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Pepper, beans and fruit salad
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Pepper, beans and fruit salad

A big, bright salad of red, green and yellow peppers, boiled peanuts, sweet corn, grapes, apple and coconut, tossed in a sweet-sour passion fruit and mint dressing. It is very popular at big parties: it looks festive, keeps its crunch and is easy to double. Serve it on a bed of crisp lettuce.

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Dum ka murghSlow-cooked chicken in yogurt and cashews

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Manipuri boraGram flour fritters

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Egg banjo (Indore style)Spicy egg pav

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Egg kejriwalChilli cheese toast with egg

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Batates sandwichFrench fries sandwich

Every foul and ta'meya shop in Cairo also sells sandwich batates, a pocket of baladi bread stuffed with hot, salty fries, and it is one of the cheapest and best late-night bites in the city. In Downtown, around Talaat Harb Square and along Champollion Street, the counters stay busy after midnight as cinema crowds and students order them by the handful, with garlicky tahini, crunchy pickled turnip and cucumber and a hit of chilli. Egyptian baladi bread is a wholemeal flatbread; wholemeal pitta is a good stand-in. It contains sesame and wheat. Chef's tip: salt the fries the moment they leave the oil, while they are still glistening, so it sticks.

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Arvi ka salanColocasia in tangy gravy

Arvi ka salan is a Lahore and Karachi home curry, cooked on weekday evenings when the vegetable seller has a basket of small, hairy colocasia roots. The roots are boiled, peeled and simmered in a loose, sour gravy of onion, tomato, ajwain and a squeeze of lemon, so the slightly slippery arvi soaks up the spice and turns creamy at the centre. Eat it with hot roti or plain rice and a little raw onion. The usual mistake is undercooking the arvi: half-cooked colocasia leaves an itchy, scratchy feeling in the throat, so it must be soft all the way through. Chef's tip: once the boiled arvi is peeled, press each piece flat with your palm before it goes into the gravy, so the rough edges thicken the sauce.

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LupisSticky rice with coconut sugar

At morning markets across Central and East Java, vendors unwrap banana-leaf triangles of chewy sticky rice, roll them in fresh grated coconut and drench them in dark palm sugar syrup, all served on a square of leaf. Lupis is breakfast and snack at once, eaten with sweet tea. The common mistake is packing the leaves too full: the rice swells as it cooks, so fill each cone only two-thirds, or the parcels split and turn watery. Chef's tip: steam the grated coconut with a pinch of salt for 5 minutes before using it; it keeps longer and the salt sharpens the caramel taste of the syrup.

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Karawila curryBitter gourd coconut curry

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EiskaffeeIced coffee with ice cream

On a hot July afternoon in any German or Austrian Eiscafé, from a Hamburg promenade to a Viennese Gastgarten, the tall glass with the long spoon is Eiskaffee. It is not iced coffee in the American sense: strong coffee, chilled, is poured over two scoops of vanilla ice cream and crowned with sweetened whipped cream, sometimes a wafer and a dusting of cocoa or grated chocolate. You drink the cold coffee through a straw while the ice cream slowly melts into it, then spoon up the creamy, half-frozen rest, so it is part drink, part dessert, eaten at the café in the afternoon rather than with a meal. The usual mistake is pouring hot or even warm coffee straight onto the ice cream: it melts at once into a thin, lukewarm, milky soup. Brew it earlier and chill it properly. It is ready when the coffee is fridge-cold, the scoops sit just proud of the surface and the cream holds soft peaks on top. It is moderately caffeinated, so keep it for adults and older teens. Chef's tip: freeze leftover coffee in ice-cube trays and add a couple to the glass so nothing gets diluted with water.

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Ensalada de gallinaChristmas chicken salad

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Kohila curryLasia root curry

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Ensaladang talongGrilled aubergine salad

Ensaladang talong is the smoky side salad that sits beside grilled fish or pork at Filipino family lunches, from Pampanga to Davao, and on the table at weekend beach outings. Long Asian eggplants are charred whole until the flesh collapses, then peeled and topped with diced tomato, red onion and a sharp vinegar dressing. This version leaves out the usual fermented shrimp paste so it is vegan. Suitable as part of a balanced diet, it is low in starch: about 70 kcal and 10 g carbohydrate per portion. The usual mistake is pulling the eggplants off the heat too soon; they must be soft right through, or the flesh is spongy and raw. Chef's tip: peel the hot eggplants under a trickle of water with your fingertips to keep the smoky flesh whole.

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Adobong talong (aubergine adobo)

Adobo is a method in the Philippines, not a single dish, and when meat is short or it's Lent, Filipino families make it with long eggplant: fried until soft and browned, then simmered briefly in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay and peppercorns. Like any adobo it tastes better the next day, which makes it a favourite for baon with rice. The common mistake is stirring as soon as the vinegar goes in; let it boil untouched for a minute first, or the sauce keeps a raw, sharp edge. Chef's tip: crush the garlic and fry half of it until golden to scatter on top at the end, for crunch.

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Kaju pulao (cashew pulao)

Kaju pulao is the "special" tiffin of Mumbai and Hyderabad homes, packed for a birthday at school or a festival day at the office, yet it takes no more effort than plain rice. Basmati is cooked with whole spices and golden onion in ghee, and a generous handful of cashews fried separately until crisp is folded through at the end. The mistake is cooking the cashews with the rice, which leaves them soft and pale; fry them on their own and add them last. Chef's tip: stop frying the cashews when they are light gold; they keep darkening in the hot ghee after you lift them out. Contains milk (ghee) and cashews.

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Ajwaini arbiPan-fried colocasia with carom seeds

Across Delhi, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, arbi is the vegetable that goes into a dabba with ajwain rotis or plain phulkas: the small colocasia roots are boiled, flattened slightly and pan-fried with carom seeds, red chilli and dried mango powder until crisp outside and creamy inside. Ajwain is there for its flavour and because it is said to help digest the starchy root. The mistake is boiling the arbi too long: it turns slimy and falls apart in the pan. Cook it until just tender, then cool fully before peeling. Chef's tip: press each piece gently with your palm to crack it before frying; the cracks catch the spices and crisp up.

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Escabeche de pescadoFried fish in sweet-sour onion sauce

In Lima, escabeche de pescado belongs to the criollo kitchen of the old city: it turns up on Friday lunch menus, on buffet tables, and above all in Lent and Holy Week, when families eat fish and this dish can be made the day before. Fish is fried until golden, then covered in a warm sauce of thick-cut red onion softened in oil with garlic, ají amarillo, ají panca, cumin and vinegar, and left to cool so the flavours soak in. It is served cold or at room temperature with boiled sweet potato, hard-boiled egg and purple botija olives. It tastes tangy, sweet and gently fruity-hot, with crunchy onion over tender fish. The fish here is fully cooked, but because it is a cold seafood dish, pregnant people, babies, older people and anyone with weak immunity should eat it well chilled and within 2 days. Common mistake: stewing the onions until limp; they should only lose their raw bite. It is ready when the sauce has soaked a little into the fish and smells of vinegar and toasted chilli. Chef's tip: use thick fillets of corvina or bonito; thin fillets break under the sauce.

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Dubu gangjeongSticky fried tofu cubes

Gangjeong usually means sticky glazed fried chicken, but Korean mothers make this tofu version for the dosirak because the starch coating stays crisp even after a morning in the lunchbox. The glaze is mild, sweet and garlicky, so children love it; add gochujang for the grown-ups. The common mistake is skipping the pressing, which leaves wet tofu that spits in the oil and goes soggy under the sauce. Chef's tip: let the fried cubes cool for two minutes before glazing, and boil the sauce to large, slow bubbles first, so it clings instead of soaking in.

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Papayas en almíbarPapayas in clove syrup

Drive up the Elqui Valley from La Serena and every roadside stall sells jars of these: small, intensely fragrant mountain papayas (papaya chilena) poached until they turn amber and translucent. Families spoon them over vanilla ice cream, eat them with a slice of fresh cheese, or simply serve them chilled after Sunday lunch. Outside Chile, tinned Chilean papayas are easy to find, or use firm, under-ripe ordinary papaya, which holds its shape in the syrup. The usual mistake is boiling the fruit hard: it breaks up and clouds the syrup, so keep it at a lazy simmer. Chef's tip: once the fruit is cooked, lift it out and boil the syrup alone for 5 minutes, so it is thick enough to cling and keeps longer in the jar.

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