Featured recipe

Repolho refogado

Sautéed cabbage

Cheap, quick and good with everything, this pan of fine-shredded cabbage is a weekday staple in Brazilian homes and the self-service lunch spots of São Paulo and Rio. It's fried with garlic and onion just long enough to turn sweet and glossy while keeping a little crunch, then brightened with a splash of vinegar. Many families add bacon; this version is vegan. Chef's tip: shred the cabbage as finely as you can; thin ribbons cook evenly in minutes.

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Mote con huesilloPeach and wheat drink

Mote con huesillo is Chile's summer refresher, sold in tall glasses from street carts on Santiago's Cerro San Cristóbal and at beaches up and down the coast. Huesillos are whole sun-dried peaches, soaked and simmered in a cinnamon caramel syrup; mote is husked wheat cooked until chewy. You drink the cold amber nectar and eat the wheat and peach with a long spoon. Chef's tip: soak the peaches overnight and cook them in their soaking water; that water carries much of the peach flavour.

65 min

Chilean Drinks

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Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts

This is the dessert Greek tavernas bring out on the house at the end of a meal, and a common breakfast in homes and hotels from Crete to Corfu. Thick strained yogurt, ideally the sheep's-milk kind with a skin on top, is drizzled with dark thyme honey and scattered with walnuts. Simple as it is, the details matter: rich yogurt, good honey and nuts toasted just before serving. Add fresh figs or a spoon of quince preserve if you have them. Chef's tip: warm the honey for a few seconds so it runs in ribbons; cold honey is the common mistake and just sits in a blob.

8 min

Greek Desserts

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KopiCoffee with condensed milk

Kopi is the strong, thick coffee poured from long-spouted pots at kopitiams all over Singapore. The beans are dark-roasted with sugar and margarine, which gives a bittersweet, almost chocolatey brew, and the classic cup is sweetened with condensed milk. Order it like a local: kopi-o is black with sugar, kopi-c has evaporated milk, and kopi peng is iced. At home, a dark-roast robusta or espresso blend in a cloth sock or cafetière gets close. Chef's tip: pour the coffee back and forth between two jugs a few times; it cools slightly, aerates and gets the smooth, frothy kopitiam texture.

7 min

Singaporean Drinks

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Taiwanese beef noodle soup

Taiwan treats beef noodle soup as a national dish, and Taipei even holds an annual festival where noodle shops compete for the best bowl. The red-braised style is the classic: beef shank simmers for hours with chilli bean paste, soy, star anise, ginger and tomato until it is meltingly tender, then the rich broth is poured over thick wheat noodles with blanched greens and pickled mustard greens. The braise uses Shaoxing rice wine, which contains alcohol; for an alcohol-free version use extra stock with 1 tsp rice vinegar. Chef's tip: blanch the beef first and rinse it; this gives a clear, clean-tasting broth.

210 min

Taiwanese Soups

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Chicken Kyiv

Chicken Kyiv, kotleta po-kyivsky, became the pride of the restaurants of Kyiv in the 20th century, and the city still serves it with a little paper frill on the bone and a fountain of herb butter when it is cut. A flattened chicken breast is rolled around a frozen stick of garlic, dill and parsley butter, double-crumbed to seal it, then fried and finished in the oven. Serve with mash or fried potatoes and a green salad. Chef's tip: freeze the butter until rock hard and seal every edge with two coats of egg and crumbs; that is what stops it from leaking.

80 min

Ukrainian Chicken

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Smoked salmon on brown wheaten bread

Irish smoked salmon, bradán deataithe, comes from smokehouses along the west coast in Connemara and Cork, and a plate of it on buttered brown wheaten bread is a classic starter at weddings and Christmas, and a light lunch in country hotels. The bread is a quick wholemeal soda bread made with buttermilk and no yeast, nutty and slightly sweet. Serve with lemon, capers and red onion. Cold-smoked salmon is not cooked, so pregnant people and anyone with low immunity should avoid it or use hot-smoked salmon instead. Chef's tip: cut the bread only when it has cooled completely; warm soda bread squashes and turns gummy.

60 min

Irish Fish

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Koraishutir kochuriGreen pea stuffed puris

Koraishutir kochuri is a winter treat in Kolkata and across West Bengal, made when sweet new-season peas arrive in the markets. Soft maida dough is filled with a smooth, gingery green pea paste, rolled thin and fried until it puffs into a pale golden pillow with a green blush showing through. It's a Sunday breakfast or a festive snack, classically served with aloor dom (Bengali spiced potatoes) or cholar dal and a sweet to finish. Chef's tip: cook the pea paste until it's dry enough to roll into a ball that doesn't stick to your fingers; a wet filling tears through the thin dough as you roll.

60 min

Indian Breads & Parathas

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Irish seafood chowder

Along Ireland's west coast, from Galway Bay to the harbours of Kerry and West Cork, nearly every pub kitchen has its own seafood chowder, served with a thick slice of brown bread and butter. It is chunkier and smokier than the American kind: fresh mussels, a piece of smoked haddock or coley, salmon and white fish poached in a creamy base with leek, celery and potato, finished with dill. Chef's tip: add the fish in order of cooking time and take the pot off the heat as soon as it is just done; it keeps cooking in the hot soup.

55 min

Irish Soups

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Irish stout beef stew

In pubs across Ireland, and in plenty of homes on a wet Sunday, beef stewed in dark stout is the dish that arrives with mash or a slab of brown bread. The stout (it contains alcohol, most of which cooks off but not all) gives the gravy a deep, slightly bitter malt flavour that a spoon of brown sugar balances. For an alcohol-free version use alcohol-free stout, or the same volume of extra beef stock with 1 tablespoon of black treacle. Chef's tip: brown the beef properly in batches; the dark crust on the meat is half the flavour of the gravy.

190 min

Irish Meat

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Dublin coddle

Coddle is Dublin's own dish, a Saturday-night pot from the city's old working-class neighbourhoods that would sit on a low heat until people came home. It is a pork dish: thick pork sausages and back bacon, with layers of onion and potato, gently stewed in stock so everything turns soft and savoury. Many Dublin families still make it on Saturdays. Serve with brown soda bread to mop up the broth. Chef's tip: brown the sausages first; the traditional pale coddle is authentic, but a little colour adds a lot of flavour.

95 min

Irish Meat

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KosambariMoong dal and cucumber salad

No Karnataka festival lunch on a banana leaf is complete without a spoonful of kosambari at the top left corner. This raw salad of soaked split moong dal, cucumber, carrot and fresh coconut, sharpened with lemon and finished with a mustard-seed tempering, is especially made for Ram Navami, when it is offered in temples with panaka (jaggery water), and for Ugadi and weddings. It is crunchy, cool and refreshing, and packed with protein. Chef's tip: add the salt and lemon only just before serving; salted cucumber weeps water and turns the salad soggy within half an hour.

17 min

Indian Salads

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Lancashire hotpot

Lancashire hotpot was the slow supper of the cotton-mill towns of north-west England, left in a low oven while families worked long shifts, and it is still served in pubs and homes around Bolton and Preston with pickled red cabbage on the side. Chunks of lamb neck and lots of onion cook slowly in stock beneath overlapping slices of potato that turn golden and crisp on top and soft underneath. Chef's tip: brush the top layer with melted butter and take the lid off for the last 40 minutes; that is how the potatoes crisp.

180 min

British Meat

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Kosha mangshoSlow-fried mutton curry

Sunday lunch in a Bengali home in Kolkata often means kosha mangsho: goat on the bone, fried patiently in mustard oil until the masala turns almost mahogany and clings to every piece. The word 'kosha' describes that long stirring over the heat, and it is what separates this dish from an ordinary mutton curry. Families eat it with luchi or plain rice, and it also turns up at Durga Puja feasts and wedding dinners. Chef's tip: buy bone-in goat or mutton shoulder cut into curry pieces; the bones and a little fat give the gravy its body.

135 min

Indian Meat

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KoshariRice, lentil and pasta bowl

Koshari is the dish of Cairo's streets: whole shops, from Abou Tarek downtown to small corner counters, sell nothing else, and office workers queue for a metal bowl of it at lunchtime. Brown lentils and rice are cooked together, then piled with macaroni, vermicelli and chickpeas, drowned in a sharp cumin-tomato sauce and finished with dakka (garlic vinegar), shatta (chilli sauce) and a heap of dark fried onions. It is cheap, filling and naturally vegan, and every Egyptian eats it differently, so put the sauces on the table. Chef's tip: fry the onions first and cook everything else in their oil; that onion-scented oil is what makes koshari taste like the shops' and not like a plate of separate leftovers.

75 min

Egyptian Rice & Grains

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Kothimbir vadiCoriander and gram flour fritters

When the winter coriander in the Nashik markets comes in huge, fragrant bunches for a few rupees, Maharashtrian kitchens make kothimbir vadi. A batter that is mostly fresh coriander, held together with gram flour and sesame, is steamed into a cake, cut into squares, then shallow-fried until each piece has a crunchy shell and a soft, herby middle. It's a tea-time snack in Pune homes, a side on the festive thali and a favourite in tiffin boxes because it's good at room temperature. Serve with green chutney or tomato ketchup. Chef's tip: dry the coriander well after washing; wet leaves make the batter loose and the vadi soggy.

55 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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Cornish pasty

The Cornish pasty fed tin miners and fishermen in Cornwall for centuries, its thick crimped edge a handle for dirty hands, and today bakeries from Penzance to St Ives sell them warm all day. The filling goes into the pastry raw: thinly sliced beef skirt, potato, swede and onion, seasoned only with salt and plenty of pepper, so everything steams in its own juices inside the crust. Chef's tip: slice the vegetables thinly and evenly, not in cubes; thin pieces cook through in the same time as the beef.

100 min

British Baking

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Kotlet schabowyBreaded pork cutlet

Kotlet schabowy is the Polish Sunday dinner, served in homes and milk bars from Warsaw to Wrocław, usually with buttery dill potatoes and mizeria (cucumber in soured cream) or braised cabbage. It is a pork dish: slices of boneless pork loin are pounded thin, dipped in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fried in lard or oil until crisp and golden. Chef's tip: pound the meat between sheets of cling film to an even 5 mm; even thickness means the coating browns just as the meat is done.

35 min

Polish Meat

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KotletyPan-fried meat patties

Kotlety are what a Russian grandmother makes on an ordinary Tuesday and what Soviet school canteens served at lunch: soft, oval patties of minced pork and beef, fried golden and finished with a splash of water under a lid. They contain pork. Bread soaked in milk is the secret to their tenderness; the patties stay juicy enough to eat cold the next day in a sandwich. Serve them with mashed potato or buckwheat (grechka), a few pickles and a spoon of the pan juices. The mistake most people make is leaving out the soaked bread or using breadcrumbs instead, which gives dense, dry burgers rather than kotlety. Chef's tip: wet your hands with cold water before shaping each patty, so the soft mince doesn't stick and the surface stays smooth.

45 min

Russian Meat

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Mirchi ka salanGreen chillies in peanut sesame sauce

Mirchi ka salan comes from Hyderabad, where it's the classic partner for biryani at weddings and Sunday lunches. Fat, mild green chillies are fried until blistered, then simmered in a nutty gravy of roasted peanuts, sesame and dried coconut, soured with tamarind. The result is rich, tangy and only gently hot, with the chillies giving a fresh, grassy bite. It also tastes very good with plain rice, jeera rice or parathas and is even better the next day. Chef's tip: roast the peanuts, sesame and coconut separately and slowly; each browns at its own pace, and one scorched spoonful of sesame turns the whole gravy bitter.

45 min

Indian Curries

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Halloumi with watermelon

In Cyprus, halloumi and watermelon is the taste of an August afternoon: icy wedges of watermelon eaten alongside salty halloumi, either fresh and squeaky or grilled until golden. Cypriots have eaten the two together for generations, on beaches, village verandas and after a long lunch. Here the halloumi is seared, then tossed with chunks of cold watermelon, mint, red onion and lime. It is a starter, a light lunch or a side for any barbecue. Some halloumi is made with animal rennet, so look for one labelled vegetarian. Chef's tip: don't cook the halloumi until everyone is ready to eat; it turns rubbery as it cools, which is the most common halloumi mistake.

10 min

Greek Salads

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Mirchi vadaPotato-stuffed chilli fritters

In Jodhpur, the day often begins at a roadside kadhai: huge, mild green chillies stuffed with spiced potato, coated in gram-flour batter and fried until golden and blistered, then eaten hot with sweet milky chai. Stalls near the Clock Tower and Sardar Market make them all day, and during the monsoon the queues grow longer. The chilli adds a fresh, green bite more than heat, and the filling is tangy with amchur and fennel. A common mistake is frying in oil that is not hot enough, which makes the batter heavy and oily. Chef's tip: fry each vada once until pale gold, rest it for a few minutes, then fry it again for 1 minute just before serving—this is the stall trick for a crust that stays crisp.

50 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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Swedish meatballsMeatballs with cream gravy

In Sweden köttbullar turn up everywhere from Stockholm school canteens to the Christmas julbord, and most families keep a bag of homemade ones in the freezer for busy weeknights. These are small, soft and lightly spiced with allspice, made from a mix of beef and pork, so this recipe contains pork. They come to the table in a pale, peppery cream gravy with buttery mashed potato, sharp lingonberry jam and quick pressed cucumber. The usual slip is rolling them too big and packing them tight: they should be the size of a walnut and shaped with wet hands, never squeezed. Chef's tip: soak the breadcrumbs in milk for a full five minutes before mixing in the meat; that panade is what keeps them tender.

65 minScandinavian Meat

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Mirza ghasemiSmoky aubergine with garlic and tomato

Mirza ghasemi comes from Gilan, the green, rainy Caspian province around Rasht, where it is eaten as a starter or a light lunch with bread or rice. Aubergines are charred whole until smoky and soft, then cooked down with a lot of garlic, turmeric and tomato, and finished by stirring in eggs so they set in soft streaks through the purée. It tastes smoky, sweet and garlicky, and is best scooped up with warm flatbread and pickles. Chef's tip: char the aubergines over a gas flame or under a hot grill until the skin is papery and black all over; a pale-skinned aubergine gives no smoke.

45 min

Persian Snacks & Starters

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Misal pavSprouted bean curry with bread rolls

Misal pav is Maharashtra's great street breakfast, eaten from Pune's old eateries to the hot, red misal of Kolhapur. Sprouted moth beans (matki) are cooked into a thick usal, then drowned at the table in a fiery, oily, thin curry called kat or tarri, and topped with crunchy farsan, raw onion, coriander and a squeeze of lemon. It comes with soft pav to mop it all up. Each person builds their own bowl, adding as much tarri as their tongue can take. Chef's tip: let the kat simmer until a red layer of oil floats on top; Pune vendors skim this 'tarri' off and spoon it over each bowl, and that oily, spicy film is the whole point of a good misal.

60 min

Indian Breakfast & Brunch

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Fava (Santorini split pea purée)

On Santorini, fava is made from a tiny yellow split pea that has grown in the island's volcanic soil for thousands of years. Cooked slowly with onion until it collapses, it is whipped with olive oil and lemon into a purée as smooth as hummus but lighter and sweeter. In island tavernas it comes warm, with raw red onion, capers and a puddle of green olive oil, and you scoop it up with bread. Ordinary yellow split peas work well at home. Serve it as a meze or a light meal with salad. Chef's tip: skim off the white foam that rises in the first 10 minutes; leaving it is the common mistake that gives the purée a bitter, grey edge.

60 min

Greek Chutneys & Dips

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Mish-mashScrambled eggs with peppers and cheese

Mish-mash is the quick summer supper of Bulgaria, cooked in every home from Sofia flats to Black Sea holiday villas once the peppers and tomatoes are cheap and ripe. Roasted peppers, onion and tomato are fried down, then sirene and beaten eggs are stirred through until soft and creamy, finished with parsley. The crumbled white brined cheese melting into the eggs is what makes it Bulgarian rather than Turkish menemen. It is eaten straight from the pan with fresh bread, often with a glass of cold beer. Chef's tip: cook the eggs gently and take them off while still a little wet; overcooking is the common mistake, and they turn rubbery and weep water.

25 min

Bulgarian Breakfast & Brunch

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Sunday roast chicken

Sunday lunch across England and Wales means a roast, and a golden chicken is the most common one on family tables, with crisp roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy made in the roasting tin. A lemon and herbs perfume the bird from inside, and a sage-and-onion stuffing is baked alongside so the chicken cooks evenly. The stuffing can include sausage meat (pork) if you like; leave it out for a pork-free roast. Chef's tip: dry the skin with kitchen paper and leave the bird uncovered in the fridge overnight; dry skin is crisp skin.

130 min

British Chicken

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Shepherd's pie

Shepherd's pie comes from the sheep-farming hill country of northern England and Scotland, where Monday's pie once used up Sunday's roast lamb; with minced beef the same dish is called cottage pie. Minced lamb simmers with onion, carrot, a little tomato and Worcestershire sauce into a deep gravy, then hides under a thick layer of buttery mash that browns in the oven. A family supper all over Britain, it is served with peas or buttered cabbage. Chef's tip: rough up the top of the mash with a fork; the ridges catch the heat and turn crunchy.

100 min

British Meat

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Fish and chips

From seaside towns like Whitby and Brighton to every high street chippy in the land, fish and chips wrapped in paper is Britain's Friday-night supper. Thick white fish is dipped in a light, bubbly batter and fried until it shatters, next to chunky chips cooked twice so they are fluffy inside and crisp outside. Serve with mushy peas, malt vinegar, salt and a lemon wedge. The classic batter uses cold beer; for an alcohol-free version use the same amount of ice-cold sparkling water. Chef's tip: mix the batter at the last moment and keep it ice cold; the bigger the temperature difference with the oil, the crisper the crust.

70 min

British Fish

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Toad in the hole

Toad in the hole has been a thrifty family supper across northern England for two centuries, and children still love it for the name as much as the taste. Plump pork sausages are browned in a hot tin, then a simple egg-and-milk batter is poured around them and puffs up into a golden, crisp Yorkshire pudding. It is always served with onion gravy and green vegetables. Chef's tip: the fat must be smoking hot when the batter goes in, and the oven door must stay shut for the first 25 minutes, or the batter will not rise.

60 min

British Meat

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Eggs Benedict

Eggs Benedict belongs to New York, where two Manhattan restaurants still argue over who served it first, and it remains the star of weekend brunch from diners to grand hotels. Toasted English muffins carry warm ham (pork), softly poached eggs and a blanket of buttery, lemony hollandaise. Chef's tip: use the freshest eggs you can get for poaching; their whites hold together instead of spreading into wisps.

30 min

American Breakfast & Brunch

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Tzatziki

Tzatziki is on every Greek table in summer: scooped up with bread at the start of a taverna meal, spooned over fried courgettes and chips, and tucked into pitta wraps. It is cool, thick and sharp with raw garlic, made with strained yogurt so it holds its shape on a spoon. Grated cucumber gives it crunch, a little vinegar lifts it, and olive oil makes it rich. It also goes well with gemista, fritters and grilled halloumi. Chef's tip: salt the grated cucumber and squeeze it dry; leaving the water in is the common mistake that turns tzatziki runny within an hour.

15 min

Greek Chutneys & Dips

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Cobb salad

The Cobb salad was born at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood in the 1930s, and it is still a lunch classic in Los Angeles delis and hotel coffee shops. Rows of chopped chicken, crisp bacon (pork), hard-boiled egg, avocado, tomato and blue cheese sit on crisp lettuce, and everyone mixes them with a sharp red wine vinegar dressing at the table. Chef's tip: chop everything to roughly the same small size so each forkful gets a bit of everything.

45 min

American Salads

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Kouign-amann

Kouign-amann (say 'kween-ah-MAHN', Breton for 'butter cake') was created in the fishing port of Douarnenez in the 1860s, reportedly by a baker who folded butter and sugar into bread dough when flour was short. Today Breton bakeries sell it as a rich treat for afternoon coffee: flaky layers of bread dough with butter and sugar folded through, baked until the sugar melts into a dark, crunchy caramel. This home version makes individual ones in a muffin tin. It takes an afternoon, mostly waiting time. Chef's tip: keep the dough and butter cold between every fold; warm butter is the common mistake and it oozes out, so you lose the layers.

235 min

French Baking

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Smash burger

Diners and drive-ins across the American Midwest have smashed burgers on hot griddles for a century, and the style is now everywhere from food trucks to backyard cookouts. A ball of beef is pressed hard onto a very hot pan so it spreads thin and develops a deep brown, lacy crust, then gets a slice of cheese and goes into a soft toasted bun with pickles and a tangy sauce. Two thin patties per burger is the classic. Chef's tip: smash within the first 30 seconds only; pressing later squeezes out the juice.

25 min

American Fast Food

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Cincinnati chili

Cincinnati, Ohio has hundreds of 'chili parlors', a tradition started by Greek-Macedonian immigrants in the 1920s, and their chili is nothing like the Texan kind. Minced beef is simmered (not browned) in water with tomato and a warm spice mix of cinnamon, allspice, clove, cumin and a little cocoa until it becomes a fine, thin sauce. It is ladled over spaghetti and buried in finely grated cheddar: a 'three-way'. Add onions for a four-way, beans for a five-way. Chef's tip: break the raw mince up in cold water before heating; that gives the signature smooth texture.

135 min

American Pasta & Noodles

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Kroeung (Khmer lemongrass paste)Lemongrass and galangal paste

Almost every Khmer kitchen, from Phnom Penh flats to village houses around Siem Reap, starts the day's cooking by pounding kroeung in a heavy stone mortar. This is the yellow kind, coloured with fresh turmeric and built on lemongrass, galangal, makrut lime leaf, garlic and shallot; it goes into amok, samlor korko, noodle curries and stir-fries. Homemade, it smells brighter and more citrusy than any jar, and a batch keeps for a week in the fridge or months in the freezer. Chef's tip: slice the lemongrass into paper-thin rounds across the grain before it goes near the mortar or blender; long fibres never break down and leave the paste stringy.

15 min

Cambodian Basics

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ShorwaLamb and vegetable soup

Shorwa is the everyday soup of Afghan homes from Kabul to Herat, simmered on winter evenings and during Ramadan, when a bowl of it breaks the fast. Lamb on the bone cooks slowly with onion, tomato, chickpeas and a little turmeric and coriander until the broth turns golden, then potatoes and carrots go in for the last half hour. The family tears naan into their bowls and eats it with fresh mint, onion and green chilli on the side. It is a gentle, clear soup rather than a thick stew. The common mistake is boiling it hard, which makes the broth cloudy and the lamb tough; keep it at a lazy simmer. Chef's tip: skim the broth carefully in the first 10 minutes, as soon as the grey foam rises, for a clean golden shorwa.

130 min

Afghan Soups

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Burmese chicken curry

Burmese curries are cooked the 'see pyan' way, meaning 'oil returns': onion, garlic and ginger are slowly fried with turmeric and paprika until the water cooks away and the oil floats red and clear on top. This chicken curry is the everyday heart of a Yangon or Mandalay meal, set on the table with rice, a sour soup, a salad and fish-sauce-based relishes, and every family eats it on ordinary weeknights. It is mild in chilli but deep in flavour, with fish sauce adding a savoury edge. The common mistake is draining off the oil because it looks like too much; the oil carries the flavour, and you spoon around it when serving. Chef's tip: pound the onion, garlic and ginger to a rough paste rather than blending them smooth, so they fry rather than stew.

65 min

Burmese Curries

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Singapore Hokkien prawn mee

Singapore's Hokkien mee is nothing like the dark, soy-coated noodles of Kuala Lumpur: here yellow egg noodles and thick rice vermicelli are fried with egg, then braised in a cloudy, intensely savoury stock made from prawn heads and shells until the noodles soak it up and stay just wet. Hawkers at Old Airport Road and Geylang serve it with lime and fiery sambal belacan on a square of paper or opeh leaf. It is a late-lunch or supper dish, eaten hot from the wok. Traditional versions use pork belly and pork lard; this one uses prawns and squid only, with vegetable oil. The common mistake is adding all the stock at once, which makes it soupy; add it in two goes and let the noodles drink it. Chef's tip: fry the prawn heads hard until they turn deep orange before adding water; the stock is the whole dish.

65 min

Singaporean Pasta & Noodles

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Black pepper crab

If chilli crab is Singapore's sweet crowd-pleaser, black pepper crab is the one locals often order beside it: dry rather than saucy, sharp with freshly cracked black pepper, rich with butter and with a salty edge from oyster and soy sauce. It was created in the 1950s–60s at the seafood restaurants of Upper Serangoon and East Coast, and is eaten at long family dinners with rice or plain bread to mop the buttery wok juices. Note that this dish contains butter, so it is not dairy free. Buy crabs live or freshly cooked the same day from a fishmonger you trust. Discard any live crab that doesn't move, smells of ammonia or has a cracked, leaking shell. The common mistake is using pre-ground pepper powder, which tastes dusty and burns; crack whole peppercorns coarsely. Chef's tip: toast the cracked pepper in the dry wok for a minute before the butter goes in to wake up its aroma.

45 min

Singaporean Fish

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Louisiana jambalaya

Jambalaya feeds crowds at church fairs and Mardi Gras parties all over south Louisiana, from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. This is the Creole or 'red' style from the city, with tomato in the pot; the Cajun country version leaves it out. Chicken thighs and smoked andouille (a pork sausage) are browned first, then rice cooks in the spiced tomato stock with the holy trinity, and prawns go in at the end. Chef's tip: once the rice is in, resist stirring; just turn it once halfway so the bottom does not catch.

65 min

American Rice & Grains

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KrupnikBarley soup with smoked pork

Krupnik is a thrifty, warming soup from every Polish grandmother's kitchen, from the villages of Podlasie to city milk bars, and it is the soup people make when someone in the house has a cold. Pearl barley (kasza jęczmienna), carrot, celeriac, parsley root and potato simmer in a broth of smoked pork ribs, which gives it a gentle smoky depth; this version contains pork. Dried mushrooms add an earthy note. Chef's tip: rinse the barley well and add it early; it releases starch that gives krupnik its slightly creamy body.

95 min

Polish Soups

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Southern fried chicken

Across Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas, a platter of fried chicken still anchors Sunday dinner after church and every summer family reunion. Bone-in pieces soak overnight in salted, peppery buttermilk, which seasons the meat right through and keeps it juicy, then get a craggy flour coat that fries up deep gold and crackly. Serve hot or at room temperature with coleslaw, biscuits, mashed potatoes or corn on the cob. Chef's tip: let the dredged pieces sit on a rack for 15 minutes before frying so the coating turns slightly pasty; it clings better and makes the crunchiest crust.

65 min

American Chicken

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Cape Malay chicken curry

In Cape Town's Bo-Kaap, the brightly painted quarter under Signal Hill, Cape Malay families cook this curry for Sunday lunch and for Eid. It is gentler than an Indian curry: fragrant with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and fennel, sweetened with dried apricots and a spoon of apricot chutney, and soured with a splash of vinegar and tomato. Potatoes simmer in the sauce with the chicken. Serve it with yellow rice (geelrys), sambals and chutney. A common mistake is adding the potatoes too late, so they stay hard in a finished curry; they go in with the chicken. Chef's tip: let the whole spices sizzle in the oil until the cinnamon unfurls before adding the onion, which builds the sweet perfume of the dish.

70 min

South African Curries

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Kenkey with fried fish and pepper sauce

In Accra and along the Ga coast, kenkey is lunch: balls of fermented corn dough, steamed in dried corn husks, eaten with crisp whole fried fish and a sharp raw pepper sauce. Kenkey takes days to ferment and is sold everywhere ready-made in its husks, so buy it from an African grocer and make the fish and sauce at home. Small whole fish such as tilapia, red snapper or mackerel are scored, seasoned and fried until the skin crackles. The common mistake is moving the fish in the pan too soon; leave it alone until the first side is crisp, or the skin tears and sticks. Chef's tip: dust the fish very lightly with flour after drying it, and it fries crisp without spitting.

50 min

Ghanaian Fish

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Ghanaian light soup with goat

Light soup is the everyday soup of southern Ghana, cooked in Accra and Kumasi homes several times a week and served alongside fufu, omo tuo (rice balls) or banku, with each bite dipped in the hot broth. Goat meat is the favourite, though chicken light soup is just as common: use 1.2 kg of bone-in chicken pieces and cut the simmering time to 35 minutes. Tomatoes, onion, ginger and pepper are boiled whole with the meat, then blended and strained back in, so the soup is clear, bright orange and very peppery but never heavy. The usual mistake is skipping the straining step, which leaves the soup gritty with seeds and skins. Chef's tip: steam the goat in its seasoning with no water for the first 15 minutes; the meat flavours the whole soup from the inside.

115 min

Ghanaian Soups

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Nigerian meat pie

No Nigerian party, from a Lagos wedding to a child's birthday in Abuja, is complete without a tray of meat pies. Rich, crumbly short pastry is folded around a filling of minced beef, diced potato and carrot cooked with thyme and curry powder, crimped with a fork and baked golden. They are just as popular as a bakery snack with a cold drink. A common mistake is filling the pastry with hot or runny filling, which melts the butter and makes soggy pies; cool it and thicken it first. Chef's tip: keep the dough cold, and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes before rolling so the pies stay short and flaky.

90 min

Nigerian Baking

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Nigerian chicken stew

Almost every Nigerian kitchen has a pot of this red stew in the fridge. Lagos households cook a big batch on Saturday and eat it all week over white rice, boiled yam, plantain or beans. Red bell peppers, tomatoes, scotch bonnet and onion are blended and fried in oil for a long time until the raw taste is gone and the oil rises to the top, then browned chicken goes in. The classic mistake is not frying the pepper base long enough; the stew tastes sour and raw if you rush it. Chef's tip: boil the chicken first with seasoning, then fry it before it goes into the stew, and use that seasoned stock in the sauce.

95 min

Nigerian Curries

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Goat meat pepper soup

Pepper soup is what Nigerians order at a bar on a Friday night, what a mother cooks for someone with a cold, and what a host puts out at every naming ceremony. Goat meat on the bone is simmered with pepper soup spice, a blend that usually includes calabash nutmeg (ehuru), alligator pepper and uda pods, plus scotch bonnet and scent leaf, into a thin, fiery, deeply aromatic broth. Catfish pepper soup is the other favourite: add 800 g of catfish steaks for the last 15 minutes instead of the goat. The usual mistake is boiling the goat hard, which makes it tough; it needs a gentle simmer. Chef's tip: toast the whole spices in a dry pan for a minute before grinding, and the broth smells twice as strong.

110 min

Nigerian Soups

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Kuchen de murtaBerry custard tart

Around Lake Llanquihue, in Frutillar and Puerto Varas, German settlers of the 1850s left Chile a love of kuchen, now served with coffee in every café of the south. The Chilean twist is the fruit: murta (Chilean guava), a small, red, perfumed berry that grows wild there in autumn. A buttery base holds the berries in a light custard under a crumble of butter and sugar. Outside Chile, cranberries with a few blueberries give a similar sharp-sweet balance. Chef's tip: blind-bake the base for 10 minutes first; a pre-set base stays crisp under the wet custard.

85 min

Chilean Baking

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Frango piri-piri

Guia, a small inland village in the Algarve, is famous across Portugal for its churrasqueiras, where flattened chickens are grilled over charcoal and painted with fiery piri-piri sauce; families drive out on summer evenings just to eat it. The bird marinates in a blend of small hot chillies, garlic, lemon, paprika and olive oil, then grills until the skin is blistered and the meat juicy. Serve with chips, rice or a tomato salad, and extra sauce for brave diners. Chef's tip: keep back some of the sauce before it touches the chicken; that fresh portion is for basting and the table.

70 min

Portuguese Chicken

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Cebu-style lechon belly

Cebu claims the best lechon in the Philippines, and its whole roast pigs are stuffed with lemongrass, garlic and spring onion so the meat needs no sauce. Lechon belly (lechon belyo) brings that flavour to a home oven: a slab of pork belly is rolled around the same herbs, tied, and roasted slowly, then blasted with heat until the rind turns to crackling. It is the centrepiece for Cebuano fiestas, Christmas and big birthdays, carved at the table and eaten with rice and a little spiced vinegar. Chef's tip: score only the meat side, never the skin, and dry the rind in the fridge overnight; an unbroken, dry skin crackles evenly.

250 min

Filipino Meat

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Cullen skink

Cullen skink takes its name from the fishing village of Cullen on the Moray Firth in north-east Scotland, and it is now served in pubs from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. Undyed smoked haddock is poached in milk, which then becomes the base of a creamy soup with potato, onion and leek; the flaked fish goes back in at the end. Smoky, gentle and filling, it is eaten with oatcakes or crusty bread. Chef's tip: choose pale, undyed smoked haddock; the bright yellow kind is coloured and tastes harsher.

45 min

British Soups

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