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Geraardsbergse mattentaart

Curd tartlets

The small town of Geraardsbergen in East Flanders is so proud of its mattentaart that the little round puff-pastry tart has protected (PGI) status in the EU, and only bakers in the area may sell it under that name. It is filled with matten, a fresh curd made by curdling hot milk with buttermilk, mixed with eggs, sugar and a hint of almond, and baked until puffed and golden. Locals eat it with coffee, especially in late February when the town holds its Krakelingen festival. You make the curd yourself the day before. Chef's tip: hang the curd for a full night; too much whey left in it makes the filling weep and the pastry soggy.

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Sambal stingray

Weekend evenings at the seafood stalls of Newton, Chomp Chomp and East Coast Lagoon smell of charring banana leaf, and the dish sending up that smoke is usually sambal stingray. A fan-shaped stingray wing is spread thickly with a dark red, slow-fried sambal of chillies, shallots, candlenuts and toasted shrimp paste, laid on banana leaf and cooked over high heat until the sweet, delicate flesh pulls cleanly off the soft cartilage in strands. It comes with calamansi or lime, raw sliced shallots and a little dish of sour chinchalok, and a plate of steamed rice. Underfrying the sambal is the classic error: until the oil splits away and turns red, the paste tastes raw and harsh. If you can't find stingray, skate wing is the best substitute and cooks the same way. Chef's tip: score the thick end of the wing and push sambal into the cuts, so the flavour gets right into the flesh.

50 min

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Wu gok (crispy taro dumplings)

Few dim sum crack like wu gok: the shell of mashed taro puffs in the fryer into a golden, honeycomb lace so delicate it shatters at a touch, giving way to a soft, nutty taro layer and a juicy filling of diced pork, shiitake and oyster sauce. Hong Kong teahouses fry them to order through the morning and they are a must at Lunar New Year banquets. Eat them straight away, with a pot of jasmine tea to cut the richness. Lard is the traditional fat in the taro dough; vegetable shortening works too. The classic failure is oil that is too cool or too hot: below about 170 °C the dumplings fall apart, above 190 °C they brown before the lace forms. Chef's tip: chill the shaped dumplings for half an hour so the dough is firm and the lace blooms evenly.

90 min

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Sogo' (Alexandrian spicy sausage)

Sogo' sandwiches are as much a part of an Alexandrian night out as liver: the same street stalls fry coins of hot beef sausage with onion, green pepper, tomato and chilli until the juices turn red and sticky, then pack it into crusty rolls. The flavour is bold, garlicky and cumin-heavy, with fresh crunch from the peppers. Egyptian butchers sell the sausage ready-made; outside Egypt, use any spicy, coarse beef sausage such as beef merguez. Serve it in bread with tahini and pickles, or as a main dish with rice and salad. A frequent slip is crowding the pan, so the sausage stews grey instead of browning with the peppers. Chef's tip: fry the sausage first on its own until browned, then add the vegetables to its fat; you get far more flavour than cooking it all together.

25 min

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Fish singari (Alexandrian baked fish)

Alexandrian fish restaurants list singari next to grilled and fried fish, and families along the coast bake it at home for Friday lunch, usually with sea bream, sea bass or a large bolti. The fishmonger splits the fish down the back and opens it flat, then it is smothered in a garlicky cumin and lemon paste and laid over sliced tomatoes, green peppers, onion and chilli. In the oven the vegetables soften into a juicy sauce underneath while the fish roasts on top, so you get tender flesh, a slightly charred skin and plenty of sauce for spooning over rice. Serve with white rice, tahini and bread. Chef's tip: give the vegetables 10 minutes in the oven on their own first; it drives off water so the fish roasts instead of steaming.

65 min

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Shorbet lesan asfour (orzo soup)

Bowls of this golden broth start the meal on winter nights all over Cairo, and it is one of the first things set on the table at iftar, when a gentle, warm soup comes before anything heavier. Lesan asfour means "bird's tongue", the Egyptian name for the small rice-shaped pasta the rest of the world calls orzo. Fried in butter until nutty and then simmered in a well-seasoned chicken stock, the grains turn plump and silky, and a squeeze of lemon at the table lifts the whole bowl. Children love it, and it is what many Egyptian households cook for anyone feeling under the weather. Chef's tip: toast the pasta until it is the colour of roasted hazelnuts, not just pale gold; that browning is where all the flavour comes from.

25 min

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Minchi (Macanese minced meat with potatoes)

If one dish says home to Macanese families, the descendants of Portuguese and Chinese Macau, it is minchi: a quick hash of minced beef and pork seasoned with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and a touch of sugar, mixed with crisp little cubes of fried potato and crowned with a runny fried egg. It appears on weeknight tables, at Macanese restaurants near Rua do Cunha, and at gatherings of the Macanese community abroad, always with plain white rice. Savoury, slightly sweet and full of crunch, it tastes like the meeting of a Portuguese kitchen and a Cantonese wok. A common error is stirring the potatoes into the meat too early, which makes them soft and floury; fry them separately until crisp and fold them in at the end. Chef's tip: let the mince sit undisturbed for a minute in the hot pan before stirring, so it browns instead of stewing.

30 min

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HasipLamb and rice sausage

Hasip is the sausage of Bukhara, made after Kurban Hayit, the feast of the sacrifice: lamb casings stuffed with rice mixed with chopped lamb, liver and heart, onion and cumin, boiled until firm and then sliced and fried until crisp. Bukharan families serve it hot as a first course for guests. A common mistake is overfilling the casings; the rice swells and bursts them in the pot. Chef's tip: fill them only two-thirds full and prick well before simmering, then fry the slices in a dry pan so they crisp in their own fat. The filling must reach 71 °C.

180 min

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Soy sauce chicken

Glossy, chestnut-brown and hung by the neck in siu mei shop windows across Hong Kong, see yau gai is the gentle cousin of roast meats: a whole chicken poached in a fragrant master stock of light and dark soy, rock sugar, star anise, cinnamon and ginger until the skin is lacquered and the meat silky and sweet-savoury. It is chopped onto plates of rice with a ladle of the sauce for a quick lunch, or served at home with blanched greens. Shaoxing rice wine goes into the stock, with an alcohol-free option in the list. Traditional cooks pull the bird while it is still pink at the bone; this recipe does not, and the chicken is cooked to 74 °C in the thickest part of the thigh. The main pitfall is a rolling boil, which tears the skin and toughens the breast; keep the stock barely trembling. Chef's tip: strain and freeze the stock, and it gets deeper every time you reuse it.

75 min

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Asaro (yam pottage)

Lagos home cooks make asaro on busy weekdays because it needs one pot and very little fuss, and children usually love its soft, sweet-savoury comfort. Chunks of white puna yam simmer in a blended sauce of red bell pepper, tomato and scotch bonnet with palm oil, and as they cook some pieces collapse into a thick, orange porridge while others stay whole. It is often made with crayfish or smoked fish; this meat-free version gets its depth from locust beans and a vegetable stock cube. A handful of greens stirred in at the end turns it into a full meal, and it needs nothing alongside. For children, use half a scotch bonnet or leave it out. Chef's tip: don't stir in the first 15 minutes; mash only a third of the yam at the end, so there is both creamy sauce and tender chunks.

50 min

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Hamam mahshi (stuffed pigeon)

Pigeon towers still rise above villages in the Nile Delta, and stuffed pigeon is a celebration dish there and in Cairo's famous pigeon restaurants; it is traditionally served to newlyweds and at feasts. Each small bird is filled with freekeh (smoky green wheat) cooked with onion, giblets and warm spices, then simmered in a cardamom broth until tender and finished in a hot oven or fried so the skin turns deep brown and crackling. The meat is dark and rich, closer to duck than chicken, and the freekeh soaks up all the juices. Serve one bird each with a salad, pickles and the broth as soup. Use farmed squab from a poultry supplier. Chef's tip: stuff the birds loosely and sew or skewer them shut; freekeh swells as it cooks and an overfilled pigeon bursts.

125 min

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AvelookDried braided sorrel with walnuts

In Syunik, the mountainous south of Armenia around Goris, women pick wild mountain sorrel in May and braid the long leaves into ropes that hang drying in every kitchen. In winter and during Lent the braids are soaked, simmered until soft and fried with onion and walnuts, giving a dark, earthy, sour salad with a taste somewhere between spinach and olives. Braids are sold in Armenian shops. A common mistake is skipping the second boil, which leaves the leaves bitter and tough. Chef's tip: squeeze the cooked sorrel well and fry it long enough to dry and slightly crisp at the edges; that is when the flavour deepens.

60 min

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Gandofli (Alexandrian garlic clams)

Along the Alexandria Corniche and in the old Anfushi fish quarter, gandofli are a summer seaside snack, often sold by the plateful with lemon and sometimes eaten raw. Raw shellfish carries a real risk of food poisoning, so this home version cooks them: the little clams go into a hot pan with olive oil, garlic, a pinch of cumin and chilli, and steam open in a minute or two, releasing sweet, salty juices that mix with lemon into a sauce for mopping up with bread. Buy them live from a reputable fishmonger and cook them the same day. Chef's tip: soak the clams in salted water in the fridge for 30 minutes before cooking so they spit out their sand; nothing spoils them faster than grit.

25 min

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Bedouin sage tea

Visitors to a Bedouin camp in the Sinai mountains are handed small glasses of this tea almost before they sit down, brewed in a blackened kettle over the fire and sweetened generously. Wild maramiya, the local sage, is dropped in at the end, giving the strong black tea a soft, herbal, slightly camphor scent that is soothing after a long walk or a heavy meal. Garden sage works well, and dried sage is fine in a pinch. Boiling the sage is the mistake to avoid, because it turns the tea bitter. Sage is best taken in moderation and avoided in large amounts during pregnancy. Chef's tip: pour from a height into the glasses; the froth that forms is how Bedouin hosts like it served.

10 min

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Baasto (Somali spaghetti with spiced beef sauce)

Pasta arrived in Mogadishu during the Italian colonial period and was firmly adopted, so that today baasto with suugo is a standard Friday lunch and a staple of the city's restaurants. The sauce is a long-cooked mix of minced beef, onion, peppers and tomato seasoned with xawaash, garlic and a little chilli, closer to a spiced Somali stew than to an Italian ragù. A ripe banana is served alongside and eaten in alternate bites, cooling and sweet against the spice; a green chilli sauce and a squeeze of lime finish the plate. Overcooking the spaghetti is the usual error, because it carries on softening in the hot sauce; drain it a minute before the packet time. For a meat-free version simply leave out the beef and add a tin of chickpeas. Chef's tip: let the beef brown properly before the tomato goes in; that colour gives the sauce its depth.

50 min

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Doum drink

Spice and herb sellers in the Aswan souk pile up the hard, glossy brown fruit of the doum palm, and Nubian households soak it into a cold, sweet drink for the hot months and for Ramadan iftar. The dried flesh gives a cloudy amber drink that tastes surprisingly like gingerbread or caramel, with a faint woody bitterness. Buy it crushed or as coarse powder at Egyptian and African grocers; whole fruit is extremely hard to break. Leaving it to steep too long is the mistake to avoid, because it turns bitter. Chef's tip: strain twice, once through a sieve and again through muslin, to remove the gritty fibre.

15 min

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Sugarcane juice

Juice shops all over Cairo and the towns of Upper Egypt crush sugarcane through clattering steel rollers and serve the pale green juice ice-cold for a few pounds a glass, a favourite in the summer heat and after Ramadan fasting. It is sweet, grassy and refreshing, with a faint lemony edge, and it tastes best within minutes of pressing. Without a press, peeled cane chopped small and blended with a little water gives a very close result at home. Chef's tip: peel the cane completely, because the hard green rind makes the juice bitter and dark.

10 min

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Ikokore (Ijebu water yam pottage)

Ikokore is the Ijebu people's own pottage, made in Ijebu-Ode and towns across Ogun State from water yam, the purple-tinged yam that grates into a sticky paste. Spoonfuls of that paste go into a pepper and palm-oil sauce and set into soft, dumpling-like lumps, so it is part soup and part porridge, rich and spicy. Smoked fish and crayfish are traditional; this meat-free version uses mushrooms for their savoury bite. It is eaten as a complete meal, often on its own or with a cold drink. Water yam makes the skin itch, so wear gloves to peel and grate it. If water yam is hard to find, white yam works but sets softer. Chef's tip: drop the paste in and leave it for 10 minutes before you stir; stirring too soon is the mistake that turns the lumps into a smooth paste.

60 min

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Jamaican roast yam

Roast yam stands beside roast fish at the beach shacks of Treasure Beach and at the roadside stalls along the Ocho Rios road, long pieces pulled out of the coals with blackened, smoky skins. Yellow yam roasted this way turns dense, dry and nutty, quite different from boiled, and it is eaten hot with a little coconut oil or butter and a sprinkle of salt. The usual mistake is cutting the yam too short or thin, so it dries out; roast it in thick 20 cm lengths with the skin on. Here it is done in a hot oven, with a flame option for a smoky edge. Chef's tip: wrap the pieces in foil for the first 30 minutes so they steam inside, then unwrap them to char the outside.

60 min

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Steamed scallops with garlic and glass noodles

At the seafood stalls of Sai Kung and Lei Yue Mun, diners pick shellfish from the tanks and the kitchen sends them back in minutes: scallops on the half shell, each sitting on a nest of glass noodles under a heap of garlic, half fried golden and half left raw, steamed just until the scallop turns opaque, then finished with a splash of soy and a hiss of hot oil over spring onions. The noodles soak up all the sweet juices, the scallop is soft and barely firm, and the garlic is both mellow and sharp. Serve one or two each as a starter. Use only very fresh scallops: discard any that smell off or have cracked or broken shells. Most people overcook them; a large scallop needs only 5 to 6 minutes. Chef's tip: frying half the garlic and keeping half raw is the restaurant trick for deep, rounded garlic flavour.

25 min

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AwazeBerbere chilli dipping paste

Wherever tibs are fried or meat is grilled in Ethiopia, from roadside butcher-restaurants on the edge of Addis Ababa to wedding feasts, a small dish of brick-red awaze sits beside it. It is berbere turned into a thick, glossy paste: hot, garlicky, a little sharp from lemon, with a rounded warmth from the spices. Strips of meat are dabbed into it, it is stirred into a pan of tibs at the last moment, and a spoon of it livens up plain lentils too. Some cooks loosen it with tej (honey wine) or red wine, both of which contain alcohol; this version uses water and lemon juice and is entirely alcohol-free. Chef's tip: let it rest for an hour before using; the raw edge of the chilli softens and the garlic mellows into the paste.

12 min

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Amala (yam flour swallow)

Amala gets its dusky brown colour from elubo, yam that has been peeled, sliced, sun-dried and milled, which gives it a faintly smoky, earthy taste. Ibadan's amala joints serve it from morning to night, soft and steaming, wrapped in leaves or cling film, with ewedu, gbegiri and stew; it is pinched off with the fingers and dipped, never chewed for long. Making it takes five minutes and a strong arm: the flour goes into boiling water and is stirred and turned against the side of the pot until it is perfectly smooth and stretchy. Lumps are the usual mistake, so add the flour off the heat and stir hard from the first second. Chef's tip: use a sturdy wooden spatula (omorogun) and press the dough against the pot rather than just stirring it round; that is what makes it silky.

15 min

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Ekuru (white bean pudding with pepper sauce)

Pale and plain on purpose, ekuru is moin moin's quiet cousin: the same peeled black-eyed bean paste, but steamed with nothing in it except a little salt, so it comes out white, light and airy. In Ijebu and around Ogun State it is a breakfast and market snack, and all the flavour comes from the sauce served with it, a fried mix of red peppers, scotch bonnet, onion and locust beans in palm oil. The contrast of mild, fluffy pudding and hot, oily sauce is the whole point. This version is entirely plant-based. Chef's tip: beat the bean paste hard for several minutes before steaming; the trapped air is what makes ekuru light rather than dense.

90 min

Nigerian Snacks & Starters

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Kebab halla (beef braised in onions)

Despite the name, nothing here goes near a grill: kebab halla means "pot kebab", and it is the kind of unfussy Sunday or Friday dish that Cairo home cooks put on the stove and leave to its own devices. Chunks of beef are seared and then buried under a heap of sliced onions, which slowly give up their water and collapse into a glossy, almost jammy brown sauce with cardamom and bay. The meat ends up spoon-tender and the gravy tastes deeply savoury and a little sweet. It is eaten with Egyptian vermicelli rice, crusty bread or chips. Chef's tip: slice the onions into half-moons rather than chopping them; they melt evenly and give the sauce its silky body.

125 min

Egyptian Meat

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Moza (Egyptian lamb shanks with rice)

On Eid al-Adha, when there is lamb in every kitchen, and in the grill houses of Cairo where it is a favourite order, moza is the cut people point to: a whole shank per person, standing on a mound of rice. The shanks are first simmered gently with onion, cardamom, bay and a little mastic until the meat is ready to slip off the bone, then roasted in a hot oven so the outside turns brown and sticky. The rice cooks in the fragrant broth, so every grain carries the lamb flavour. A bowl of the remaining broth, a salad of tomato and cucumber and some tahini make it a feast. Chef's tip: skim the pot carefully in the first 15 minutes of simmering; a clear broth makes cleaner-tasting rice.

155 min

Egyptian Meat

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Sayadiya (fisherman's fish and rice)

The name comes from the word for fisherman, and sayadiya is the pride of the fish restaurants along the Alexandria seafront and in Suez, where it is ordered as a platter for the whole table. Its signature is the colour: onions are fried slowly until mahogany, then simmered into a stock that turns the rice a deep brown and fills it with sweet, savoury, cumin-scented flavour. On top go pieces of crisp fried fish and a scatter of toasted pine nuts and almonds, with lemon wedges, tahini and a green salad alongside. Chef's tip: watch the onions closely in the last few minutes and lift them out when they are dark brown, never black; burnt onions make the whole pot bitter.

75 min

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Mombar (rice-stuffed beef casings)

Mombar is festival food: in the days after Eid al-Adha, when the butchers have plenty of cleaned casings, families across Cairo and the Delta settle down to stuff them together, and street cooks in popular neighbourhoods sell crisp coils of it by weight. The filling is Egyptian short-grain rice with tomato, onion, dill, parsley and coriander, which swells inside the casing as it simmers, so each bite is soft, herby rice wrapped in a thin, crackling skin. It is eaten hot as a main dish or a side to roast meat, with lemon and a plate of pickles. Buy the casings ready-cleaned from a butcher; this recipe assumes they have been. The commonest mistake is overfilling the casings; packed full, the rice swells and they burst in the pot. Chef's tip: fill each length only two-thirds full; the rice doubles in size and an overstuffed casing bursts in the pot.

145 min

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Qolqas (taro with chard and coriander)

Coptic Christians across Egypt eat qolqas for the Feast of the Epiphany (Eid el-Ghitas) in January, together with sugarcane and oranges, and it is a winter favourite in Muslim homes too. Peeled taro is cut into cubes and simmered in chicken or beef stock until soft and almost creamy, then a green paste of chard, fresh coriander and garlic fried in oil is stirred through, turning the broth a deep, herby green. The texture is soft and slightly velvety from the taro's natural starch, and the flavour fresh and garlicky. It is served with white rice and often with the meat from the stock. Raw taro irritates the skin and mouth, so wear gloves to peel it and always cook it until completely tender. The usual mistake is touching peeled taro with bare hands or eating it undercooked; both bring an itchy, scratchy feel. Chef's tip: rub the cut cubes with lemon juice before cooking to keep them pale and reduce their sliminess.

75 min

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