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Ugba salad

Ugba, the long, thin slices of fermented African oil bean, are a favourite of Igboland in south-east Nigeria, eaten at village meetings, weddings and as an evening snack with cold drinks in Enugu and Owerri. The slices have a nutty, savoury, slightly funky flavour, and here they are tossed with diced garden eggs, shredded garden-egg leaves, onion, fresh pepper and a little red palm oil. Many cooks add ground crayfish and stockfish; this version is vegan. Suitable as part of a balanced diet, it is high in fibre and plant protein: about 220 kcal and 10 g carbohydrate per portion. The usual mistake is not rinsing shop-bought ugba, which can taste too sharp and fermented; rinse it in warm water first. Chef's tip: warm the palm oil just enough to make it runny, never hot, so it coats every slice.

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Next to the kulich on every Russian Easter table stands a white pyramid stamped with the letters ХВ, for 'Christ is risen', cut into thin wedges and spread on slices of the sweet bread. Old recipes stir raw yolks and cream straight into the curd; this is a cooked paskha (zavarnaya), where yolks, cream and sugar are first heated into a custard, which is safer and keeps longer. Use pasteurised tvorog, cream and eggs, and check the tvorog label if you want it rennet-free. The texture is dense and smooth like a firm cheesecake filling, sweet with vanilla, raisins, candied peel and almonds. Where most people go wrong is skipping the sieving; unsieved curd stays grainy whatever else you do. Chef's tip: no pyramid mould? A new, clean flowerpot or a sieve lined with muslin works, with a weight on top overnight in the fridge.

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Zala county, in the green hills of south-west Hungary, is so proud of dödölle that villages hold festivals for it. Potatoes are boiled, mashed with flour into a stiff dough right in their pot, then scooped into little lumps with a spoon dipped in hot fat and fried with plenty of onion until crisp and brown on the outside and soft inside. The old way is to fry them in lard; this version uses oil, so it is vegan, though a knob of butter is lovely if you eat dairy. Eat them as a side, or as a main with sauerkraut, cucumber salad or a mushroom stew. A common mistake is drying the dough out with too much flour, which makes heavy, gluey lumps; it should be thick but still a little sticky. Chef's tip: dip the spoon in the hot oil before every scoop, and the dödölle slide off smooth.

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