Featured recipe

Kartoshka cake

Cocoa and cake crumb truffles

Soviet cafés and school canteens sold these knobbly brown 'potatoes' for a few kopecks, and they began as a thrifty way to use up sponge and biscuit trimmings at the bakery. Crumbs are bound with butter and sweetened condensed milk, flavoured with cocoa and vanilla, shaped into little potatoes, rolled in cocoa and finished with two dabs of pale butter cream for the sprouts. They are fudgy and dense like a brownie truffle, need no oven, and children love making them. Traditional bakers added a spoonful of rum, an optional extra for adult batches only; this version is alcohol-free with vanilla. The usual slip is coarse crumbs, which make the potatoes crack, so blitz them as fine as sand. Chef's tip: chill the shaped potatoes for at least 20 minutes so they hold their shape and slice cleanly.

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Kaalan is the Chennai evening snack you smell before you see: carts around Pondy Bazaar in T. Nagar and along Besant Nagar beach fry clumps of chopped mushroom and cabbage, then chop them with a steel scraper on a giant tawa into a dark, peppery masala and heap them on paper plates with raw onion and coriander. It is crunchy at first, then soft and spicy as the gravy soaks in. Contains wheat. Chef's tip: mix the batter only when the oil is hot; salted mushrooms start weeping water within minutes and the batter turns sloppy.

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Cheonggukjang jjigaeFermented soybean stew

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Chhena jhiliFried cheese patties in syrup

Chhena jhili comes from Nimapara near Puri in Odisha, where sweet shops fry these flat, oval chhena patties all day for pilgrims heading to and from the Jagannath temple. They are soft and spongy, golden-brown outside and creamy within, soaked in a thin syrup scented with cardamom, and are eaten at Rath Yatra, weddings and any good-news visit. The common mistake is using dry, crumbly chhena; it should be moist enough to press into a smooth patty without cracks, so hang it for no more than 30 minutes. Chef's tip: fry in ghee rather than oil for the true Odia flavour, keeping the heat gentle so the outside stays golden, not dark.

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ChhangbanPounded sticky rice cakes

Chhangban are soft, chewy cakes that Mizo families make from steamed sticky rice pounded in a wooden mortar, traditionally for Christmas, Chapchar Kut and visits from relatives. They are eaten warm, dipped in sugar, or toasted the next day with a mug of black tea. The mistake people make is pounding cold rice: it will not come together, so work while it is steaming hot. Chef's tip: wet the pestle or your hands with salted water so the rice does not stick.

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Ginger crunchGinger shortbread slice

Ginger crunch is in every New Zealand café cabinet and was in every school fair tin long before that, a recipe passed between generations in handwritten notebooks. A crisp, buttery ginger shortbread base is covered while still hot with a thick, fudgy icing of butter, golden syrup, icing sugar and plenty of ground ginger. Cut into bars, it keeps a week in a tin. A common mistake is letting the base cool before icing; hot base and hot icing set together properly. Chef's tip: use more ginger than you think; the icing should have a real bite.

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Chhena kheeriFresh cheese in sweet milk

Chhena kheeri is one of the dishes of the Jagannath temple's chhappan bhog in Puri, and Odia households make it for festivals, birthdays and the evening Rath Yatra meal. Soft, freshly made chhena is crumbled into milk that has been simmered down until creamy and sweet, then scented with cardamom and a little camphor in temple style, or simply nutmeg at home. The common mistake is adding the chhena too early and boiling it hard, which makes it rubbery; it should go in at the end and simmer only briefly. Chef's tip: crumble the chhena by hand into pieces the size of rice grains, so every spoonful has some.

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Cochabamba's Sunday chicharrón is pork, cooked the slow way: big chunks of pork rib and shoulder simmered in chicha, the valley's fermented corn drink, with garlic and cumin until the liquid evaporates and the meat fries golden in its own fat. It is eaten with mote (big white corn), boiled potatoes and llajwa. Chicha contains alcohol, and some remains after cooking, so this dish is for adults; for an alcohol-free version use unsweetened apple juice with a splash of cider vinegar. The common mistake is rushing the last stage over a high heat, which burns the outside before the inside is tender. Chef's tip: once the liquid has gone, turn the pieces only every few minutes so a real crust can form.

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As the sun goes down on Oxford Street in Osu, Accra, chichinga sellers fan their charcoal grills at the roadside and the smell of spiced beef and roasting peanuts pulls in the evening crowd. The skewers came south with traders from northern Ghana and are close cousins of Nigerian suya: chunks of beef rubbed with a hot powder of ground peanuts, ginger and chilli, grilled with onion and green pepper and eaten with a sprinkle of extra spice, sliced tomato and a cold drink. It contains peanuts. Chef's tip: dust on most of the peanut spice in the second half of grilling; over fierce coals it scorches if it goes on too early.

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Chichi dangoCoconut milk mochi

Chichi dango are the soft, pastel-pink mochi squares made for Girls' Day, birthdays and graduations in Hawaii's Japanese-American families, and sold in little boxes at manapua shops and crack seed stores in Honolulu. Mochiko (sweet rice flour) is mixed with coconut milk and sugar, baked until set, then cut and dusted with potato starch. They are chewy, milky and lightly sweet. A common mistake is cutting them warm with a dry knife, which tears them; cool fully and use a plastic knife dusted with starch. Chef's tip: wrap the tin tightly in foil while baking so the top stays soft and smooth.

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Pollo en escabeche is a home classic in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, a legacy of Spanish preserving that Argentines make on a Saturday to eat cold all week. It comes out of the fridge for a picada before the asado, as a summer lunch with a green salad and crusty bread, or packed for a day in the sierras. Chicken is browned, then gently cooked in oil and vinegar with carrot, onion, red pepper, garlic, bay and black peppercorns, and left to rest at least a day. The meat turns tender and lightly tangy, the carrots keep a little crunch, and the oil carries the flavour of bay and pepper. Because garlic sits in oil, safety matters: the liquid is half strong vinegar (at least 5% acidity, never diluted beyond what the recipe says), and the jar always lives in the fridge, never on the shelf. Eat it within 5 days. The common mistake is letting it boil hard, which makes the chicken dry and stringy; it should barely tremble. It is ready the next day, when the chicken tastes seasoned right through and the oil has turned golden. Chef's tip: take it out 20 minutes before serving so the oil melts back to liquid.

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Chileajo de verdurasVegetables in guajillo garlic sauce

Chileajo is a cold dish of the Mixteca and the Oaxaca valley markets, sold from big clay bowls on Sundays and during Lent, and piled onto crisp tostadas at family fiestas. Potatoes, green beans, carrots, chayote, cauliflower and peas are cooked just tender and folded into a brick-red sauce of guajillo chiles, plenty of garlic, cloves and vinegar, then left to soak up its tangy, smoky heat. It keeps for days and improves as it sits. The usual mistake is overcooking the vegetables before they meet the sauce, so they turn mushy once mixed; they should still have a little bite. Chef's tip: toast the chiles only until they smell fragrant and blister, a few seconds a side; burnt chiles make the whole sauce bitter.

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Yachae jeonVegetable pancakes

Korean fridge-clearing at its best: courgette, carrot, onion and chives shredded thin and bound with just enough batter to hold them together, then fried into lacy pancakes. Hot, they are a rainy-day snack with makgeolli; cut into wedges the next day, they fill a dosirak and taste good cold. The common mistake is too much batter, which gives a thick, doughy pancake; the vegetables should look barely coated. Chef's tip: use ice-cold water in the batter and press each pancake flat with the spatula after flipping, for crisp edges that last until lunchtime.

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