leave holes once steamed.

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Couscous royalCouscous with lamb, chicken and sausage

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160 minAlgerianMeat
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Seco de polloChicken stewed with coriander and beer

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Delhi-style fruit chaatSpiced fruit chaat

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Walk through any Delhi office district at lunchtime and you'll find a cart with a huge brass pot of pale white peas and a stack of soft kulchas warming on a tawa. Delhiites call it chole kulche even though it's made with dried white peas (safed matar) rather than chickpeas. The vendor scoops the peas onto a leaf plate, piles on raw onion, tomato, green chilli and ginger, squeezes lime over and dusts it with a sour, smoky masala. It's tangy, fresh and filling, and very different from the rich, stuffed Amritsari kulcha. Chef's tip: mash a ladleful of the cooked peas back into the pot; it thickens the liquid so the toppings and masala cling instead of sliding off.

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SeffaSweet steamed vermicelli

Seffa comes from the old medina of Fez, where it is carried out at the end of wedding feasts and served for breakfast after a baby's naming day: a mountain of fine steamed vermicelli tossed with butter, then decorated with lines of cinnamon, icing sugar and crushed almonds. The noodles are steamed rather than boiled, so they stay soft and separate rather than sticky. Each person eats from their side of the cone, often with a glass of cold milk. Chef's tip: steam the vermicelli in short bursts and fork it apart between each one; a single long steaming leaves it clumped.

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Sopa paraguayaCheesy cornbread

Paraguayans love telling visitors that their national 'soup' is eaten with a fork: sopa paraguaya is a dense, moist cornbread baked with sweated onions, fresh cheese, eggs and milk. It's on every table at asados, weddings and the Christmas meal, and sold in squares at bus stations from Asunción to Encarnación. The crust is golden and the inside soft and cheesy, more like a savoury pudding than bread. Chef's tip: soak the cornmeal in the milk for 15 minutes before mixing; hydrated cornmeal bakes up tender instead of gritty.

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DehroriFried rice and curd dumplings

Dehrori is the sweet Chhattisgarhi families make for Diwali, Holi and weddings, and it tastes like no other syrup sweet: soaked rice is ground coarse, left to sour gently with curd, then fried in ghee and dropped into cardamom syrup. The fermentation gives it a faint tang and a light, spongy crumb under a crisp shell, a little like a rustic cousin of rasbhari or gulab jamun. Grandmothers judge the batch by how well the dumplings hold their shape in the syrup. Chef's tip: grind the rice to the texture of fine semolina, not a smooth paste; that grain is what keeps dehrori light.

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EsquitesWarm spiced corn cups

Esquites are the cup version of elote, sold by street vendors across Mexico City from big pots: corn kernels sautéed with butter, onion, green chilli and epazote, simmered in a little salty water, then spooned into cups and topped with mayonnaise, lime, crumbled cheese and chilli powder. Each spoonful is sweet, buttery, tangy and warm, with a splash of the corn broth at the bottom. They make a great snack or side for tacos. Choose cotija or feta made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: let the kernels brown slightly in the butter before adding the water; those toasty bits give esquites their depth.

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SekuwaSpiced grilled meat skewers

Dharan, in Nepal's eastern hills, is famous for its 'sekuwa corner', a lane of smoky grills where families and friends gather in the evening for spiced goat, chicken and pork skewers fresh off the fire. The meat is marinated in a dry-ish paste of garlic, ginger, cumin, chilli and timur (Nepali Sichuan pepper), with a little mustard oil, then grilled until charred at the edges. It is the classic picnic and party food, eaten with puffed rice, a tomato-sesame achar and sliced onion. This recipe uses lamb or mutton shoulder in place of goat. Chef's tip: soak wooden skewers for 30 minutes and leave a little space between the pieces so the heat reaches all sides.

40 minNepaliMeatGluten freeSpicy
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Sel rotiSweet rice flour rings

When Tihar, the five-day festival of lights, arrives in late autumn, kitchens all over Nepal fill with the smell of sel roti: big, thin rings of sweetened rice batter fried in hot oil until crisp and russet outside and soft and slightly chewy inside. They are stacked high to offer to the gods, to sisters during Bhai Tika and to every guest, and they are also made at Dashain and for weddings, travelling well and keeping for days. Rice is soaked overnight and ground with sugar into a thick, pourable batter, then poured by hand in one confident circle into the oil. Many families add ghee to the batter, which makes the rings richer but means they are vegetarian rather than vegan; this version uses oil. The common mistake is oil that is not hot enough, so the batter drinks fat and turns greasy. Chef's tip: let the batter rest for an hour after grinding; it thickens and ferments slightly, and the rings puff and hold their shape better.

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Pad kra pao gaiChicken and holy basil stir-fry

Ask a Bangkok office worker what they had for lunch and the answer is very often 'kra pao gai, khai dao': chopped chicken flash-fried with garlic, chillies and holy basil, spooned over rice and crowned with a fried egg whose edges have blistered into brown lace. Street stalls and food courts across the city cook it to order in a roaring wok in about three minutes. The chicken should be slightly sticky and salty-sweet, the basil peppery with a hint of clove, and the runny yolk becomes a sauce for the rice. A saucer of prik nam pla (sliced chillies in fish sauce) on the side is all it needs. Chef's tip: chop the chicken by hand with a heavy knife instead of buying fine mince; the coarse, uneven bits catch the sauce and stay juicy.

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Sellou (also called sfouf or zmita) is made in big batches across Morocco for Ramadan, for new mothers and for Eid, and is served in a mound beside mint tea. Flour is toasted slowly in a dry pan until it turns the colour of sand and smells like biscuits, then mixed with ground toasted almonds and sesame, anise, cinnamon, butter and honey. The result is a crumbly, nutty, not-too-sweet sweet that you eat by the spoonful, or press into balls. It keeps for weeks. Chef's tip: toast the flour patiently over a low heat and keep it moving; scorched flour tastes bitter and the whole batch is lost.

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Uzbek chuchvaraTiny dumplings in dill broth

In Tashkent, chuchvara is the little cousin of manti: dumplings no bigger than a thumbnail, folded around a peppery lamb-and-beef filling and dropped into clear meat broth. Families make them in big batches on a slow weekend, freeze trays of them, and eat bowls through the winter with a spoonful of suzma (strained yogurt) or sour cream and lots of dill. The dough is thin and firm, the filling juicy with grated onion, and the broth light enough to drink. Many home cooks roll the dough too thick, which turns the dumplings stodgy; aim for a sheet you can just see the board through. Chef's tip: freeze the shaped dumplings on a floured tray before bagging them, so they stay separate and cook straight from frozen.

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PączkiRose jam doughnuts

Pączki are the rich, yeasted doughnuts Poland eats by the dozen on Tłusty Czwartek, Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent, when Warsaw bakeries such as the old ones on Nowy Świat have queues round the block from dawn. A good pączek is round and heavy for its size, with a pale ring around its middle, a fine, yolk-rich crumb and a filling of rose-petal jam (konfitura z róży) or plum butter, finished with icing and candied orange peel. A spoon of vodka or spirytus in the dough is an old trick: it evaporates in the hot oil and stops the dough soaking up fat. Chef's tip: keep the oil between 165 and 175°C with a thermometer; hotter and they burn outside while raw in the middle, cooler and they turn greasy.

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Töltött káposztaStuffed cabbage rolls

Töltött káposzta is the dish Hungarians make for Christmas and the wedding feasts of the countryside, a huge pot that tastes better each day. It is a pork dish: soured cabbage leaves are rolled around a filling of pork mince, rice, onion and paprika, then layered with chopped sauerkraut and smoked pork ribs or sausage and simmered for hours. It is served with a dollop of soured cream and bread. Chef's tip: look for whole soured cabbage heads (sold for this dish in Eastern European shops); if you cannot find them, blanch fresh savoy leaves and add extra sauerkraut.

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UzvarDried fruit drink

Uzvar is the dark, smoky-sweet drink brewed from dried apples, pears and plums that closes the Holy Supper on Ukrainian Christmas Eve, Sviat Vechir, where it is one of the twelve meatless dishes alongside kutia. In villages across Podillia and the Carpathians the fruit is dried in the oven or over smoke in autumn, which gives uzvar its distinctive campfire note; market stalls sell ready-mixed bags in December. It is drunk warm in winter and chilled in summer, and is naturally vegan when sweetened with sugar instead of honey. Chef's tip: simmer gently, then let it steep for several hours; common mistake is boiling it hard, which turns the fruit to mush and the drink cloudy.

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Semmelknödel with mushroom sauceBread dumplings with mushroom sauce

Semmelknödel are the bread dumplings of Bavaria and Austria, made to use up yesterday's rolls (Semmeln) soaked in warm milk and bound with egg, onion and parsley. With a creamy mushroom sauce, Semmelknödel mit Schwammerlsoße, they become a full meal and a favourite in Munich beer gardens and Alpine inns from late summer, when foraged chanterelles and ceps reach the markets. Chef's tip: simmer the dumplings in barely trembling water, never a rolling boil; hard boiling breaks them apart, which is the most common Knödel disaster.

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Yangrou paomoLamb soup with flatbread

Order this soup in one of the old Hui restaurants around Xi'an's Drum Tower and you are handed a dense, barely leavened flatbread and expected to tear it yourself into pea-sized crumbs while you chat; the kitchen then cooks it in rich lamb broth until each crumb is soft yet still chewy. Slices of tender lamb, glass noodles and wood ear mushrooms go in too, and the bowl comes with sweet pickled garlic and chilli sauce on the side. It is a soothing, filling soup, especially on Xi'an's freezing winter mornings. Expect a deep, clean lamb flavour scented with warm spices. Chef's tip: tear the bread small, no bigger than a soybean; big lumps stay doughy in the middle.

180 minChineseSoups
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Vegetable maféPeanut and vegetable stew

Mafé is the Sunday-lunch stew of Senegal and Mali: a rust-coloured sauce of roasted peanut paste and tomato, simmered until oil glistens on top and ladled over broken rice. In Dakar it usually carries lamb or beef; this version uses sweet potato, carrot, cabbage and okra, which soak up the sauce just as well. In Côte d'Ivoire the same idea is called sauce d'arachide and is eaten with rice or foutou; make it slightly thinner and add aubergine for the Abidjan style. Chef's tip: use plain, unsweetened peanut paste and cook it long enough that a thin layer of red oil rises to the surface; that is the sign the peanut has lost its raw taste.

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Yangzhou-style vegetable fried riceEgg and vegetable fried rice

Yangzhou in Jiangsu gave its name to China's most famous fried rice, which is supposed to show off a cook's skill: separate, glossy grains, small even dice and egg in every mouthful. The original carries ham and shrimp; this vegetable version swaps them for shiitake, peas, carrot and sweetcorn, and keeps the seasoning light (salt and a little soy) so the rice stays pale and golden rather than brown. It's a meal on its own or a side for stir-fries. Chef's tip: use rice cooked the day before and chilled uncovered; fresh rice is too soft and clumps.

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Tom yum goongHot and sour prawn soup

Steaming bowls of this prawn soup land on almost every table in central Thailand, from riverside shophouses in Ayutthaya to family dinners in Bangkok, where it sits in the middle to be shared with rice and two or three other dishes. The broth is thin but loud: sour from lime, salty from fish sauce, hot from crushed bird's eye chillies, and perfumed by bruised lemongrass, galangal and torn makrut lime leaf, which flavour the soup but are left in the bowl. This is the clear style (nam sai) with a spoonful of roasted chilli paste for colour and a gentle sweetness; the creamy nam khon style adds evaporated milk, which we leave out to keep it dairy free. Serve it piping hot with plain jasmine rice. Chef's tip: simmer the prawn heads and shells for five minutes before anything else goes in, and the soup tastes of the sea rather than of water.

25 minThaiSoupsGluten freeSpicy
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Tomaat-garnaalTomatoes stuffed with grey shrimp

Along the Belgian coast, from Ostend to De Panne, tomaat-garnaal is the starter that tells you you are at the seaside: a hollowed raw tomato heaped with tiny, sweet North Sea grey shrimp in homemade mayonnaise, served with lettuce, lemon and often a few chips. The shrimp are caught and boiled on the boats, so they come ready-cooked and peeled. Because the dish has so few parts, everything depends on good ripe tomatoes and very fresh shrimp. The thing people often get wrong is drowning the shrimp in mayonnaise; use just enough to bind them so their sweetness comes through. Chef's tip: salt the hollowed tomatoes and turn them upside down for 10 minutes so they do not leak water onto the plate.

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Wensi tofu soupShredded tofu soup

This Yangzhou soup is a test of knife skill: a block of soft tofu is sliced and shredded so finely that the threads drift apart like silk in the bowl. It is credited to a Buddhist monk named Wensi, who served it at a temple in Yangzhou during the Qing dynasty, so a meat-free broth is true to its roots. Huaiyang banquets still serve it as a quiet, delicate course. Chef's tip: wet the knife and slice in one smooth stroke without lifting; the tofu then stays together until you fan it into water.

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Coto MakassarBeef and peanut soup

Before the sun is fully up over Makassar's harbour, coto warungs are already serving dockers and office workers alike from huge clay-coloured pots. This South Sulawesi soup is thick, brown and opaque, its body coming from roasted peanuts ground almost to flour and simmered into a broth made with the cloudy water from rinsing rice. Diced beef (and traditionally offal) sits in a nutty, cumin-and-pepper broth that's eaten with diamond-shaped ketupat rice cakes broken into the bowl, plus lime and a spoon of chilli. Chef's tip: grind the cooled peanuts in short bursts and stop while they're still sandy; a few seconds too long and you get peanut butter that turns the soup claggy.

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Tomato pappuTomato dal

Pappu (dal) is the backbone of an Andhra meal, and tomato pappu is the one most Telugu households cook on an ordinary weekday. Toor dal is cooked with plenty of ripe tomatoes, onion, green chillies and a little tamarind, then mashed to a thick, rustic consistency and finished with a fierce garlic and red chilli popu (tempering). It's tangier and hotter than a North Indian dal, and it's mixed into hot rice with a spoon of ghee and eaten with avakaya pickle and a crisp fried vegetable. Chef's tip: mash the dal and tomatoes together with a whisk or a wooden mathu while hot; it gives the creamy, slightly rough texture that blending never does.

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Sepu vadiLentil dumplings in spinach yogurt gravy

No dham in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh is complete without sepu vadi. Light urad-dal dumplings are fried, softened in warm water and then simmered in a smooth spinach gravy tangy with yogurt, until they swell up and turn spongy. The botis who cook the feast make huge copper pots of it, served on leaf plates with rice and eaten with the fingers. At home it makes a rich weekend curry with rice or chapati. Chef's tip: beat the ground dal by hand for a few minutes before frying; the air you whip in is what makes the vadi light.

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Tomato rasamTomato tamarind soup

Rasam is the thin, sour, peppery broth that runs through every Tamil Nadu meal, poured over rice after sambar or sipped from a tumbler when you have a cold. This tomato version is the everyday kind: ripe tomatoes and tamarind simmered with crushed garlic, black pepper and cumin, then lifted with a tempering of mustard seeds, dried chilli and curry leaves. It's light, warming and ready in 25 minutes. Serve it with plain rice and a dry vegetable, or on its own in a cup. Chef's tip: once you add the spice mix, take the rasam off the heat as soon as it froths up; boiling it hard turns the flavour flat and the pepper harsh.

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SerabiCoconut rice pancakes

Serabi are small, thick pancakes cooked one at a time in clay pans over charcoal, sold at dawn in Solo and Bandung. The rice-flour batter, rich with coconut milk, sets with a spongy, bubbly top and a crisp, lacy base. In Bandung they come with a pour of kinca, a warm palm-sugar syrup scented with pandan; Solo's version is rolled in a banana leaf with a dot of thick coconut cream. Chef's tip: don't flip them; covering the pan lets steam cook the top while the bottom crisps.

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PoticaWalnut and honey spiral cake

No Slovenian Easter or Christmas table is complete without potica, a yeasted dough rolled thin around a honeyed walnut filling and baked in a fluted ring mould called a potičnik. When sliced, each piece shows a tight spiral of pale dough and dark nuts. Families in Ljubljana and across Carniola argue about the best filling, but walnut with honey is the classic one, eaten with coffee from Christmas morning until the tin is empty. Unlike a braided Romanian cozonac, the beauty is all in the thin, even swirl. Chef's tip: spread the filling no thicker than the dough and roll it up tightly; a loose roll or a thick layer leaves a gap between dough and filling once baked, the most common potica fault.

210 minBalkanBaking
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SernikBaked cheesecake

Sernik is the baked cheesecake Polish grandmothers make for Easter and Christmas, and in Kraków it often comes as sernik krakowski, with raisins in the filling and a lattice of pastry on top. Unlike the American kind it is made with twaróg, a dry, tangy curd cheese, so the filling is light and fine-grained rather than dense, set with eggs and a little potato starch, never gelatine. This version keeps a buttery shortcrust base and a smooth vanilla-lemon top. Chef's tip: the twaróg must be put through a mincer or sieve twice, or bought as ready-ground twaróg sernikowy in a tub; lumpy cheese gives a grainy cake.

110 minPolishBaking
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SeswaaPounded boiled beef

Seswaa is Botswana's national dish, made by the men at weddings, funerals and Independence Day in great three-legged pots over fires: beef on the bone is boiled with only onion, bay and salt for hours until it falls apart, then pounded with a wooden spoon into soft shreds in its own fat. It is served with pap (stiff maize porridge) or samp and a side of greens. The mistake is adding too much water at the end; the meat should be moist, not soupy, so let the liquid cook away before pounding. Chef's tip: use a mix of brisket and shin on the bone for flavour and richness.

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Sweet potato cakeFried sweet potato cakes

Soft, lightly sweet fried cakes of grated boiled sweet potato, flour and milk, shaped by hand into small flat rounds. They're golden outside and tender inside; the book's Handy Hints say sweet potato is good for the eyes and lifts the mood. Serve as a tea-time snack, or with tomato and chilli sauce.

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Sev usalWhite pea curry with sev

Ask anyone from Vadodara where to eat sev usal and you'll get a strong opinion and a street-corner name. Early in the morning the handcarts near Mandvi and Raopura have a huge pot of dried white peas simmering in a thin, fiery gravy, with a separate tin of brick-red chilli oil (the tari) on the side. A ladle of usal goes into a steel plate, a spoonful of tari is poured over, and then it disappears under fine sev, raw onion and coriander, with lemon and soft pav to mop it up. The gravy should be loose and soupy, not thick like a curry, so the sev stays crisp for the first few bites and then soaks in. Chef's tip: cook the tari separately and let each person add their own; the usal alone is only medium-hot, and the tari is where the fire comes from.

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Seven-vegetable couscous (bidaoui)Couscous with seven vegetables

In Casablanca, Friday lunch after midday prayers means couscous bidaoui, the city's own version piled with seven vegetables, from pumpkin and turnip to cabbage and carrot. Families eat it from one great dish, each person working on their own corner of the mound, with extra broth ladled on as they go. The grains are steamed twice over the simmering broth so they swell into separate, fluffy beads that soak up the flavour without turning soggy. This vegetarian version builds the broth from onion, tomato, saffron and chickpeas, so it is rich enough without meat. Chef's tip: rub the couscous between your palms after each steaming to break up every clump; that is what makes it light.

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Davanagere benne dosaButter dosa

Davanagere, a cotton-market town in central Karnataka, is famous for one thing above all: benne dosa, small, thick dosas cooked on a huge iron griddle with a generous lump of white butter melting over each one. The batter includes puffed rice (mandakki), which makes the inside soft and spongy while the base turns crisp and deep golden. In the town's busy dosa halls they arrive two at a time with a thin coconut chutney and a spoonful of potato palya tucked inside. It is breakfast, but many people eat it as an evening snack too. Chef's tip: use proper unsalted white butter if you can find it, and add it in two goes, half when the batter goes on and half just before folding, so the edges fry in butter rather than burn.

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Daulat ki chaatSaffron milk foam

Daulat ki chaat appears in the lanes of Chandni Chowk only in the coldest months, from about November to February. Vendors whisk milk and cream through the night and leave it out under the winter dew, then skim off a foam so light it disappears on your tongue, topped with saffron, khoya, sugar and pistachios. It's sold before the sun gets high, because warmth destroys it. A home kitchen can't recreate a Delhi winter night, so this version uses very cold milk and cream whipped to a loose foam and layered with saffron. It comes close: airy, cool, faintly sweet. Chef's tip: chill everything, bowl and whisk included, for at least 4 hours; the colder the milk, the more stable the foam.

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SfeehaSmall open lamb pies

Sfeeha are the little open meat pies of Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where bakers pinch them into neat squares and bake them by the hundred for weddings, Eid and Sunday mornings. The lamb filling is chopped with tomato and onion and sharpened with pomegranate molasses and a spoon of yogurt, so it stays juicy as it bakes on thin, crisp dough. Eat them warm with a bowl of yogurt or labneh and some cucumber. Chef's tip: pinch the four corners really firmly; the square shape is what traps the juices so the base stays crisp.

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SfogliatelleFlaky shell-shaped pastries

Sfogliatella riccia is the most famous pastry of Naples, sold warm from bakeries on Via Toledo and eaten for breakfast with an espresso: dozens of paper-thin layers fanned into a shell that shatters when you bite, around a filling of semolina, ricotta, candied orange and cinnamon. It is a project for a weekend, as the dough needs to be rolled very thin, wound into a tight log and chilled overnight. Neapolitan bakers use lard; this version uses a mix of butter and vegetable shortening. Chef's tip: a pasta machine is your best friend; roll the dough to the thinnest or second-thinnest setting so the layers separate into crisp leaves.

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SfoufTurmeric semolina cake

Sfouf is the bright yellow cake you find in every Lebanese bakery window and in plastic tubs at village coffee mornings, cut into diamonds and eaten with tea or a small cup of coffee. Turmeric gives the colour, aniseed and a little mahlab the perfume, and semolina a soft, slightly sandy crumb. Many families make it without eggs or dairy for Lent, and this version is fully plant-based, so it is not the site's eggless coconut-yogurt semolina cake. The tin is greased with tahini, a Beirut habit that gives the base a nutty crust. Chef's tip: use only the turmeric listed; more turns the cake bitter and slightly medicinal.

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Sha phaley with cabbage and cheeseFried cabbage and cheese pockets

Sha phaley comes from Sikkim's Bhutia and Tibetan communities: rounds of dough are filled, sealed into half-moons and fried until golden and blistered, like a fat, crisp pie. In Gangtok's MG Marg cafés and home kitchens the classic filling is minced meat, but a vegetarian version with cabbage, spring onion, ginger and cheese (paneer or soft churpi) is common and very good. Eat them hot with dalle chutney and a bowl of thukpa or tea. Chef's tip: squeeze the salted cabbage hard before filling; any loose water steams inside and makes the dough soggy.

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Curanto en ollaShellfish and meat pot

On the island of Chiloé in southern Chile, curanto is cooked in a pit lined with hot stones and covered with huge nalca leaves; in town kitchens and in Puerto Montt's market it is made in a big pot instead, curanto en olla. Mussels and clams, smoked pork, chicken and sausage steam together over potatoes and milcao (potato dumplings) until the juices make a rich broth, served in cups on the side. This dish contains pork and shellfish. Some cooks add white wine; this version uses water. The mistake is adding the shellfish too early; they go in at the end and must open, and any that stay closed are thrown away. Chef's tip: make the milcao a little ahead and keep it in the fridge so it holds its shape.

135 minChileanFish
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Shah plovPilaf in a lavash crust

Shah plov, the "king's pilaf", is the showpiece of Azerbaijani weddings and Novruz feasts, especially in Baku, Shaki and Ganja. Saffron rice layered with butter-glazed apricots, raisins, prunes and chestnuts is packed into a pot lined with overlapping sheets of thin lavash, then baked until the bread forms a crisp golden dome. It is carried whole to the table, the top is cut like a crown, and everyone gets a crisp shard with their rice. The classic version also has lamb; this one keeps the fruit and nuts that already make it festive. Chef's tip: brush every lavash sheet generously with butter and overlap them by at least a third; thin spots tear when the plov is turned out.

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