What to eat today?

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KısırBulgur salad with pepper paste

Kısır comes from southeastern Turkey but is now the dish women across the country bring to 'altın günü', the afternoon gatherings where friends meet at each other's homes over tea. Fine bulgur is softened with hot water and kneaded with tomato and pepper paste until rosy, then mixed with spring onion, parsley, mint, lemon and pomegranate molasses. It is served at room temperature, often wrapped in crisp lettuce leaves. The typical mistake is pouring in too much water, which turns the bulgur mushy; use just enough to cover. Chef's tip: knead the pastes into the warm bulgur with your hands for a full minute so every grain turns red and the flavour goes right through.

25 min

Turkish Salads

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Nanjing salted duck

Nanjing people are said to eat more duck than anyone in China, and this cold, pale salted duck is the one bought by the half from neighbourhood shops for the dinner table, especially around the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the ducks are plumpest. It is cured in pepper salt, brined, then poached at a bare simmer so the skin stays white and smooth, the fat turns clear and the meat is pink-tinged, moist and savoury. Serve it chilled, chopped into pieces, with rice or as part of a cold platter. Start a day ahead, as the duck needs 12 hours of curing and brining in the fridge on top of the cooking time. Chef's tip: toast the salt and Sichuan pepper together until fragrant; the warm, numbing aroma is what makes it taste of Nanjing.

240 min

Sudanese Breads & Parathas

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Hong Kong egg tarts

Daan taat are the pride of Hong Kong bakeries and cha chaan teng, where they come out of the oven several times a day and are eaten warm with a glass of milk tea. Unlike Portuguese tarts, the custard stays smooth, glossy and bright yellow with no scorched top, and this version uses a buttery shortcrust (lard is traditional in some bakeries; we use only butter). Chef's tip: strain the custard twice and skim off every bubble; that's what gives the mirror-smooth surface.

60 min

Chinese Baking

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KisraFermented sorghum flatbread

Kisra (kisra rahifa) is the daily bread of northern and central Sudan: a sorghum batter left to sour for a day, then wiped across a very hot iron plate in a single sweep so it cooks into a lacy sheet as thin as paper. In homes it is made early each morning and stacked in folded layers to eat with mullah stews, especially during Ramadan. A wide crêpe pan and a plastic scraper or spatula work at home. Chef's tip: the pan must be hot enough that the batter sets the moment it touches; if it is too cool the sheet sticks and tears.

45 min

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Squirrel-shaped mandarin fish

The showpiece of Suzhou banquets, this fish is deboned, scored into a deep criss-cross and fried so the flesh fans out into spikes; with its tail curled up, someone once decided it looked like a squirrel. The sauce poured over it at the table crackles as it hits the crisp edges, sweet and tangy with tomato and vinegar. Mandarin fish is hard to find outside China, so sea bass is the practical choice. Serve as the centrepiece with rice and a few simple vegetables. Chef's tip: work starch into every cut with your fingers and shake off the excess; any bare patch fries soggy and the spikes collapse.

60 min

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Beggar's chicken

Legend has a hungry beggar near Hangzhou wrapping a stolen chicken in mud and burying it in the embers; restaurants in Hangzhou and Changshu still crack open the crust at the table for a bit of theatre. This home version swaps the mud for a salt-and-flour dough, so it bakes in an ordinary oven. Inside two lotus leaves, the bird steams in its own juices with pork, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, so the meat is fall-apart tender and smells of the leaves. Make it for a special dinner and serve with rice and greens. Chef's tip: the crust is only an oven, not something to eat; seal every crack with a scrap of dough so the steam stays in.

240 min

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KitfoSpiced minced beef

Kitfo comes from the Gurage people south-west of Addis Ababa, and it is the dish Ethiopians order at special kitfo houses or make for Meskel, the September feast of the True Cross. Lean beef is finely minced and stirred with warm spiced butter and mitmita, a hot chilli and cardamom powder. In Ethiopia it is often eaten raw (tire) or barely warmed (leb leb), but raw or lightly warmed minced beef is not safe for home cooks: this version is cooked to 71 °C, which keeps the buttery, fiery flavour with a soft, crumbly texture. Serve with ayib, braised greens and injera or kocho. Chef's tip: mince the beef yourself from a single lean cut if you can, and keep it fridge-cold until the moment it goes into the pan.

30 min

Ethiopian Meat

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Longjing shrimp

Spring in Hangzhou means new-season Longjing tea from the hills west of the city, and restaurants celebrate it by tossing tiny, pearly river shrimp with the tender tea leaves and a splash of their brew. The result is very delicate: sweet, springy shrimp, a faint grassy and chestnut aroma from the tea, and no heavy sauce at all. It is usually one dish among several at a family meal, eaten with rice. Small raw prawns are the easiest home swap for river shrimp. Chef's tip: brew the tea with water at about 80 °C, never straight from the boil, which makes the leaves bitter.

20 min

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West Lake vinegar fish

Hangzhou restaurants by West Lake have served this for generations, traditionally with grass carp kept in clean water for a day or two before cooking. The fish is not fried at all: it is butterflied, poached for a few minutes, and coated with a shiny, dark sauce of black vinegar and sugar that tastes sharp first and sweet after. The flesh should be tender enough to fall from the bone at a touch. Carp, sea bass or a thick white fish fillet all work at home. Eat it with rice and a simple stir-fried green vegetable. Chef's tip: thicken the sauce at the last moment and pour it straight over; left to sit, it turns gluey.

40 min

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Tomato and egg stir-fry

Fan qie chao dan is the dish students across China cook in their first flat, and it appears at family meals in every province. Soft curds of egg and slumped tomatoes make a sweet-sour, slightly saucy stir-fry that is wonderful spooned over rice. Some families make it drier, others soupier; this version has just enough sauce to soak the rice. Chef's tip: cook the eggs first and take them out while still glossy; they finish in the tomato sauce and stay tender.

15 min

Chinese Vegetarian

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Lion's head meatballs

Cooks in Yangzhou say the shaggy meatball looks like a lion's head and the cabbage leaves around it like a mane. The Jiangsu way is the clear braise: no frying, just a slow simmer in stock until the meatballs are so tender that you eat them with a spoon, while the cabbage drinks up the pork juices. They appear at family reunions and at Chinese New Year, where the round shape stands for togetherness. Everything cooks in one pot; serve the meatballs in their broth with rice. Chef's tip: chop some of the pork belly by hand if you can, or ask for coarse mince; a fine, lean mince gives a dense, bouncy ball rather than a soft one.

75 min

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Dongpo pork

Named after the Song dynasty poet Su Dongpo, who governed Hangzhou, these neat squares of pork belly are a fixture of the city's restaurants around West Lake and of New Year banquet tables across Zhejiang. Cooked for hours in Shaoxing wine with soy and rock sugar, the fat turns soft and wobbly, the lean melts apart, and the skin goes glossy and mahogany. Each guest usually gets one square, eaten with plain rice and a green vegetable to cut the richness. The traditional braise uses only wine and no water; if you avoid alcohol, use the stock-and-vinegar version in the ingredient note, which is just as tender, though less fragrant. Chef's tip: tie each square with kitchen string before braising so it keeps its shape for serving.

150 min

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KladdkakaSticky chocolate cake

Kladdkaka, literally 'sticky cake', is the chocolate cake Swedish teenagers learn to make first, because it needs one pan, no mixer and no raising agent. The outside bakes to a thin, crackly crust while the centre stays fudgy and almost molten, somewhere between a brownie and a chocolate pudding. In Sweden it turns up at birthday parties, after Friday tacos and at summer cottages, cut into wedges and served with lightly whipped cream and a few raspberries or lingonberries. Cocoa, not bar chocolate, gives it its classic flavour. Chef's tip: take it out when the middle still wobbles like set jelly; it firms up as it cools and a fully set kladdkaka is just a dry chocolate cake.

28 minScandinavian Baking

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Wenchang chicken

Hainan islanders count Wenchang chicken, from the coastal county of the same name, as the first of their four famous dishes, and no wedding, New Year or welcome-home meal there is complete without it. The small free-range birds are gently poached until the skin is pale gold and slightly jellied and the meat is firm, sweet and full of flavour. The real stars on the island are the dips, not rice: a hot-oil ginger and garlic relish, and a sharp calamansi and chilli sauce. This is the original that Hainanese emigrants turned into chicken rice in Singapore and Malaysia, but in Hainan it is eaten chopped on the bone with a bowl of the poaching broth and plain rice or greens on the side. Chef's tip: choose a small free-range chicken; its firmer meat and thin skin are closest to the Wenchang breed.

60 min

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Buddha jumps over the wall

Legend in Fuzhou says the smell of this soup was so tempting that a monk climbed the monastery wall to taste it, and it is still the grandest dish at Fujian wedding banquets and Lunar New Year. Restaurant versions pack in a dozen expensive dried seafoods; this home version keeps the spirit with chicken, pork ribs, dried scallops, shiitake, taro and quail eggs, and leaves out shark fin and any endangered ingredient entirely. Everything simmers sealed for hours until the broth is golden, rich and lightly sticky, tasting of the sea, mushrooms and rice wine. Serve it in small bowls as the centrepiece of a celebration meal, with plain rice. Chef's tip: seal the pot with foil under the lid and resist peeking; the steam that stays inside is what makes the broth so intense.

240 min

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KleponPandan rice balls with palm sugar

Klepon are the jajan pasar, or market cakes, of Java: sold in the morning from baskets lined with banana leaves, bright green from pandan and dusted with grated coconut. Bite one and a pocket of molten palm sugar floods your mouth, so Javanese eat them whole. Malaysians and Singaporeans know the same sweet as onde-onde, made for festive tea tables, so this page covers both. Chef's tip: seal the balls with no cracks and drop them into gently boiling water — the moment they float, give them one more minute, and the sugar inside will be fully molten.

40 min

Indonesian Desserts

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Lychee pork

Despite the name, no fruit goes into this classic of Fuzhou banquets and family feasts. Lean pork is scored in a fine crosshatch and cut into small pieces that curl into bumpy red balls when fried, looking just like lychees in their shells, while crunchy water chestnuts play the white flesh. The coating is crisp, the sauce glossy, sweet and tangy, and the pork inside stays tender. It is a favourite at Fujian weddings and New Year tables, eaten with steamed rice and a simple green vegetable or clear soup. Chef's tip: score the pork two-thirds of the way through and then cut it into pieces; too shallow and it stays flat, too deep and it falls apart.

45 min

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Fuzhou fish ball soup

Bite carefully: inside every Fuzhou fish ball hides a spoonful of juicy seasoned pork that bursts out with a little hot broth. Sold by street vendors and served in tiny bowls at Fuzhou snack shops, and eaten at New Year because the round balls mean a family together, they are firm and springy outside, never spongy. The paste is beaten by hand with ice-cold water and a little starch until it turns smooth and elastic. Serve the soup as a light lunch or as one bowl in a spread of small dishes, with a dash of vinegar and lots of white pepper. Chef's tip: keep the fish paste really cold from start to finish; warm paste never turns bouncy.

60 min

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Teochew cold crab

Chilled crab sounds strange until you taste it at a Teochew banquet in Chaozhou, where it comes as a cold starter alongside braised goose and marinated seafood. Steaming the crab whole and then chilling it firms the flesh and brings out its natural sweetness, which a plain dish lets you taste clearly; the roe in a female crab turns rich and almost creamy. All it needs is a sharp ginger vinegar to cut through. Serve it as a starter before hot dishes, with crab crackers, small forks and plenty of napkins. Chef's tip: steam it belly side up, so the juices stay inside the shell instead of running out onto the plate. Allow at least 2 hours' chilling on top of the cooking time.

40 min

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Chaozhou braised goose

Walk past a lou mei counter in Chaozhou or Shantou and the glossy brown geese hanging there are the first thing you notice; braised goose is offered at ancestral rites, weddings and New Year, then sliced for everyone at the table. The bird simmers slowly in a master stock of soy, rock sugar, galangal and whole spices until the meat is tender and deeply savoury with a gentle sweetness, while the skin stays smooth and the fat soft. Goose can be hard to find, so goose legs or plump duck legs work well at home. Slice it thinly and serve with plain rice or rice porridge, braised tofu and eggs from the same pot, and the sharp garlic vinegar Teochew people always put alongside. Chef's tip: strain and freeze the stock after use; each time you braise in it again the flavour gets deeper, which is how Chaozhou shops keep a 'master' stock for years.

150 min

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Hakka salt-baked chicken

Hakka families in the Dongjiang river valley of eastern Guangdong are said to have invented this dish by burying chickens in hot salt to cook and keep them while on the move. Wrapped in paper and surrounded by sizzling coarse salt in a wok, the bird cooks in its own juices: the skin turns golden and taut, the meat stays dense and moist, and sand ginger gives it a warm, peppery perfume. It is a celebration dish in Meizhou and Huizhou, served chopped on the bone, at room temperature or warm, with plain rice, blanched greens and a little sand ginger dip. Chef's tip: dry the chicken uncovered in the fridge before wrapping it; wet skin steams instead of roasting and turns flabby.

90 min

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Wonton noodle soup

Small, steamy noodle shops all over Hong Kong sell this bowl from breakfast until late at night, often from a counter facing the street. Plump wontons, mostly prawn with a little pork, sit under a nest of thin, springy egg noodles in a clear, savoury broth fragrant with dried shrimp and ginger. The bowl is small and meant to be eaten fast, before the noodles soften, with a spoonful of chilli oil and a side of blanched greens. Shop wrappers make the wontons manageable on a weeknight. Chef's tip: put the wontons in the bowl first and the noodles on top, as Hong Kong cooks do, so the noodles sit above the broth and keep their bite.

60 min

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Cantonese steamed whole fish

Whole fish arrives near the end of every Cantonese banquet and Lunar New Year dinner across Guangdong, because the word for fish sounds like 'surplus'. At home it is one of the quickest dishes on the table: the fish is steamed plainly over ginger, then showered with shredded spring onion and a hiss of smoking oil, and finished with a light, slightly sweet soy dressing. Done right, the flesh is silky and just slips off the bone. Serve it in the middle of the table with steamed rice and stir-fried greens, letting everyone pick from the fish. Chef's tip: lay two chopsticks under the fish on the plate so steam circulates underneath and it cooks evenly.

25 min

Chinese Snacks & Starters

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Har gowPrawn dumplings

No basket at a Guangzhou yum cha is judged more harshly than the har gow: a dim sum chef is said to prove themselves by folding ten or more pleats into each one. The wrapper is made from wheat starch and tapioca, so it steams clear and slightly chewy, showing the pink prawns inside; the filling is snappy, sweet and lightly seasoned with sesame and bamboo shoot. They take patience rather than special skill, and a batch made on a weekend morning feels like a trip to a teahouse. Serve them straight from the steamer with jasmine or pu'er tea and a little chilli oil on the side. Chef's tip: roll each wrapper only when you are ready to fill it, because the thin starch dough dries and cracks within minutes.

75 min

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Yunnan steam-pot chicken

In the old town of Jianshui in southern Yunnan, potters still make the purple clay qiguo, a lidded pot with a chimney rising through its centre. Set over boiling water, it lets steam rise into the pot, where it meets the chicken, condenses and drips back as a pure, golden broth, with no water added at all. After three hours the meat falls from the bone and the soup tastes intensely of chicken and ginger, clean and restorative; in Kunming it is the dish for guests, for convalescents and for winter weekends. Serve the broth in small bowls first, then the chicken with rice and a chilli dip. Chef's tip: if you don't own a steam pot, a heatproof bowl covered with a plate in a steamer works well; it just needs a small splash of water to start the broth.

180 min

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Koba akondroBanana, rice and peanut parcels

Koba is the street sweet of Madagascar's highlands, sold in thick slices from huge logs wrapped in banana leaves at markets and taxi-brousse stops around Antananarivo and Antsirabe. Koba ravina is a dense block of ground peanuts, rice flour and brown sugar; koba akondro adds ripe banana and is softer. This home version makes small parcels that steam in an hour and a half instead of a whole day. Chef's tip: wrap the parcels tightly; loose parcels let water in and the koba turns sticky instead of firm.

120 min

Malagasy Desserts

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Guilin rice noodles

Guilin, among the karst peaks of Guangxi, starts its day with mifen: round, slippery rice noodles that are not served in soup at all but tossed with a few ladles of lu shui, the dark, spiced braising liquid in which the beef was cooked. On top go thin slices of that beef, crunchy fried peanuts, sour pickled beans and bamboo shoots, chilli and spring onion; you stir it all together and, if you like, add a splash of hot broth at the end. Street shops in the city serve it fast and cheap from breakfast till late. The flavour is savoury, sweet-spiced and sour, with crunch in every mouthful. Chef's tip: make the braised beef the day before and chill it in its liquid; cold beef can be sliced paper-thin, which is how Guilin cooks serve it.

70 min

Chinese Pasta & Noodles

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Guizhou sour fish soup

For the Miao people around Kaili in south-east Guizhou, a pot of sour soup is the heart of a meal, served in a wide pot over a burner with everyone dipping in. Their famous red sour soup is made by fermenting wild tomatoes with chillies for weeks, and it gives the broth a bright, tangy, lightly spicy taste that is fruity rather than vinegary. Chunks of fresh river fish, tofu and bean sprouts simmer in it until tender, and each piece is dunked in a little dish of chilli and herbs before eating. This home version gets close with very ripe tomatoes, fermented chillies and a splash of rice vinegar. Eat it with rice on a cold evening. Chef's tip: cook the tomatoes until they completely collapse into a thick red paste before you add any water; that is where the colour and the deep sourness come from.

60 min

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Hunan cured pork with garlic shoots

Every winter, Hunan households hang strips of salted pork belly over a wood fire until they turn dark and smoky, and this quick stir-fry is the most common way to eat them through the cold months. Thin slices of the cured belly are fried until the fat turns clear and the edges crisp, then tossed with green garlic shoots, which turn sweet and tender and soak up the smoky fat, plus fresh chilli and fermented black beans for a salty, spicy kick. It is a plain everyday dish that sits beside rice on a farmhouse table. Serve it with steamed rice and a light soup. Chef's tip: simmer the cured pork before slicing; it softens the meat and draws out some of the salt, so the finished dish is savoury rather than harsh.

20 min

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Smashed cucumber salad (pai huang gua)

Pai huang gua turns up on tables from Beijing to Guangzhou, often the first dish to land at a summer meal because it takes ten minutes and cools the mouth between spicy bites. Smashing the cucumbers rather than slicing them cracks them into rough pieces that soak up dressing in minutes. It goes with any stir-fry, noodles or dumplings. Chef's tip: salt the smashed pieces for 10 minutes and pour off the water, otherwise the dressing is diluted to nothing by the time you sit down.

10 min

Chinese Salads

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Hunan steamed fish head with chopped chillies

Walk into almost any restaurant in Changsha and a split fish head blanketed in scarlet chopped chillies will be on the table next to you. The chillies are salted and fermented, so they taste bright, sour and fruity as well as hot, and the steam carries their juices into the sweet, soft fish beneath; the meaty cheeks and the jelly-like flesh around the head are the prized parts. A last drizzle of smoking oil wakes it all up. When the fish is gone, Hunanese diners tip plain noodles into the leftover juices, and so should you. Chef's tip: buy the head from a fishmonger who has just cut it, with clear eyes and bright red gills; if that's hard to find, thick bone-in fish steaks work just as well.

35 min

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Chairman Mao's red braised pork

Restaurants in Shaoshan, Mao Zedong's home village in Hunan, all put this pork on the menu because it was said to be his favourite food. What sets the Hunan way apart from the soy-dark braises of Shanghai is that the deep mahogany colour comes from caramelised sugar alone, with dried chillies and warm spices in the pot, so the sauce tastes cleaner and slightly smoky. After an hour of gentle simmering the cubes of belly are wobbly and melting under a sticky, sweet-salty glaze. It is celebration food at Hunan family dinners, eaten with steamed rice and a sharp stir-fried green vegetable to cut the richness. Chef's tip: dry the blanched pork well before it meets the caramel, so it doesn't spit, and stop the caramel at the colour of strong tea; a few seconds longer and it turns bitter.

90 min

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Dan dan noodles with mushroom and tofu crumble

Dan dan mian is named after the shoulder pole (dan) that Chengdu hawkers once used to carry their noodles and sauces through the streets. A proper bowl is small and intense: springy wheat noodles over a puddle of sesame paste, chilli oil and soy, topped with a crunchy, salty crumble and blanched greens. The crumble here is mushroom and tofu fried with preserved ya cai until crisp. Mix everything from the bottom before eating. Chef's tip: loosen the sesame paste with a little of the hot noodle water so it coats every strand instead of clumping.

25 min

Chinese Pasta & Noodles

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Mala crayfish

On summer nights the pavements of Changsha and Wuhan fill with folding tables, plastic gloves and mountains of glossy red crayfish, the season's great shared feast from May to August. Each little shell is sucked for its spicy sauce before you twist off the tail for a sweet, firm bite of meat; the sauce is hot from chillies and bean paste, numbing from Sichuan pepper and rounded out with garlic and a bottle of lager. Large shell-on prawns make an easy swap if you can't buy live crayfish. Serve with cold drinks, cucumber, steamed buns or rice to mop up the sauce, and lots of napkins. Chef's tip: once the crayfish turn red, simmer them for no more than 8 minutes; longer and the tail meat goes mushy and comes away in shreds.

50 min