Skip to content
Masala ugali
Featured recipe

Masala ugali

Spiced maize meal porridge

Ugali, East Africa's staple of maize meal cooked into a stiff porridge, given a lift with toasted cumin, butter, fresh coriander and green chilli. Stir it hard and keep it soft. Serve hot with sukumawiki or any stew.

Read more 1 views

What to eat today?

Around the world

Today's trip: Paraguayan

A new country every day, from every cuisine on the site.

Paraguayan

Buñuelos de algas

Sea lettuce fritters 35 minMore from Paraguayan (27) →

This week's collection

Kid-friendly dinners
537 recipes · a new collection every Monday

Latest recipes

Gers ogailySaffron cardamom sponge cake

Gers ogaily is the plain, golden sponge cake that sits on every coffee tray in Kuwait and the UAE: served to visitors, at Eid gatherings and after Friday lunch with small cups of cardamom coffee. It is light and springy but not fluffy like a Western sponge, more like a fragrant, slightly firm tea cake, yellow with saffron and with sesame seeds toasted on top. A slice needs nothing else beside it but coffee or tea. The mistake to avoid is whisking the eggs and sugar too briefly; the whole rise depends on that foam, as there is little baking powder. Chef's tip: soak the saffron in warm rosewater before you begin, so its colour spreads evenly through the batter.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Ghiya chana daalChickpea dal with bottle gourd

Bottle gourd is the vegetable Punjabi mothers reach for when someone in the house needs something gentle, and pairing it with chana daal turns that mildness into a proper meal. The split chickpeas cook until creamy but still slightly nubbly, the ghiya melts into soft, translucent pieces and lends the pot a quiet sweetness, and a last-minute tarka of cumin, garlic and dried red chilli wakes the whole thing up. You will find it on everyday tables from Gujranwala to Sahiwal, eaten with chapati or plain boiled rice and a little sliced onion on the side. A common slip is adding the gourd at the start with the dal, so it disappears completely by the time the lentils are soft. Chef's tip: give the soaked dal a 20-minute head start and add the ghiya only then, so both are done together.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Arroz con dulceCoconut rice pudding

From the start of December to the Three Kings in January, trays of arroz con dulce cool on Puerto Rican kitchen counters, sliced into squares and handed round at parrandas when carollers arrive at the door late at night. Unlike a milky rice pudding, it is cooked in a water steeped with fresh ginger, cinnamon, cloves and star anise, then finished with coconut milk and raisins, so it is fragrant, firm enough to cut and dairy free. The common mistake is adding the sugar too early, which keeps the rice grains hard; sweeten only once they are soft. Chef's tip: soak the rice for an hour first, and it cooks evenly and absorbs the spiced coconut far better.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Arroz con maízRice with sweetcorn

In central Cuba, when the fields are full of young corn, families cut the kernels straight off the cob into the rice pot with a sofrito of onion, pepper, garlic and annatto, cooking everything together until golden and sticky at the base. Many farm cooks add salt pork; this vegan version leans on cumin and a little smoked paprika. A common mistake is using too much water, as fresh corn releases its own milk, so keep to the amounts given. Serve with black beans or a tomato and avocado salad. Chef's tip: scrape the cobs with the back of the knife after cutting off the kernels and add that milky pulp; it gives the rice a creamy sweetness.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

GanfanRice with stir-fried beef and peppers

Ganfan is a dish of the Dungan people, Chinese Muslim communities who settled in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in the 1870s, and it is ordered in every Dungan café in Bishkek and Karakol: a plate of plain rice with a ladle of stew on top, made by stir-frying thin strips of beef or lamb with peppers, aubergine, celery, tomato and garlic, seasoned with soy sauce and vinegar. A common mistake is crowding the wok, which makes the meat grey and watery. Chef's tip: cut the beef into thin strips against the grain and stir-fry it first in small batches over a fierce heat, then return it at the end. No pork is used in Dungan cooking. Beef strips are done when no pink remains.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Grilled bolti (Nile tilapia)

From the Nubian villages near Aswan to the fishing camps on Lake Nasser, bolti caught that morning is gutted, slashed and grilled over charcoal for lunch, and fish grills all over Egypt cook it the same way. The rub is simple: crushed garlic, plenty of cumin, lemon, chilli and oil, which toasts on the skin and seasons the sweet, mild flesh. A stuffing of onion and parsley in the belly keeps it moist. Eat it with your hands, picking the flesh from the bones, alongside tahini, green salad and rice or bread. Chef's tip: oil the grill bars as well as the fish and leave it alone for the first 6 minutes; fish moved too early tears and sticks, which is the usual grilling mistake.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Trini curry shrimp

Sold from food stalls in San Fernando and eaten at south Trinidad family lunches, curry shrimp is the fast curry of the island: the sauce is built in minutes, and the shrimp go in only at the very end. Plenty of garlic, roasted geera and hot pepper give a bright, punchy curry that you wipe up with dhalpuri or spoon over rice. The mistake nearly everyone makes the first time is stewing the shrimp, which turns them rubbery; they need three or four minutes, no more. Chef's tip: save the shells, simmer them in the water for 10 minutes and use that stock in the curry for a much deeper seafood flavour.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Gammeldags æblekageLayered apple compote dessert

'Old-fashioned apple cake' is not a cake at all but a Danish trifle, made on autumn weekends when the apple trees are heavy: tart apple compote layered in a glass bowl with breadcrumbs or crushed macaroons toasted in butter and sugar, topped with whipped cream and a few dots of redcurrant jelly. The crumbs stay crunchy against the soft fruit. A common mistake is assembling it hours ahead, which turns the crumbs soggy. Chef's tip: toast the crumbs until deep golden and crisp, and assemble within an hour of serving.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

GánicaPotato and flour crumble

Up in the hills of northern Hungary, in Nógrád and Borsod, potatoes and flour were often all a farmhouse kitchen had in late winter, and gánica made a meal of them. The potatoes are mashed with flour into a heavy dough, then torn apart with two forks into small, uneven crumbs, which are tossed in a pan of onion-scented oil until golden in places. The result is soft and fluffy with crunchy edges, more like a savoury crumble than a dumpling. Eat it as a side with a mushroom stew, or sweet, spooned over with plum jam. The usual slip is under-cooking the flour, which leaves the crumbs pasty; give it the full time over the heat while you beat it. Chef's tip: tear the dough while it is still hot; once it cools it sets into a lump and will not crumble.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Cocktail bunCoconut-filled sweet buns

Bakeries across Hong Kong pull trays of cocktail buns from the oven before the morning rush, and schoolchildren and commuters buy them warm in paper bags to eat on the bus or with milk tea at a cha chaan teng. The story goes that 1950s bakers invented them to use up day-old bread mixed with sugar and coconut, so the name is a playful nod to a cocktail of leftovers. Today the soft, milky roll holds a sweet, buttery coconut filling that's slightly sandy and chewy, under two piped stripes and a scatter of sesame seeds. A soft, warm filling tends to ooze out during proving and baking, so chill it until firm before you roll the buns. Chef's tip: roll each bun up tightly from the long side and pinch the seam well, then place it seam-down; loose rolls split open in the oven.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Boiled groundnuts in the shell

Freshly dug groundnuts appear in markets from Ibadan to Kano when the rains come, still muddy in their pale shells, and hawkers sell them boiled in salt water by the cupful, often next to roasted corn. Boiling turns the kernels soft and creamy, like a cooked bean, with salt seeping through the shell. They are eaten warm on the way home, cracked open with the thumbs. Using dried shop peanuts and boiling them for the same time is the usual mistake: they stay hard, so soak dried ones overnight and boil for 2–3 hours. Chef's tip: let them sit in the hot brine for 15 minutes after cooking, so the salt soaks in.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Arroz a la cubanaRice with tomato and egg

Havana cafeterías put this plate on the lunch board when cooks want something cheap, fast and filling: a mound of plain white rice, a ladle of garlicky tomato sauce, a fried egg with a runny yolk and slices of caramelised ripe plantain. Breaking the yolk into the rice and sauce is the whole point, so the eggs should be fried at the last minute. The usual mistake is using plantains that are still yellow-green; they need black-spotted skins to turn soft and sweet in the pan. Serve with a simple avocado salad. Chef's tip: baste the egg whites with hot oil from the pan so they set with lacy edges while the yolks stay liquid.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

GajakSesame jaggery brittle

Winter in Punjab has a sound, and it is the snap of gajak: thin, glossy sheets of toasted sesame bound in jaggery, sold from piled trays outside the sweet shops of Multan, Gujranwala and Lahore from the first cold week of December. It is nutty, crunchy and toffee-sweet, with the earthy depth of gur, and families keep a tin of it beside the heater to nibble after dinner with green tea or to share with visitors. The commercial kind is hammered and pulled into flaky layers, but the home version poured thin and rolled flat is what most households make. The pitfall is pulling the jaggery off the heat too early, which gives a brittle that turns chewy and sticky after a day. Chef's tip: test the syrup by dropping a little into cold water; it must snap cleanly at once, and that hard-crack stage is reached quickly, so have the sesame warm and ready. Take care: the syrup is far hotter than boiling water.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

FyddzhynBeef and onion pie

In North Ossetia, pies come in threes, for the sun, earth and sky, and the meat pie in that stack is fyddzhyn: a thin, soft yeast crust wrapped around juicy minced beef, onion, garlic and a little chilli, with a small hole in the middle to let out steam. The Ossetian people serve it at every family gathering and feast, hot and dripping with butter brushed on as it leaves the oven, cut into wedges and eaten with the hands. A common mistake is rolling the crust thick; good fyddzhyn is all filling and the dough should be barely 4 mm. Chef's tip: add a few spoons of cold stock to the mince; it turns to steam in the oven and keeps the filling juicy.

105 minRussianMeat
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Trini curry duck

Curry duck is the dish of the riverside lime in south and central Trinidad, cooked in a big iron pot over a wood fire while friends cool off in the water. The duck is chopped small, marinated in green seasoning, then "burnt" into a curry paste fried until almost black, which gives the sauce its dark colour and deep, slightly bitter edge. It's served with rice, dhal and sada or paratha roti. A common mistake is serving it before the duck has fully broken down: duck is chewy and needs long, slow cooking. Chef's tip: spoon off the yellow duck fat that rises during cooking and keep it for roasting potatoes.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Bermuda fish chowder

Bermudians call fish chowder their national dish, and every Sunday brunch and Cup Match picnic has a pot of it: a dark, thick soup made from a long-simmered fish-head stock with tomatoes, vegetables and white fish, seasoned at the table with a splash of black rum and sherry peppers sauce (hot peppers steeped in sherry). This recipe contains alcohol in those optional table seasonings; for an alcohol-free bowl, use a few drops of hot pepper sauce and a little molasses instead. The mistake to avoid is a thin, watery stock; the bones must simmer long enough to give body. Ask your fishmonger for heads and frames from white fish, gills removed. Chef's tip: let the finished chowder rest for 30 minutes before serving; it thickens and the flavours deepen.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

GaboutStuffed dumplings in tomato stew

Gabout is old Kuwaiti home cooking, the kind grandmothers in Kuwait City still make for family lunches in winter, and a close relative of the Iraqi dumplings brought along the trading routes of the Gulf. Soft flour dough is wrapped around spiced lamb or beef mince with chickpeas, and the dumplings are simmered in a sour tomato and dried-lime stew until they are tender and plump. It is filling and comforting, eaten with bread or on its own. The mistake people make is rolling the dough too thick, which makes the dumplings heavy and doughy. Chef's tip: wet your fingers when sealing, the dough must close tightly or the filling leaks into the stew.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Garash tortaWalnut meringue chocolate cake

In 1885 a Hungarian confectioner named Kosta Garaš created this cake in Ruse, the elegant Danube town, and it has been the pride of Bulgarian patisseries ever since. Five thin, chewy layers of walnut meringue are stacked with a dark, glossy chocolate ganache and finished with a mirror-like chocolate glaze. Because it uses no flour, it is naturally gluten-free; it is rich and dense, so slices are thin, served with black coffee on name days and anniversaries. The cake is best made a day ahead and chilled so the meringue softens slightly into the ganache. Where most people go wrong is grinding the walnuts to an oily paste; pulse them only until like coarse sand. You will have ten yolks left over: use them for custard or pasta. Chef's tip: bake each layer on a circle drawn on baking paper and trim them all to the same size while still warm, when they cut cleanly.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Showing 18 of 7,762 recipes

Show more recipes

Page 178 of 863