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Patta gathia

Patta gathia are flat, ribbon-like strips of gram flour dough, rolled paper-thin under the palm on a wooden board and fried until crisp. Black pepper and ajwain give them their flavour. They are a classic Gujarati tea-time snack and are great with fried chillies and papaya sambharo.

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Bakonyi sertésszelet

The Bakony hills north of Lake Balaton are known for their beech forests and mushrooms, and any Hungarian dish called bakonyi comes with a creamy paprika and mushroom sauce. Here it covers seared pork loin steaks, a favourite of roadside inns and Sunday lunches across Transdanubia. The sauce starts like a pörkölt with onion, paprika, pepper and tomato, then takes on sliced mushrooms and is finished with sour cream, so it is earthy, tangy and rich. Serve it with nokedli or rice to soak it up. Where most people go wrong is boiling the sauce after the sour cream goes in, which makes it split; keep it just below a simmer. Chef's tip: use a mix of wild and chestnut mushrooms if you can, and fry them hard first so they brown instead of stewing.

60 min

Hungarian Meat

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Pyshki

On Bolshaya Konyushennaya street in St Petersburg a small pyshechnaya has been frying these since the 1950s, and locals will tell you firmly that a pyshka is not a ponchik, the filled Moscow doughnut. They come in a paper bag five or six at a time, so hot that the icing sugar melts at the edges, with a glass of sweet milky coffee from a big urn. The soft, fairly wet yeast dough gives a light, open crumb inside a thin golden shell. The usual slip is oil that is too cool: the rings soak it up and turn heavy, so keep a thermometer in the pan at 175 °C. Chef's tip: set each shaped ring on its own small square of baking paper and lower the paper into the oil with it; the paper slips off after a few seconds and the ring stays perfectly round.

90 min

Russian Desserts

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Învârtită

Sunday visits in the villages around Iași and Suceava rarely happen without a tray of învârtită, the coiled pastry whose name simply means 'twisted'. A soft dough is pulled over a floured tablecloth until it is as fine as paper, brushed with butter, covered in sweet cottage cheese with raisins and lemon zest, rolled up and wound into a snail before baking. Fresh from the oven it is crackly at the edges and moist in the middle; it is cut into wedges and eaten with coffee or a glass of milk. Families also fill it with sour cherries in June or grated pumpkin in autumn. Cottage cheese is usually made without animal rennet, but check the label if you keep strictly vegetarian. Lots of bakers stretch the dough too soon after mixing, and it tears into holes; give it the full rest. Chef's tip: drain the cottage cheese in a sieve for 20 minutes first, so the filling stays creamy and does not run out of the seams.

120 min

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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

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Mujdei

Fierce, white and pungent, mujdei is the garlic sauce that every Romanian region claims, pounded in a wooden bowl and spooned over whatever comes off the grill. Traditionally it goes with grilled pork, fried fish from the Danube and the Christmas pork feast, but it is just as good on boiled or fried potatoes, grilled peppers, aubergine and hot mămăligă. Garlic is crushed to a paste with salt, then loosened with cold water and a little oil until it looks like thin cream. The usual slip is blitzing it in a blender, which makes it bitter and frothy; a mortar or the flat of a knife gives a cleaner flavour. Garlic in oil can grow harmful bacteria at room temperature, so keep leftovers in the fridge and use within 2 days. Chef's tip: let it stand 10 minutes before serving so the raw edge mellows a little.

10 min

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Cheremsha salad

Late April in Novosibirsk and Tomsk brings bunches of cheremsha to every market stall and roadside bucket: the first green vitamins after a long Siberian winter. The broad leaves and juicy stems of wild garlic taste of sweet, mild garlic with a peppery bite, and Siberians eat them simply, chopped with salt and fragrant unrefined sunflower oil, beside boiled potatoes and black bread. Some cooks add chopped egg or sour cream; this vegan version sticks to oil, with cucumber for crunch. Forage only with someone who knows the plant, or buy it: wild garlic has poisonous lookalikes such as lily of the valley, and real leaves smell strongly of garlic when crushed. Where most people go wrong is dressing it too early, so the leaves wilt and weep. Chef's tip: salt the chopped stems first and rub them for a few seconds; it softens their bite and draws out juice that becomes part of the dressing.

15 min

Russian Salads

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Ræstur fiskur

Ræstur fiskur is cod or other white fish that Faroese families hang in the wind-swept hjallur for weeks until it ferments and develops a strong, cheesy taste; it is then boiled and eaten with boiled potatoes and melted tallow or butter, a Sunday and winter dish across the islands. It needs the Faroese wind and is bought ready-hung, never made at home. A common mistake is boiling it hard, which makes it tough and stringy. Chef's tip: soak the fish in cold water for an hour before cooking to tame its saltiness, then simmer gently until it flakes. It is cooked when opaque right through.

40 minScandinavian Fish

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Salted saffron milk caps

Northern Russians rank ryzhiki, the orange saffron milk caps of the pine woods, above almost every other mushroom, and salted ones from around Arkhangelsk once travelled to the tsar's table. Salted, they keep their bright colour, turn firm and juicy with a clean, resinous taste, and are served with thin onion rings, sunflower oil and hot boiled potatoes; for non-vegans a spoon of sour cream is classic. Old cellars dry-salted them raw for months; this safer fridge version blanches the caps briefly and keeps them in a measured brine in the fridge, ready in about a week. Only use mushrooms identified by an experienced forager or bought from a trusted seller. Where most people go wrong is guessing the salt; too little lets spoilage start, so weigh it. Chef's tip: the caps bruise green where handled, which is normal, so don't worry when the edges darken.

30 min

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Filets de perche

Filets de perche are the signature dish of the lakeside restaurants around Lake Geneva, from Geneva to Lausanne and Montreux: small, delicate perch fillets dusted with flour, fried quickly in butter until golden, and served with lemon, tartare sauce, a pile of fries and a green salad on a summer terrace. Lake perch is scarce today; ask for responsibly sourced perch or use small fillets of pike-perch or another delicate white fish. A common mistake is crowding the pan, which steams the thin fillets. Chef's tip: fry in batches in foaming butter for just a minute or so a side; the fish is done when opaque and it flakes.

25 min

Swiss Fish

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