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Managu

Nightshade greens

Market women in Kisii and Kakamega sell managu in thick bunches, and in the hills it is the green that goes with ugali at almost every family dinner. The leaves of cultivated African nightshade are soft and pleasantly bitter, a bit like a stronger spinach, and here they are blanched, then cooked down with onion and tomato into a soft, savoury heap. At home many families stir in a spoon of cream at the end; to keep it vegan, use coconut milk as below; buy managu fresh or frozen from African grocers and never gather wild nightshade, as some kinds are poisonous. Using the boiling water as a sauce is a common error: always drain the first boil, or the dish stays harsh. Chef's tip: squeeze the drained leaves firmly in your fist before frying so the tomato flavour soaks in instead of being watered down.

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150 minAfrican Meat

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Beans poriyalGreen bean and coconut stir-fry

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25 min

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For ceremonies in the villages around Gianyar in central Bali, a whole duck is stuffed and smothered with base genep, wrapped in banana leaves and areca-palm sheath, and buried overnight in smouldering rice husks. By morning the meat has turned meltingly soft, the fat has rendered into the spices and the parcel smells of turmeric, smoke and lime leaf. This home version keeps the stuffing and the leaf parcel but uses a low oven for three hours, then opens the parcel for a short blast to colour the skin. Serve it in its juices with rice, a sharp sambal matah and long beans or water spinach. Chef's tip: marinate the duck overnight in the fridge if you can; the paste needs time to get past the fat and into the meat.

240 min

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145 min

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300 min

Pakistani Curries

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Beef lok lakPeppery stir-fried beef

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30 min

Cambodian Meat

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Beef nihariSlow-cooked beef shank stew

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325 min

Pakistani Meat

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Beef ularthiyathuDry-fried spiced beef

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140 min

Indian Meat

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Begun bhajaFried aubergine slices

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27 min

Bangladeshi Sides

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BeguniBattered aubergine fritters

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30 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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50 min

Chinese Desserts

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Beijing sesame shaobingSesame paste flatbreads

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80 min

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20 min

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45 min

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BeshbarmakBoiled lamb on noodle sheets

Beshbarmak, "five fingers", is the dish a Kazakh family puts on the dastarkhan for guests, weddings and Nauryz, traditionally eaten with the hand. Lamb (or horse meat in many homes) is simmered for hours, sliced and laid over wide squares of fresh noodle dough cooked in the same broth, then topped with soft onions in a peppery sauce. The broth, called sorpa, is drunk from bowls alongside. Cutting the noodles too thick is a common slip; they should be thin enough to be silky, not chewy. Chef's tip: keep a cup of the hot fat skimmed from the broth to cook the onion sauce; it carries all the lamb flavour.

210 min

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Beyaynetu (fasting platter)Fasting platter of vegan stews

Beyaynetu means 'a bit of every kind', and on Wednesdays, Fridays and through the long Lenten fast it is what most of Addis Ababa orders for lunch: a round of injera covered with small heaps of different vegan stews and salads, each a different colour and spice level, with extra rolled injera on the side. At home it is a feast for sharing, built from dishes you can make ahead. This page shows you how to plan and assemble it, and gives the red lentil misir wat that sits at its centre; for the other dishes use our Shiro wat, Kik alicha, Gomen, Tikil gomen, Fosolia and Timatim salata recipes, and of course Injera. Chef's tip: balance the platter with two spicy red dishes, two mild yellow ones and two green or fresh ones, so every mouthful can be cooled or warmed.

90 min

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Bhapa pithaSteamed rice flour cakes

When the date palm sap starts flowing in early winter, small steaming pots appear on street corners all over Bangladesh, from Rajshahi to Dhaka's Karwan Bazar, selling bhapa pitha in the dark mornings. Damp, lightly salted rice flour is packed into a small bowl around a layer of grated coconut and khejur gur (date jaggery), wrapped in cloth and steamed over a narrow-necked pot until soft, fluffy and fragrant. Eat them warm, straight from the cloth. Chef's tip: the rice flour should feel like damp sand that just holds when squeezed; too wet and the cake turns gummy, too dry and it crumbles.

50 min

Bangladeshi Desserts

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Bhatt ki churkaniBlack soybean curry

Black soybeans, called bhatt, grow on the slopes around Almora and Pithoragarh, and churkani is the everyday Kumaoni way of eating them: roasted in a dry iron pan until they crack, then simmered with garlic, ginger and a little rice flour into a thick, nearly black gravy. It's the kind of food that keeps people warm through a hill winter, eaten with steamed rice, a spoonful of ghee and a sharp radish raita. The roasting gives a nutty, almost smoky taste you won't get from boiling the beans. Chef's tip: cook it in an iron kadhai if you have one; the metal reacts with the beans and gives churkani its traditional dark colour.

75 min

Indian Curries

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Bhetki paturiFish steamed in banana leaf

Paturi means 'wrapped in a leaf', and in Bengal the favourite fish for it is bhetki, the meaty barramundi of the Sundarbans estuaries. Fillets are coated in a sharp paste of mustard, coconut and green chilli, tied up in banana leaf and steamed or cooked on a griddle, so they come out moist and fragrant. It is a dish for celebration lunches in Kolkata and is unwrapped at the table over hot rice. Chef's tip: no banana leaves? Use baking paper inside foil; you lose a little aroma but none of the texture.

55 min

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Bhuna khichuriFried rice and moong dal

In Dhaka, the first heavy monsoon downpour sends people home craving bhuna khichuri, and Eid mornings in old Dhaka often start with a pot of it too. Unlike the loose, porridge-like khichdi of north India, the Bangladeshi bhuna version is dry and fluffy: dry-roasted moong dal and short-grain rice are fried in ghee with onions and whole spices until fragrant, then cooked with just enough water so the grains stay separate. Serve it hot with begun bhaja, a bhorta or two and a spoon of pickle. Chef's tip: roast the moong dal in a dry pan until it smells like toasted nuts before you wash it; that roasted note is what makes this khichuri taste of Bangladesh.

55 min

Bangladeshi Rice & Grains

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Bhutte ka halwaSweetcorn halwa

In monsoon Indore, when the fields around the city are full of tender maize, sweet shops turn the same corn into halwa: kernels ground coarsely, roasted in ghee until they smell like buttered popcorn, then cooked with milk and sugar until glossy. It is lighter and less cloying than many halwas, with a gentle bite from the corn. Families make it for guests and for small festivals, and it is just as good warm from the pan or at room temperature the next day. Chef's tip: grind the corn in short pulses to a coarse, porridgy texture; a smooth purée turns gluey and sticks.

50 min

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Bhutte ka keesGrated corn cooked in milk

Bhutte ka kees is a monsoon favourite from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, sold at the city's famous night market, Sarafa. Fresh corn is grated and cooked in ghee with mustard seeds and green chilli, then simmered in milk until it turns thick, creamy and gently sweet. A squeeze of lemon, fresh coriander and grated coconut finish it. Eat it hot with a spoon as an evening snack. Chef's tip: grate the corn off the cob on the coarse side of a box grater rather than blending it; you get juicy, starchy pulp that thickens the milk naturally.

25 min

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Biang biang noodlesHand-pulled belt noodles

Biang biang mian are the wide, belt-like noodles of Xi'an in Shaanxi, named, some say, after the slapping sound the dough makes as it's pulled and banged on the counter. The written character for biang is one of the most complicated in Chinese. Each noodle is as wide as a belt and chewy; the classic topping is chilli flakes, garlic and spring onion, sizzled with smoking hot oil, then splashed with vinegar and soy. Chef's tip: let the oiled dough pieces rest for at least 30 minutes, longer if you can; relaxed gluten stretches long and thin without snapping.

60 min

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Biber dolmasıRice-stuffed green peppers

Biber dolması turns up in every corner of Turkey, from Istanbul meyhanes to village kitchens in central Anatolia, and the olive-oil version without meat is the one eaten cold at summer lunches or packed for picnics. Thin-walled green dolma peppers are filled with rice cooked with onion, tomato, pine nuts, currants and warm spices, capped with a slice of tomato and simmered until the peppers slump and wrinkle. A frequent mistake is packing the filling to the top: leave a finger of space so the rice can swell. Chef's tip: let the peppers cool completely in their pot; the filling firms up and the flavours of mint and allspice come through much more clearly than when hot.

75 min

Turkish Vegetarian

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Bubur cha chaWarm coconut sweet potato pudding

Bubur cha cha is a Nyonya (Peranakan) dessert from Penang and Melaka, cooked in big pots for Chap Goh Meh, the fifteenth night of Chinese New Year, and eaten all year as a sweet soup after dinner or a mid-afternoon snack. Cubes of orange and purple sweet potato and taro float in pandan-scented coconut milk with tiny, glassy sago pearls; the colours are part of the charm. It's soothing, gently sweet and comforting, warm on a rainy evening or cold from the fridge in the heat. Chef's tip: a small pinch of salt in the coconut milk lifts the sweetness and stops it tasting flat.

40 min

Malaysian Desserts

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BibingkaCoconut rice cake

During the nine dawn masses of Simbang Gabi, from 16 to 24 December, vendors set up outside churches across the Philippines baking bibingka in clay pots with hot coals both underneath and on top. Churchgoers buy them on the way out at 5 am, still steaming in their banana-leaf liners, with a hot drink. The cake is made from rice flour and coconut milk, springy and slightly chewy, with a browned, buttery top covered in salty white cheese, slices of salted duck egg, sugar and grated coconut. This version bakes it in an ordinary oven and finishes it under the grill for that charred top. Chef's tip: warm the banana leaves over a flame for a few seconds until they turn glossy and supple; cold leaves crack and the batter leaks under them.

50 min

Filipino Baking

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Bicol expressPork in coconut milk and chilli

Bicol, the peninsula at the southern tip of Luzon, cooks almost everything in coconut milk with plenty of chilli, and Bicol express is the pork dish that carries the region's name all over the country (locals often call it sinilihan, 'with chillies'). Pork shoulder is cooked down in coconut milk until the liquid turns to oil and the meat is tender, then finished with coconut cream, long green chillies and a spoon of shrimp paste. It is rich, salty and properly hot. Serve it with lots of plain rice. Chef's tip: let the coconut milk reduce until it 'breaks' and you see the oil; that is when the sauce gets its toasty, deep flavour.

65 min

Filipino Meat

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BienenstichHoney almond cake

Bienenstich, the 'bee sting', is a sheet cake found in every German bakery: a soft, buttery yeast dough baked under a crackling layer of almonds caramelised with butter, honey and sugar, then split and filled with vanilla cream. The story goes that a bee, drawn to the honey topping, stung the baker. It's a Sunday afternoon cake, at its best on the day it's made. This version sets the filling with cornflour custard folded with whipped cream, no gelatine. Chef's tip: cut the topping layer into portions before you put it back on the cream; the hard almond crust otherwise squeezes all the filling out when you slice it.

90 min

German Baking

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BifanaMarinated pork roll

Lisbon's standing-room snack bars, from the Baixa to the stalls outside football grounds, sell bifanas all day: thin pork steaks simmered in a garlicky, bay-scented sauce and pushed into a soft papo-seco roll with a smear of mustard. It's a pork sandwich, and the pork is traditionally marinated in white wine; for an alcohol-free version use chicken stock with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar. It makes a quick lunch or a late snack. Chef's tip: dip the cut side of the roll into the pan juices before filling it; that's how the bars make them so juicy.

25 min

Portuguese Fast Food

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BigosHunter's stew with sauerkraut and pork

Bigos, the hunter's stew, is cooked in huge pots across Poland for Christmas, New Year and the long winter, and every family insists theirs is best on the third reheating. Sauerkraut and fresh cabbage stew for hours with pork shoulder, smoked kiełbasa and bacon, dried wild mushrooms, prunes, juniper and a splash of red wine; it is a pork dish through and through. The wine contains alcohol; for an alcohol-free version use 100 ml apple juice with 1 tbsp cider vinegar. Serve with rye bread or boiled potatoes. Chef's tip: taste the sauerkraut first; if it is very sharp, rinse it once in cold water and squeeze it dry.

240 min

Polish Meat

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Bika ambonHoneycomb coconut cake

Despite its name, bika ambon belongs to Medan in North Sumatra, where shops on Jalan Majapahit sell it boxed for travellers to take home. A yeasted batter of tapioca, eggs and coconut milk bakes into a cake with a sticky, golden base and long vertical tunnels running through its yellow crumb, perfumed with lemongrass, pandan and lime leaf. It is chewy rather than spongy. Chef's tip: bake it with heat from the bottom first; that is what drives the bubbles upward into the honeycomb.

90 min

Indonesian Baking

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Bikaneri bhujiaSpicy moth bean noodle snack

Bikaner in the Thar desert has made bhujia for well over a century, and the city's version stands apart for its use of moth-bean flour mixed with gram flour. Moth beans, hardy little desert pulses, give the sev an earthy flavour and a brittle, short crunch, while black pepper, black cardamom and a touch of clove add a peppery warmth. Families keep a tin of bhujia for tea time, sprinkle it over poha and chaat, and take boxes home after Diwali visits. A common mistake is making the dough too stiff; it is hard to press and the strands snap. Chef's tip: the dough should feel softer than chapati dough—so soft that a fingertip leaves a smooth dent. Use a sev press with the finest plate.

45 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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BingtteokBuckwheat crepe rolls with radish

Bingtteok (빙떡) comes from Jeju island, where volcanic soil grew buckwheat and radish better than rice. Thin, almost translucent buckwheat crêpes are rolled around a filling of blanched radish seasoned only with salt, sesame and spring onion. The flavour is gentle and nutty, and it was traditionally brought to funerals, weddings and village gatherings, sometimes with a cup of makgeolli. Today you find it at Jeju's Dongmun and Seogwipo markets beside more fiery snacks. Chef's tip: pour a little batter and swirl the pan fast, or spread it with the back of a ladle; bingtteok crêpes should be so thin you can almost see through them.

40 min

Korean Snacks & Starters

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Bisi bele bathSpiced rice and lentil one-pot

Bisi bele bath means 'hot lentil rice' in Kannada, and it's Karnataka's great comfort dish, served in temples, weddings and Bengaluru tiffin rooms. Rice and toor dal are cooked soft with vegetables, then simmered with tamarind, jaggery and a freshly roasted spice powder of lentils, coriander seed, chilli, cinnamon and coconut until it's thick, glossy and spoonable. A generous ghee tempering with cashews and curry leaves goes over the top. Eat it piping hot with crisp potato chips or boondi raita. Chef's tip: make it looser than you think; it thickens fast as it stands, and the right texture is soft and flowing, like a thick porridge.

70 min

Indian Rice & Grains

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BissaraSplit fava bean soup

Bissara is the cold-morning soup of northern Morocco: in Tangier, Tétouan and Chefchaouen you see it ladled out from big pots at street stalls before work, and it is a favourite to break the fast in winter Ramadans. Dried split broad beans are simmered with garlic until they fall apart and blended into a thick, pale purée, then finished at the table with olive oil, cumin and paprika. Eat it piping hot with crusty bread; leftover bissara thickens into a dip you can spread on toast. Chef's tip: be generous with the final olive oil, it is not a garnish but part of the dish.

50 min

Moroccan Soups

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Bistecca alla fiorentinaGrilled T-bone steak

A proper fiorentina is a T-bone cut three fingers thick, traditionally from Tuscany's white Chianina cattle, and Florentine steakhouses sell it by weight and serve it one way only: charred outside, deep red within. It is a sharing steak for three or four, sliced off the bone at the table and finished with nothing more than good olive oil and coarse salt. On one side of the bone sits the tender fillet, on the other the beefier sirloin, and the bone itself gives the meat flavour as it cooks. Cannellini beans with olive oil and sage and a simple green salad are the usual companions. Chef's tip: after searing both flat sides, stand the steak upright on its bone for several minutes; the heat travels up through the bone and cooks the middle evenly without overdoing the outside.

40 min

Italian Meat

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BitterballenCrisp beef ragout balls

Order a round of drinks in an Amsterdam brown café and a plate of bitterballen will follow: small crumbed balls with a crackling shell and a molten centre of beef ragout, eaten with a dab of sharp mustard. They are the classic borrel snack across the Netherlands, served at parties and receptions as well as in bars. The filling is a thick roux sauce with slow-cooked shredded beef that has to set firm in the fridge before it can be rolled. The usual failure is a filling that is too soft, so the balls split open in the oil; cook the ragout until it is very thick and chill it for at least four hours. Chef's tip: crumb them twice (egg, crumbs, egg, crumbs) and freeze them for 20 minutes before frying for a shell that never bursts.

180 min

Dutch Snacks & Starters

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Bolo de arrozRice flour muffin cakes

Bolos de arroz are the tall, sugar-crusted cakes standing in their paper wrappers in every Portuguese café cabinet, from Porto's breakfast counters to the pastelarias of Lisbon's neighbourhoods. Despite the name they are mostly wheat flour, with a share of rice flour that gives a fine, slightly sandy, springy crumb, perfumed with lemon zest. People have one with a galão mid-morning or for lanche, the afternoon snack, peeling the paper down as they go. Chef's tip: wrap a strip of baking paper around the inside of each muffin hole so it stands 3 cm above the rim; the batter climbs up it and you get the tall, straight-sided shape.

40 min

Portuguese Baking

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Bled kremšnitaVanilla custard and cream slice

Kremšnita has been served in the cafés on the shore of Lake Bled since the 1950s, and a tall, wobbling square of it with a coffee and a view of the island church is still the reason many people stop in the town. It is a thick layer of vanilla custard, lightened with whipped egg whites, topped with whipped cream and sandwiched between thin sheets of crisp puff pastry. The custard holds its shape with egg yolks, cornflour and meringue alone; there is no gelatine. Chef's tip: fold the meringue into the custard while it is still boiling hot and keep stirring on a low heat for a minute, so the whites cook and set the cream.

85 minBalkan Desserts

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BoerenkoolstamppotKale and potato mash

When the first frost hits the Dutch polders, farmers say the kale (boerenkool) finally turns sweet, and that is the signal for boerenkoolstamppot: floury potatoes mashed with finely shredded raw kale until the green is just wilted by the heat of the mash. Across the Netherlands it is the dinner of dark December evenings and the meal people want after skating on a frozen canal. Every plate gets a kuiltje, a little well pressed into the mash and filled with gravy. The classic partner is a smoked rookworst sausage; this vegetarian version keeps the smoky note with pan-fried smoked tofu and a slow-cooked onion gravy, and a spoon of mustard on the side. Chef's tip: shred the kale as fine as you can and stir it in raw at the very end, so it stays bright green with a little bite instead of turning grey and soggy.

55 min

Dutch Vegetarian

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Bombil fryCrisp fried Bombay duck

Bombay duck is not a duck at all but bombil, a soft, almost jelly-like fish landed in huge numbers at Sassoon Dock and the Koli fishing villages around Mumbai. Pressed flat, rubbed with chilli and rolled in semolina, it fries up with a shattering crust and a melting middle, and it turns up at Malvani restaurants and Koli homes as a starter or beside dal and rice. Chef's tip: press the opened fish under a weighted plate for 10 minutes before marinating; it squeezes out water so the crust stays crisp.

30 min

Indian Fish

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BoereworsCoriander-spiced coiled sausage

This sausage contains pork. Boerewors, 'farmer's sausage', is the centre of every South African braai, from a Pretoria back garden to a Durban beach on Heritage Day. A thick coil of coarsely minced beef and pork, perfumed with toasted coriander, nutmeg and cloves and sharpened with vinegar, is grilled over coals and eaten with pap and chakalaka or in a roll as a boerie. Making it takes a sausage stuffer and natural casings, but the spicing is what matters. The classic mistake is pricking the sausage, which lets the juices run out and dries it; never pierce boerewors. Chef's tip: toast the whole coriander seeds until they crackle and grind them coarsely; the bits of seed are the signature of good boerewors.

80 min

South African Meat

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BolaniStuffed flatbread

Bolani are thin, crisp half-moon flatbreads sold hot from griddles in Kabul's bazaars and made at home for Ramadan iftar, picnics and guests who drop in unannounced. The dough is rolled paper-thin, filled with mashed potato and spring onion (or with leeks or pumpkin), folded and fried in a little oil until blistered and golden. Cut them into wedges and serve with plain yoghurt or a green chutney. Chef's tip: spread the filling in a thin, even layer right to the edges; bolani should be flat and crackly, not puffy and doughy.

65 min

Afghan Breads & Parathas

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Bolas de BerlimCustard-filled doughnuts

On Portuguese beaches in summer, from Praia da Rocha in the Algarve to Nazaré and Figueira da Foz, vendors walk the sand with a glass box on their shoulder calling 'Olha a bola!': soft fried doughnuts rolled in sugar, split along one side and stuffed with thick yellow creme pasteleiro. Though named after the Berliner, the Portuguese version is cut open rather than injected, so the custard shows like a smile. They are eaten in swimsuits, sticky-fingered, mid-afternoon, and in cafés the rest of the year. Chef's tip: let the shaped balls rise until they look puffy and a gentle finger press springs back slowly; under-proved dough fries dense and over-proved dough collapses and soaks up oil.

70 min

Portuguese Desserts

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Bolo polanaCashew and potato cake

Bolo polana takes its name from the old Polana district of Maputo and is a celebration cake in Mozambique, made for birthdays and Christmas, built on two of the country's great crops: cashew nuts and potatoes. Ground cashews and mashed potato make it dense, fragrant and very moist, with orange zest to lift it. It shows the Portuguese baking tradition meeting local ingredients. Chef's tip: grind the cashews in short pulses with a spoon of the sugar; ground alone, they turn to cashew butter.

90 minSouthern African Baking

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Bolón de verde con quesoPlantain and cheese balls

On Ecuador's coast, in Guayaquil and Manabí, breakfast is often a bolón: green plantain fried, pounded while hot with butter and salty cheese, shaped into a fist-sized ball and fried again until crusty. It comes with a cup of strong black coffee and a fried egg, and a little ají on the side; the other classic version uses pork crackling, but cheese bolón is just as common. Chef's tip: shape them while the plantain is still hot; once cold the starch sets and won't stick together.

50 minAndean Breakfast & Brunch

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Bombay sandwichToasted vegetable sandwich

Every busy corner in Mumbai, from Churchgate station to the lanes of Dadar, has a sandwich-wallah with a stack of white bread, a tub of butter, a bowl of green chutney and a cast-iron toaster held over a flame. The Bombay sandwich is built in thin layers of boiled potato, beetroot, cucumber, tomato, onion and green pepper, each layer dusted with a peppery sandwich masala, then toasted until crisp and cut into neat squares. Cheese is grated over the top if you ask. It's a commuter's breakfast, a school snack and a late-night bite after the cinema. Serve with ketchup and more chutney. Chef's tip: slice every vegetable as thin as a coin; thick slices slide out when you bite and stop the sandwich toasting evenly.

28 min

Indian Fast Food

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Borani banjanFried aubergine in tomato sauce

Borani banjan is the aubergine dish Afghan hosts set out at almost every dinner party and Eid meal, from Herat to Mazar-i-Sharif. Thick slices of aubergine are fried until golden, then simmered in a tomato and pepper sauce until meltingly soft and laid over a bed of garlic yoghurt, with dried mint on top. It's eaten warm with naan, or as a side to rice. Chef's tip: fry the aubergine slices in a hot pan and let them drain well before they go into the sauce; well-browned slices hold their shape and give the dish its deep, almost sweet flavour.

50 min

Afghan Vegetarian

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Bore baasiSoaked rice with onion

Bore baasi is the summer meal of Chhattisgarh's farmers: cooked rice soaked in water, either for a few hours (bore) or overnight (baasi), then eaten from the bowl with its slightly sour water, raw onion, green chilli and a pinch of salt. It is cooling, filling and easy on the stomach in the heat, and in recent years the state has made 1 May, Labour Day, the day to eat it as Bore Baasi Tihar. Many families add a ladle of buttermilk or curd and something fried or roasted on the side. Food safety matters with any cooked rice left standing, so this version cools the rice fast and soaks it in the fridge. Chef's tip: cool and cover the rice within an hour of cooking; rice left warm on the counter is the real risk, not the soaking.

30 min

Indian Rice & Grains

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Bosanski lonacLayered meat and vegetable pot

Bosanski lonac goes back to Bosnian village hearths, where a tall clay pot was layered with meat and vegetables and left in the embers for hours; in Sarajevo and Mostar it is still cooked for name-day gatherings and cold winter weekends. This home version layers chunks of beef, lamb and pork with cabbage, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and peppers, then cooks it slowly in a covered pot with only a little water, so everything stews in its own juices. This recipe contains pork; use all beef and lamb if you prefer. The mistake people make is stirring it: the layers should stay intact and steam gently. Chef's tip: put the meat and onions at the bottom and the watery vegetables like tomatoes at the top, so the juices drip down through everything.

215 minBalkan Meat

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Bot chienFried rice flour cakes with egg

Bột chiên came to Saigon with the Teochew Chinese community of Chợ Lớn and is now an after-school snack sold from street pans across the city in the late afternoon. Cubes of steamed rice-flour cake are fried in a wide pan until crisp outside and soft inside, then an egg is poured over and stirred until it binds them in golden scraps. It is eaten with shredded pickled green papaya and a sweet, sour soy dipping sauce. Chef's tip: make the cake the day before and chill it overnight; cold, firm cake cuts into neat cubes and crisps far better.

70 min

Vietnamese Snacks & Starters

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BougatsaSemolina custard pie

In Thessaloniki, breakfast is often a plate of bougatsa eaten at a marble counter at seven in the morning: warm vanilla custard wrapped in crackly pastry, chopped into bite-size pieces in front of you and dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. The city's bougatsa shops stretch the dough paper-thin by hand; at home, shop fillo does a fine job. The custard is thickened with fine semolina, so it slices cleanly but stays soft and wobbly. Eat it warm with a Greek coffee or a cold frappé. Chef's tip: whisk the semolina into the milk in a slow stream and keep whisking; dumping it in at once is the usual mistake and leaves lumps you can't beat out.

60 min

Greek Breakfast & Brunch

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Boulets liégeoisMeatballs in sweet-sour fruit sauce

Liège is famous for its boulets: big, tennis-ball-sized meatballs served in a dark, sticky sauce made with sirop de Liège, the region's thick apple-and-pear syrup, with onions and a little vinegar. They are a brasserie staple across Wallonia, eaten with a mountain of chips and a side of salad, and families make them for Sunday lunch. The mix is half pork, half beef, so this is a pork dish. Rushing the onions is the step most people get wrong: they need a good 20 minutes to turn sweet before the sauce comes together. Chef's tip: if you cannot find sirop de Liège, use 3 tablespoons of apple butter or date syrup with 1 tablespoon of black treacle for the same dark, fruity tang.

75 min

Belgian Meat

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BourekasFeta and potato pastry triangles

Bourekas are what Israelis grab from the bakery on a Friday morning or bring to a family gathering: puff pastry shapes with savoury fillings, shiny with egg and dotted with sesame. The tradition came from Sephardi Jews of Turkey and the Balkans, but in Israel it settled into puff pastry, with the shape telling you the filling at a glance (triangles for cheese, rectangles for potato in many bakeries). This version fills triangles with feta and ricotta and rectangles with herby mashed potato, and goes with a hard-boiled egg, pickles and grated tomato. Chef's tip: keep the pastry cold right up to the oven; warm puff pastry won't rise into flaky layers.

45 min

Israeli Snacks & Starters

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KvassFermented rye bread drink

Before the cola era, kvass was Russia's everyday thirst-quencher, sold every summer from yellow barrel trailers on Moscow street corners and poured into glass mugs. At home it is brewed from dried rye bread, sugar and a pinch of yeast, fermented for a day or two until it tastes malty, a little sour and gently fizzy, and only about 1% alcohol. It is drunk ice cold and is also the broth for okroshka. Chef's tip: toast the bread until really dark, almost burnt at the edges; that is where kvass gets its deep colour and its toasted, malty taste.

50 min

Russian Drinks

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BriamRoasted summer vegetables

Briam is what Greek home cooks put in the oven on a hot afternoon when the garden is full of courgettes: potatoes, courgettes, aubergine, peppers and onions tumbled with grated tomato, garlic and oregano, then roasted slowly until soft and caramelised at the edges. It is one of the ladera, dishes cooked in olive oil and eaten as a main course, usually at room temperature with feta and bread. It tastes better the next day, when the flavours have settled. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes thinner than everything else so they cook in the same time; same-size chunks are the common mistake that leaves you with hard potatoes and mushy courgettes.

80 min

Greek Vegetarian

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Brik à l'œufFried egg pastry triangle

Brik is Tunisia's crackling street and Ramadan snack: a sheet of paper-thin malsouka pastry folded around a raw egg, mashed potato, parsley and capers, and fried for a minute until the shell shatters and the yolk is still runny. In Tunis and La Goulette it is eaten by hand, held by the corners and bitten carefully to avoid egg on the chin. The classic filling adds tuna; this version keeps it vegetarian with a little cheese. It is different from Moroccan briouats, which are small rolled parcels baked or fried with a cooked filling. Chef's tip: have the oil hot and ready before cracking the egg onto the pastry; once the egg sits, it soaks through the sheet.

25 min

Tunisian Snacks & Starters

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Bubble tea with brown sugar pearlsMilk tea with tapioca pearls

Pearl milk tea (zhen zhu nai cha) was born in Taichung, Taiwan, in the 1980s and has since spread to tea shops in every Chinese city. Strong black tea is shaken with milk and ice over dark, chewy tapioca pearls soaked in brown sugar syrup. Store-bought quick-cook pearls make it easy at home; kids love the big straws. Chef's tip: cook the pearls right before serving; after a couple of hours they go hard, and they can't be revived in the fridge.

30 min

Chinese Drinks

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Bryndzové haluškyPotato dumplings with sheep's cheese

Bryndzové halušky is Slovakia's national dish, cooked in every koliba (timber shepherd's restaurant) in the Liptov and Orava valleys and fought over each summer at the halušky-eating contest in Turecká. Little grated-potato dumplings are tossed while hot with bryndza, a tangy, spreadable sheep's cheese, and finished with a sour milk drink called žinčica. The traditional topping is crisp smoked bacon; here golden fried onions bring the same savoury crunch, and meat-eaters can add bacon on their own plates. Chef's tip: grate the potatoes at the last moment and work fast; grated potato left standing turns grey and watery and the dumplings go heavy.

45 min

Czech Vegetarian

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Bubur pedasHerby toasted rice porridge

Bubur pedas comes from the Malay kitchens of Sambas in West Kalimantan and is a Ramadan favourite for breaking the fast. Raw rice and coconut are dry-roasted and ground, then cooked into a thick, savoury porridge with sweet potato, long beans, ferns, water spinach and lots of kesum leaf, the herb that gives its peppery smell. Despite the name, it is spiced rather than very hot; chilli goes on at the table. Many cooks add dried anchovies; this version tops it with fried peanuts instead. Chef's tip: roast the rice and coconut slowly until deep golden; that toastiness is the flavour of the dish.

70 min

Indonesian Breakfast & Brunch

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BuchtyFilled baked yeast buns

Buchty are the soft, pillowy yeast buns that Czech grandmothers bake in a roasting tin on Saturday, filled with povidla (plum butter), jam or sweet quark and packed so close that they rise into each other and have to be torn apart. They are the Czech answer to a cinnamon bun: eaten warm with milky coffee, packed for train journeys and school trips, and famous from the fairy tale in which the hero sets off with a bag of his mother's buchty. Unlike open koláče, the filling is sealed inside. Chef's tip: brush the sides of each bun with melted butter before you pack them in, so they pull apart cleanly with soft, shiny walls.

70 min

Czech Baking

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Budae jjigaeSausage and noodle stew

Budae jjigae grew up in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul, in the hard years after the Korean War, when surplus tinned meat and sausages from the nearby US army base were cooked with kimchi and chilli. The town still has a whole street of restaurants serving it. It is a sharing dish: a wide pan goes on a gas burner in the middle of the table, and friends fish out sausages and noodles as it bubbles. Chef's tip: arrange everything in neat piles in the pan before the stock goes in, so each person can see what they are reaching for.

30 min

Korean Soups

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Budbud kabogMillet in coconut milk

Budbud is the Visayan name for sticky rice rolls steamed in banana leaf, and the famous kabog version from Tanjay, Negros Oriental, uses millet instead of rice. The millet is cooked thick in coconut milk and sugar, rolled into banana leaves and steamed until it sets into a soft, slightly grainy log. In Dumaguete it is breakfast with ripe mango and a cup of tablea hot chocolate. Chef's tip: wilt the banana leaves briefly over a flame or in hot water so they fold without splitting.

70 min

Filipino Desserts

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Buddha's delight (luohan zhai)Braised mushrooms, tofu and vegetables

Luohan zhai is the vegetarian dish of Chinese Buddhist temples, and many families cook it on the first day of the Lunar New Year, when eating meat is traditionally avoided. Recipes vary from house to house, but most combine dried shiitake, wood ear fungus, tofu puffs, tofu skin, napa cabbage and glass noodles, braised in one pot in a light, savoury sauce. It's light, colourful and full of different textures. Chef's tip: keep the shiitake soaking water; strained, it makes the base of the sauce and gives far more flavour than stock.

40 min

Chinese Vegetarian

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Buko pieYoung coconut pie

Drive the old highway through Los Baños and Calauan in Laguna and roadside shops sell buko pie in white boxes by the stack, warm from the oven. The filling is tender strips of young coconut set in a creamy custard made with the coconut's own water and milk, sealed in a short, buttery crust. It is a pasalubong, a gift you bring back for people at home. Chef's tip: use only the soft, spoonable flesh of young coconuts; hard mature coconut turns the filling chewy.

85 min

Filipino Baking

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Bun bo HueSpicy beef noodle soup

Huế, once the seat of Vietnam's emperors, is known for food that is spicier and bolder than in the north or south, and this soup is the city's breakfast. Compared with pho it is louder in every way: the broth smells of lemongrass and fermented shrimp, it glows red with chilli oil, and the noodles are thick and round. Beef shank and slices of pork hock go in every bowl, often with pork roll, and it comes with a plate of mint, banana blossom and bean sprouts. Locals add pig's blood cubes too, which we leave out here. Chef's tip: bruise the lemongrass stalks hard with a rolling pin before they go in, so their oils flood the broth.

180 min

Vietnamese Soups

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Bun kebabSpiced lentil and potato patty in a bun

Bun kebab is Karachi's own street burger, sold from carts on Burns Road and outside colleges from late afternoon into the night, each one fried to order on a huge flat tawa. The vegetarian version is the oldest: a soft patty of chana dal and potato spiced with cumin and chilli, dipped in beaten egg so it gets a lacy, golden coat, then tucked into a buttered bun with tangy tamarind chutney, green chutney, onion rings and shredded cabbage. It is messy, cheap and loved by children and grown-ups alike. Most people make the mixture too wet, and the patties fall apart in the egg; mash the dal and potato while dry and steamy, not with their cooking water. Chef's tip: toast the buns cut side down on the same tawa after the patties, so they pick up the spiced egg and butter.

40 min

Pakistani Fast Food

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Buttermilk rusks (beskuit)Twice-baked buttermilk rusks

Beskuit grew out of the Voortrekker need for bread that kept on long ox-wagon journeys; today a tin of rusks sits next to the kettle in homes from the Karoo to Pretoria, and they are dunked in early-morning coffee or rooibos. A soft buttermilk dough is baked as a loaf, cut into fingers and then dried in a low oven for hours until rock hard and crunchy. Chef's tip: dry the rusks slowly at a very low heat with the oven door slightly open; they should dry out completely, not brown further.

300 min

South African Baking

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BuuzSteamed mutton dumplings

Buuz are the dumplings every Mongolian family makes in their hundreds before Tsagaan Sar, the Lunar New Year, in Ulaanbaatar flats and countryside gers alike, freezing them outside in the cold to steam for the stream of visitors. A simple dough wraps a juicy filling of chopped mutton, onion, garlic and caraway, pinched into a pleated shape with a small hole at the top, and the dumplings are eaten hot, with salty milk tea. The mistake is lean meat: buuz need some fat, or the filling is dry. Chef's tip: add a few spoons of cold water to the filling so it stays juicy when steamed.

115 min

Mongolian Snacks & Starters

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Cabbage thoranCabbage and coconut stir-fry

Thoran is the everyday dry vegetable of Kerala, on the lunch plate in nearly every home and in the steel tiffin boxes carried to offices from Thiruvananthapuram to Kannur. Cabbage is the classic choice: shredded fine, steamed in its own juices with mustard and curry leaves, then tossed with coconut that has been crushed (never ground smooth) with green chilli, garlic and cumin. It comes out sweet, fluffy and lightly crunchy. Serve it with rice, sambar or moru curry, or eat it with chapati. Chef's tip: shred the cabbage as finely as you can; thin shreds cook in their own steam in a few minutes and stay bright.

22 min

Indian Sides

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CachapasSweet corn pancakes with cheese

Cachapas are the roadside breakfast of Venezuela; along the highways of Aragua and Carabobo, stands called cachaperas grill them on big iron plates from early morning. They are thick, slightly lumpy pancakes made from fresh blended sweetcorn, sweet and savoury at once, folded over a slab of soft, stretchy white cheese (queso de mano) that melts with the heat. Mozzarella works well outside Venezuela. Chef's tip: keep a few whole kernels in the batter; the little bursts of corn are part of a real cachapa.

30 min

Venezuelan Breakfast & Brunch

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Café cubanoSweet Cuban espresso

Café cubano, or cafecito, is the tiny, intensely sweet coffee poured into thimble-sized cups at every ventanita (walk-up window) in Miami and in homes across Cuba, often shared around the office at 3 o'clock. The secret is the espumita: the first few drops of coffee beaten hard with sugar into a pale caramel-coloured cream that floats on top. You need a stovetop moka pot. Chef's tip: catch only the very first, strongest drops for the foam; if you add too much coffee the sugar won't whip up.

7 min

Cuban Drinks

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