Featured recipe

Mantı

Beef dumplings with garlic yogurt

Kayseri, in central Anatolia, is famous across Turkey for mantı so small that, by local saying, forty should fit on one spoon. Families make big batches together on winter afternoons, rolling the dough thin and pinching each square around a pea of spiced minced meat, and the dumplings were traditionally part of a bride's test in the kitchen. They are boiled and served under garlicky yogurt, then drenched in butter sizzled with red pepper. Chef's tip: make a double batch and freeze the uncooked dumplings on a floured tray; they cook from frozen in about 2 minutes extra.

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10 min

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25 min

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40 minEast African Fast Food

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75 min

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Chingri malaikariPrawns in coconut milk curry

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45 min

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Chinese tawa potatoesSoy and chilli potato chips

An Indo-Chinese favourite from the barbecue tawa: crisp fried potato chips tossed with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, ketchup and plenty of chillies and spring onion, then glazed with a little cornflour sauce. Sticky, salty and hot. Serve straight away as a starter.

40 minFusion Snacks & Starters

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ZapiekankaOpen baguette with mushrooms and cheese

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20 min

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17 min

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Beyaynetu (fasting platter)Fasting platter of vegan stews

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90 min

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50 min

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25 min

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30 min

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50 min

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Zunda mochiRice dumplings with edamame paste

Zunda is Sendai's signature sweet: young green soybeans mashed with sugar into a coarse, pale-green paste. Farmers in Miyagi made it at the end of summer, when edamame were at their best, and it is still sold everywhere from Sendai station's souvenir halls to small tea shops, now also as zunda shakes and rolls. The flavour is gentle, beany and fresh, closer to sweet peas than to red bean paste. Spoon it over warm, chewy rice dumplings and serve with green tea. Chef's tip: rub the skins off the cooked beans. It takes ten minutes but turns the paste from dull khaki to a vivid jade colour.

35 min

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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

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