Featured recipe

Tlacoyos de haba

Stuffed blue corn cakes

Walk out of almost any Metro station in Mexico City in the morning and you will find a woman on a low stool patting out tlacoyos on a clay comal: thick, oval cakes of blue or white corn masa with a seam of bean or fava purée hidden inside, topped with cactus, salsa and crumbly cheese. They are bought hot, eaten standing up, and are one of the oldest street foods in the valley, older than the city itself. This version is filled with garlicky fava purée (habas) and topped with a quick nopal salad and salsa verde. Leave off the cheese and it is vegan. Chef's tip: keep the purée stiff, like mashed potato; a loose filling bursts through the masa when you flatten it.

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45 min

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Ginger beef

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50 min

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100 min

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Every spring the tamarind trees of Telangana put out soft, coppery new leaves, chintha chiguru, and housewives in Hyderabad and the districts strip them by the handful for a few weeks of this pleasantly sour dal. The leaves give the tang that tamarind pulp gives the rest of the year, and the pappu is eaten with hot rice, ghee and a crisp papad. The common mistake is adding all the leaves at the start; they lose their fresh sourness, so stir half in near the end. Chef's tip: if tamarind shoots are out of reach, use a mix of sorrel and a teaspoon of tamarind paste.

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170 min

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Wattleseed ice cream

Roasted wattleseed, from a few edible acacias of the Australian inland, has been ground into flour by Aboriginal people for millennia, and today chefs in Sydney and Melbourne use it for its flavour of coffee, chocolate and hazelnut. Steeped in a rich custard and churned, it makes a lovely ice cream to serve with pavlova or a slice of passionfruit sponge. Buy roasted, ground wattleseed from a native food supplier; many acacias are not edible. A common mistake is overheating the custard so it scrambles; take it off at 82 °C. Chef's tip: steep the wattleseed in the hot milk for 20 minutes before making the custard.

45 min

Australian Desserts

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HafechabisLamb and cabbage pot

Hafechabis, literally 'pot cabbage', is the autumn one-pot of the Lucerne, Schwyz and Uri valleys, made when the cabbages come in and the lambs come down from the alps. Lamb shoulder, white cabbage, onions and potatoes are layered in a heavy pot with caraway and left to cook gently in their own juices with a little stock, until the cabbage is silky and the lamb tender. Serve it straight from the pot with mustard and crusty bread. The usual mistake is adding too much liquid: the cabbage gives off plenty of its own, and a flooded pot tastes boiled rather than braised. Slow-cooker option: layer as below and cook on low for 7 hours. Chef's tip: brown the lamb properly first, as the caramelised fat is what flavours every layer of cabbage.

125 min

Swiss Meat

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Barbecued garlic prawns

Prawns on the barbie are the true Australian Christmas and summer meal, cooked on the backyard barbecue from Perth to the Gold Coast with a cold drink in hand. Big raw king or tiger prawns are marinated in garlic, chilli, lemon and olive oil, then grilled quickly in their shells, which keeps them juicy. A common mistake is leaving them in the marinade too long; the lemon starts to cook them. Chef's tip: cut down the back of the shell and remove the vein but leave the shell on, so the marinade gets in and the prawns don't dry out.

21 min

Australian Fish

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Chochos con tostadoLupin bean and toasted corn salad

On street corners in Quito and Latacunga vendors pile paper cups with chochos, the pale Andean lupin beans, tossed with lime-soaked red onion and tomato and showered with crunchy toasted corn. It is a cheap, filling mid-morning snack, sour and salty with a nutty crunch, and it doubles as a light lunch with a fried plantain on the side. Buy chochos ready debittered, sold cooked in jars or vacuum packs: raw lupins are bitter and contain toxic alkaloids until they have been soaked and boiled for several days, so never use dried ones without that long treatment. Lupin is also a declared allergen and can affect people with peanut allergy. The common mistake is skipping the rinse, which leaves the beans tasting of brine. Chef's tip: salt the onion with the lime juice 10 minutes ahead so it softens and turns pink.

25 minAndean Snacks & Starters

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ChorreadasSweet corn pancakes

In the Costa Rican countryside, from the Central Valley to Guanacaste, chorreadas are made when the corn is fresh and milky: kernels are blended into a thick batter with a little sugar and butter and "poured" (chorrear) onto a hot griddle, then eaten with a dollop of natilla, Costa Rica's soured cream, and a cup of coffee. They are soft, sweet and taste purely of corn. The common mistake is a thin batter that spreads and tears; it should drop thickly from a spoon, so add masa harina if your corn is very juicy. Chef's tip: leave a few kernels only half-blended so the pancakes have little pops of whole corn.

30 minCentral American Breakfast & Brunch

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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.

65 min

Chilean Desserts

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Chocolate cracklesChocolate puffed rice cakes

No Australian child's birthday party is complete without chocolate crackles, served in paper patty cases alongside fairy bread at backyard parties from Adelaide to Cairns. Puffed rice cereal is bound with melted solid coconut fat, icing sugar, cocoa and desiccated coconut, then set in the fridge. Kids can make them almost entirely on their own. A common mistake is using hot fat, which makes the mixture greasy; let it cool a few minutes. Chef's tip: use solid white hydrogenated coconut fat sold in blocks, not jarred coconut oil, which won't set firm at room temperature.

20 min

Australian Desserts

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Mince and cheese pie

Mince and cheese is New Zealand's best-selling bakery pie, the go-to lunch for tradies, students and rugby crowds from Auckland to Dunedin, with a rich, peppery beef mince gravy under a thick layer of melted cheese and a flaky puff lid. It is eaten from the paper bag with tomato sauce. Cheddar is often made with animal rennet. A common mistake is filling the pastry with hot mince, which makes the base soggy; cool it fully. Chef's tip: put the cheese on top of the mince, right under the lid, so it melts into a gooey layer.

90 min

New Zealand Meat

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Chouris paoSpicy pork sausage in a bun

Chouris pao is Goa's favourite pork snack, sold from feast-day stalls at Mapusa's Friday market and village church fairs, and made at home whenever a string of chouriço comes out of the larder. The Goan pork sausage is cured with red chilli, garlic, spices and toddy vinegar (vinegar, not alcohol), then crumbled out of its casing and fried with onion and potato until sticky and red. The common mistake is frying it fiercely from the start: the fat needs a splash of water and gentle heat to render, otherwise the outside burns while the pork stays raw. Cook until the pork is no longer pink and reaches 71 °C. Chef's tip: soak the sausage links in hot water for 10 minutes first; it softens the casing and takes away harsh salt.

30 min

Indian Meat

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ChumbequeLayered honey biscuit

Iquique's Chinese community began baking chumbeque in the port's corner shops more than a century ago, and today it is the city's edible souvenir: crisp, honey-sweet pastry stacked in thin layers with a sharp lemon filling and a sticky guava one, cut into small bricks. People take it home from the Zofri market or nibble it with tea at once. At home, bake it as one slab and slice it when cold. Many people roll the dough too thick, which gives a cakey, dry bar instead of fine layers; aim for 3 mm. Chef's tip: chill the rolled sheets for 10 minutes before you stack them so they don't stretch out of shape.

85 min

Chilean Baking

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Parwal ki mithaiStuffed candied pointed gourd

Parwal ki mithai surprises anyone who knows pointed gourd only as a curry vegetable: in Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh sweet makers peel the gourds, candy them in syrup until translucent, then fill them with sweetened mawa and nuts. They sit in shop windows at Diwali, Chhath and weddings, often glinting with silver leaf. The common mistake is undercooking the gourds before candying, which leaves them crunchy and vegetal; blanch until a knife slides in easily. Silver leaf (vark) is optional; choose one certified vegetarian. Chef's tip: scrape out every seed carefully, because even a few hard seeds spoil the soft bite.

90 min

Indian Indian Sweets

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Králík na smetaněRabbit in cream sauce

Králík na smetaně is a Sunday lunch in the Czech countryside, especially in Moravia and South Bohemia, where many families once kept rabbits in the yard. Rabbit pieces are braised with carrot, celeriac, parsley root and onion, then the vegetables are blended into a velvety cream sauce brightened with lemon and a pinch of sugar, much like the famous svíčková. It is served with sliced bread dumplings (houskové knedlíky) and a spoon of cranberry sauce. The usual mistake is boiling the sauce after the cream goes in, which can split it; keep it at a bare simmer. Rabbit is lean, so cook it gently and check that the meat comes easily off the bone. Chef's tip: blend the vegetables until completely smooth and pass them through a sieve for the silky sauce Czech cooks are proud of.

120 min

Czech Meat

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Chupe de centollaKing crab and cheese stew

In Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales, at the bottom of Chile, centolla (southern king crab) is the pride of every restaurant, and chupe is how it is served on a cold Magallanes evening: a soft, spoonable stew of crab meat cooked with bread, milk and stock until creamy, then topped with cheese and browned for a minute. It is looser than a crab gratin and eaten with a spoon. Any good cooked crab meat works. The usual mistake is boiling it fiercely once the cheese and cream go in, which makes the chupe grainy; keep it at a gentle bubble. Chef's tip: add the crab right at the end, just to heat through, so the big pieces of king crab stay whole and sweet.

45 min

Chilean Fish

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Chura sabjiFermented cheese curry

High in Tawang, Monpa families make chura sabji from chhurpi, a cheese of yak or cow's milk left to ferment until it is pungent and soft, cooked down with green chillies and onion into a creamy, fiery curry. It is everyday food in the cold months, eaten with rice or buckwheat bread. The usual mistake is cooking on high heat once the cheese goes in, which splits it into oily curds; melt it gently. Chef's tip: if you cannot get fermented chura, use a strong, crumbly blue or feta mixed with a spoon of curd to imitate the tang.

23 min

Indian Vegetarian

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Chura matarFlattened rice with peas

When fresh peas pile up in the markets of Varanasi and eastern Uttar Pradesh in winter, breakfast becomes chura matar: thick flattened rice tossed in ghee with sweet green peas, ginger, green chilli and a pinch of sugar, finished with lemon and coriander. It is softer and richer than poha, and is often eaten on the ghats with a cup of chai. The mistake is soaking the chura in water; it turns mushy. Rinse it quickly in a sieve and let it rest, and it softens just enough. Chef's tip: crush half the peas lightly with the back of a spoon in the pan so they coat the rice and make each mouthful sweeter.

25 min

Indian Breakfast & Brunch

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Pineapple fritters

Every Queensland fish-and-chip shop from the Gold Coast to Cairns has a tray of pineapple fritters by the fryer, rings of local pineapple in light batter, fried and dusted with cinnamon sugar. They are the dessert you order with your fish and chips on a hot evening. Fresh pineapple is best; well-drained tinned rings work too. A common mistake is wet fruit, which makes the batter slide off; pat it really dry. Chef's tip: dust the rings in a little flour before dipping so the batter clings.

25 min

Australian Snacks & Starters

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Colada moradaPurple corn and berry drink

Every year in the days before 2 November, the Día de los Difuntos, Quito's kitchens and bakeries fill with the smell of colada morada: a warm, spoon-thick drink of purple corn flour cooked with blackberries, blueberries, pineapple and a bundle of fragrant herbs and spices. It is deep violet, sweet-tart and full of chopped fruit, and it is always served with guaguas de pan, the bread babies, often shared with family at the cemetery. The most common mistake is stirring the corn flour straight into hot liquid, which makes lumps: whisk it into cold water first. Chef's tip: lemon verbena and lemongrass give the authentic perfume; if you can find naranjilla or a few orange leaves, add them to the spice pot too.

100 minAndean Drinks

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ChyhyrtmaEggs with tomatoes and onions

Çığırtma is the Azerbaijani way with breakfast eggs: onions softened slowly in butter, ripe tomatoes cooked down with them, then beaten eggs poured over and set gently, sometimes with spinach or herbs and sometimes over chicken. This vegetarian tomato version is eaten in Baku with lavash or tandir bread and strong tea. The mistake is rushing the onions; they must turn soft and sweet before the tomatoes go in. Cook the eggs until set if serving anyone pregnant, young children, older people or anyone with a weakened immune system. Chef's tip: do not stir once the eggs are in; cover the pan and let them puff over the tomatoes like a soft omelette.

25 min

Azerbaijani Breakfast & Brunch

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AppelstroopApple syrup

In Dutch and Belgian Limburg, appelstroop is spread on brown bread at breakfast, often under a slice of Gouda, and it goes into the Limburg sour stew zoervleis. It is nothing but apples (with a few pears) cooked to a pulp, pressed and boiled down for hours into a glossy, almost black syrup that tastes sweet, sharp and faintly of caramel. The common mistake is stopping too early: until it coats a cold plate and holds a line, it is apple juice, not stroop. Chef's tip: in the last half hour stir constantly and lower the heat, because the thick syrup catches and burns in seconds.

260 min

Dutch Basics

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GroenboontjiebredieLamb and green bean stew

Groenboontjiebredie is one of the old bredies of the Western Cape, the slow stews Cape families have cooked for generations, usually for Sunday lunch with white rice and a sweet beetroot salad. Lamb on the bone is browned with onions, then simmered for hours with sliced green beans and potatoes until the beans soften completely and the potatoes break down to thicken the sauce. The usual mistake is treating the beans like a crisp vegetable: here they should be soft and olive green. Slow-cooker: after browning, cook on low for 8 hours. Chef's tip: grate a little nutmeg in at the end; it is the classic Cape seasoning for a green bean bredie.

160 min

South African Meat

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Cola de monoCoffee and milk liqueur drink

In Santiago, December means cola de mono: bottles of cold, coffee-coloured spiced milk that families make days ahead and open on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, poured beside slices of pan de pascua, the dense Chilean fruit cake. The traditional version is for adults only, spiked with grape aguardiente; pour small glasses and drink responsibly. It tastes like a sweet, cold café con leche with cinnamon, clove and orange, the aguardiente adding a warm finish, and the texture is smooth and light, never thick. Each glass has about as much caffeine as a small, weak coffee, so use decaf for anyone sensitive. The classic mistake is adding the aguardiente while the milk is still hot: much of the alcohol steams away and the milk can catch and curdle. Let the spiced milk cool completely first. It is ready when the colour is an even tan, the spices smell strong but the milk tastes clean, and it is fridge-cold. It keeps 3–4 days in the fridge in clean bottles; shake before pouring and throw it out if it smells sour. Chef's tip: make it two days ahead; the spices keep blooming and it tastes noticeably rounder.

30 min

Chilean Drinks

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Payaguá mascadaCassava and beef patties

Payaguá mascada is an Asunción family supper and a favourite for using up boiled cassava: mashed mandioca kneaded with minced beef, onion and garlic, shaped into flat cakes and fried until crusty, then eaten with a tomato salad or with mandioca on the side. Use sweet cassava. A common mistake is using watery, freshly boiled cassava, which makes patties that fall apart in the pan. Chef's tip: let the boiled cassava steam dry in the colander for ten minutes before mashing.

55 min

Paraguayan Snacks & Starters

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Peixe na telhaFish baked on a clay tile

Peixe na telha, 'fish on the tile', is a weekend dish of the river towns of Goiás and Minas Gerais, where restaurants by the Araguaia bring freshwater fish to the table still sizzling on a curved clay roof tile. At home a terracotta or ceramic baking dish does the job: fillets marinated in lime and garlic are layered with tomato, sweet peppers, onion and coriander and baked until the juices bubble. Suitable as part of a balanced diet: high-protein fish with lots of vegetables. About 290 kcal and 9 g carbohydrate per portion; serve with a salad, or a little brown rice instead of the usual white rice and farofa. The usual mistake is overbaking, which dries the fish; take it out the moment it flakes. Chef's tip: warm the clay dish in the oven first so the vegetables start sizzling at once.

65 min

Brazilian Fish

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Magic coffee

The magic is a Melbourne café insider's order, born in the city's Fitzroy and Collingwood coffee bars: a double ristretto (the short, intense first part of the espresso shot) topped with silky steamed milk in a 160 ml cup. It is stronger and sweeter-tasting than a flat white because there's less milk and only the richest part of the shot. A common mistake is scalding the milk; above about 65 °C it loses its natural sweetness. Chef's tip: stop the shot early, at about 30 ml for a double, to get that syrupy ristretto.

5 min

Australian Drinks

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MondongoTripe soup

In Antioquia, around Medellín, mondongo is the hearty soup families cook at the weekend and that restaurants serve at lunch with rice, avocado, ripe banana and a squeeze of lime. Cleaned beef tripe simmers slowly with pork shoulder and chorizo (both pork), then potatoes, annatto, cumin and plenty of cilantro thicken and colour the broth. The usual mistake is skimping on cleaning the tripe: rinse and blanch it well or the soup will taste strong. Pressure-cooker: cook the tripe for 40 minutes at high pressure instead of 2 hours. Chef's tip: use some small yellow potatoes (papa criolla) along with the floury ones, as they melt and thicken the broth naturally.

240 min

Colombian Soups

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HumbaBraised pork belly

Humba is the sweet, dark braise of the Visayas, cooked in Cebu and Bohol homes for fiestas, birthdays and Sunday lunch. Pork belly simmers in soy sauce, cane vinegar and brown sugar with garlic, bay and peppercorns until the fat turns meltingly soft and the sauce becomes sticky; salted black beans (tausi) and dried lily buds, sold as dried banana blossoms, give it its Visayan character. Eat it with plenty of steamed rice. The usual mistake is stirring as soon as the vinegar goes in: let it boil uncovered for a few minutes first so its raw sharpness cooks off. Pressure-cooker: cook for 35 minutes at high pressure, then reduce the sauce uncovered. Chef's tip: humba tastes even better the next day, when the pork has soaked up the sauce.

130 min

Filipino Meat

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Pesara avakayaMoong dal mango pickle

Pesara avakaya is the Krishna and Guntur districts' answer for anyone who finds classic avakaya too sharp. It is cut and mixed in the same summer weeks, from the same sour mangoes, but finely ground raw yellow moong dal replaces most of the mustard. The dal swells in the mango juice and oil and turns the masala thick, nutty and almost creamy, so it clings to each piece, while a little mustard keeps a hint of nose-tingle. It is still properly hot from the chilli. Eat it with hot rice and ghee, with pesarattu, or alongside a plate of curd rice. Some families add garlic; if you do, the jar must live in the fridge. Common mistake: grinding the dal coarsely, which leaves a gritty masala; sift it and regrind the bits. Another is skimping on oil: the dal absorbs a lot, so top up until the pickle is covered. The salt is about 9% of the mango weight. It is ready after three days, when the masala is thick and clinging and oil has risen to the surface. Chef's tip: warm the dal in a dry pan for 2–3 minutes without colouring it; it grinds finer and keeps better.

48 min

Indian Chutneys & Dips

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Citron presséFresh lemon drink

Order a citron pressé on a Paris terrace in July, or at a café in Nice after the beach, and the waiter brings a tall glass with an inch of freshly squeezed lemon juice, a carafe of iced water, a sugar bowl or a little jug of syrup and a long spoon. You build the drink yourself, as sharp or as sweet as you like, which is half the pleasure; French children learn to drink it with plenty of sugar, grown-ups often with almost none. It is bright, sour and cleansing, nothing like bottled lemonade, and best in the late afternoon heat. The common mistake is stirring granulated sugar straight into cold lemon water: it sinks and never dissolves, so the first sips are sour and the last a sludge. Dissolve the sugar in the juice first, or use a quick syrup. It is ready when the sugar has vanished, the drink tastes balanced to you and the glass is beaded with cold. Unwaxed lemons matter if you add a twist of peel. Chef's tip: pour the water over ice slowly and taste after half the carafe; most people find they need less water than they expect.

5 min

French Drinks

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Caribou stew

Caribou is the everyday red meat of many Dene, Inuit and northern families in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Labrador, and a pot of caribou stew is what simmers on the stove in Yellowknife or Inuvik through the long winter. The meat is lean and slightly sweet and gamey, and slow-braising with onion, carrot, potato and turnip makes it meltingly tender. Outside the North, farmed reindeer, venison or beef chuck work in exactly the same way. A common mistake is boiling hard, which toughens lean meat; it should barely bubble. Chef's tip: dust the meat in flour and brown it well in batches for a rich, thick gravy.

175 min

Canadian Meat

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Bol renverséUpside-down rice bowl

Order a bol renversé in a Port Louis canteen or a Grand Baie food court and it arrives as a neat dome of rice with a fried egg perched on top; break into it and a glossy stir-fry of chicken, prawns, mushrooms and Chinese leaves spills out. The trick is building it backwards in a bowl, egg first, then the stir-fry, then rice packed down, before flipping it onto a plate. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the vegetables but loose enough to soak into the rice. People often make the sauce too thin and the dome slides apart in a flood, so simmer it until it glazes the back of a spoon. Chef's tip: fry the eggs only until the whites are set and the edges are crisp, and lay them yolk-side down in the bowl so the yolk faces up and stays runny when you turn it out.

45 min

Mauritian Rice & Grains

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Pumpkin millet porridge

Autumn in central Ukraine means piles of grey-skinned pumpkins in every yard, and the first thing many grandmothers make with them is this golden breakfast porridge. Diced pumpkin is simmered until it collapses, then millet and milk are added and the pot is left to cook down into something thick, creamy and faintly sweet, finished with butter and a spoon of honey. In villages around Cherkasy and Vinnytsia it was once baked for hours in the clay stove; a heavy pan on a low heat gives a very similar result. Serve it hot in deep bowls, with extra honey and a few raisins for children. The usual slip is skipping the rinse: millet carries a bitter dust, and only washing it in several changes of hot water takes it away. Chef's tip: choose a dense, deep-orange pumpkin such as butternut or a Ukrainian 'muscat' type; watery Halloween pumpkins make a thin, pale kasha.

50 min

Ukrainian Breakfast & Brunch

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Napoleon cake

Legend links this cake to 1912, the centenary of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, when St Petersburg confectioners cut triangular pastries shaped like his hat. By Soviet times it had grown into the tall round cake every family baked for birthdays and New Year's Eve. Eight wafer-thin rounds of quick flaky pastry are stacked with vanilla custard enriched with butter, then left overnight so the layers soften into something between a mille-feuille and a tender sponge; crushed trimmings give the snowy finish. Where most people go wrong is serving it the same day; without the long rest in the fridge it is crisp and dry instead of melting. Chef's tip: roll each piece of pastry straight onto baking paper and trim it around a 24 cm plate before baking, so you never have to lift thin raw dough.

240 min

Russian Desserts

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EscavècheCold fried fish in vinegar jelly

Escavèche is a speciality of the Chimay and Couvin area in southern Wallonia, a legacy of Spanish rule in the 16th century: fish fillets, traditionally eel or pike, fried and then covered with a hot marinade of vinegar, onion, thyme and bay that sets into a clear, tangy jelly as it cools. It is eaten cold, sliced, with crisp fries, in the brasseries of the Botte du Hainaut. A common mistake is not cooking the fish through before it goes into the marinade; cold marinade does not cook it. Chef's tip: let it set for at least 12 hours in the fridge; the vinegar mellows and the jelly firms. The fish should be opaque and flaking before marinating.

55 min

Belgian Fish

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EtoMashed yam with palm oil

Eto is a dish for marking occasions among the Akan, made on birthdays and celebration mornings, when boiled yam (or plantain) is mashed in an earthenware asanka bowl with red palm oil, raw onion and a little pepper until it turns golden and fragrant. It is served in a mound with halved boiled eggs, slices of ripe avocado and a handful of roasted groundnuts, so every mouthful is soft, buttery and crunchy at once. It is filling, simple and very good. Avoid mashing the yam to a smooth purée; eto should keep a rough, crushed texture. Chef's tip: mash the yam while it is steaming hot and add the oil at the same time, because cold yam goes gluey and will not absorb the oil evenly.

40 min

Ghanaian Vegetarian

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Chakma bamboo shoot curry

When the monsoon reaches the Chittagong Hill Tracts, young bamboo shoots push up through the forest floor around Rangamati and Bandarban, and Chakma and Marma families cut them for a quick, clean-tasting curry. Hill cooking uses very little oil and few dry spices; the flavour comes from fistfuls of green chilli, garlic and herbs such as culantro (sawtooth coriander), and a spoon of ground rice thickens the broth. At home it is very often cooked with shidol, a fermented dried fish paste, or nappi; this version is fully vegetarian. The shoots are crunchy and faintly sweet, and the curry is eaten with plenty of plain rice. Raw fresh bamboo shoots contain natural toxins, so they must always be boiled first and the water thrown away; skipping that step is the one mistake you cannot make here. Chef's tip: if you use canned or vacuum-packed shoots, rinse and boil them for 5 minutes anyway to freshen their taste.

50 min

Bangladeshi Vegetarian

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Easter pâté

A thick slice of homemade pasztet belongs on the Easter breakfast table after the blessing of the food basket, next to ham, eggs, ćwikła and white sausage. This baked loaf combines pork shoulder, chicken thighs and pork liver, simmered with root vegetables and allspice, minced twice and baked until firm, so it slices cleanly yet stays moist and spreadable. Marjoram and nutmeg give it the classic Polish flavour; serve it cold with horseradish, beetroot relish and pickles. Overbaking dries it out, but underbaking is the bigger risk with poultry and liver, so always check the centre with a thermometer. Bake it two days ahead: it needs to chill overnight to set, and it keeps for five days in the fridge. Chef's tip: save the cooking stock and add it a ladle at a time as you mix; the mixture should be as soft as thick porridge, which keeps the finished loaf juicy.

180 min

Polish Meat

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SalufPuffy flatbread

Saluf is the everyday bread of Yemenite Israelis, slapped onto a hot pan or taboon in Rosh HaAyin and Sha'arayim in Rehovot and eaten with marak temani, hilbe and zhug. It is soft and blistered, thicker than pita and with no pocket, made to tear and dunk. Home cooks often roll it too thin, which gives a cracker; it should be about 1 cm thick so it stays pillowy. Chef's tip: cook it under a lid on a very hot dry pan for the first minute, which traps steam and puffs it the way a taboon does.

45 min

Israeli Breads & Parathas

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CervelatGrilled sausage

The cervelat, a short, fat, smoked sausage of beef and pork, is called Switzerland's national sausage, and it is what every Swiss child grills on a stick over a campfire on 1 August, National Day, on school trips and on mountain hikes: the ends are cut into a cross so they curl open like a flower as they cook, and it is eaten with bread and mustard. This sausage contains pork. Cervelat is bought ready-cooked and smoked; grilling heats it through and crisps it. A common mistake is grilling over flames, which burns the skin black before the inside is hot. Chef's tip: grill over glowing embers and turn often until the scored ends open out; heat until piping hot, 71 °C.

15 min

Swiss Meat

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Anday ka halwaEgg halwa

Sweet, golden and grainy like a rich crumble, egg halwa is the quick showpiece of Hyderabadi and Karachi home kitchens, made when unexpected guests arrive or for a winter Sunday, and it fills the house with the smell of ghee and cardamom. Eggs are beaten with milk, sugar and milk powder, then stirred in ghee until the custard sets, breaks and finally fries into soft, sandy granules that cling together like khoya; there is no eggy taste once it is properly cooked. It is served warm in small bowls, topped with almonds and pistachios, sometimes with a few saffron threads. The commonest failure is stopping too soon, when the halwa is still wet and scrambled-egg-like, rather than cooking on until it turns granular and golden and the ghee separates. Chef's tip: strain the beaten egg mixture through a sieve before cooking, which removes the stringy whites and gives a smooth, even grain.

50 min

Pakistani Indian Sweets

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AndijviestamppotEndive and Gouda mash

Stamppot, mashed potato stirred with vegetables, is the Dutch winter dinner, and the endive version is a little lighter: raw, finely shredded curly endive is stirred into piping-hot mash, so it wilts slightly but keeps a fresh, bitter crunch, then cubes of aged Gouda are folded in and start to melt. Dutch families eat it with gravy and a smoked sausage; this vegetarian version uses a pool of brown butter. Aged Gouda is usually made with animal rennet, so choose a vegetarian aged Gouda-style cheese. A common mistake is cooking the endive, which turns it soggy and grey. Chef's tip: stir the endive in off the heat at the very last moment.

30 min

Dutch Vegetarian

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Bangladeshi dal puriLentil-filled puri

Wherever there is a tea stall in Dhaka, from the Nilkhet book market to the gates of the university, there is a wok of oil and a man rolling dal puri at speed, three or four at a time. These are thin and flat, not puffed, with a seam of dry, cumin-scented red lentil filling that you can see through the blistered skin; they are eaten straight from the wok with a cup of sweet tea, a spoon of tamarind chutney or just a pinch of raw onion and green chilli. Students treat them as lunch and office workers as an afternoon snack. Where people usually go wrong is a filling that is too wet, which bursts through the dough and spits in the oil. Chef's tip: cook the lentils just until they crush, then dry the mash in the pan with the onions until it holds together like crumbly dough.

60 min

Bangladeshi Breads & Parathas

by KrazyBadal 0 views

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