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Variyali sharbat (fennel cooler)
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Variyali sharbat (fennel cooler)

On May afternoons in Ahmedabad and Surat, when the loo wind blows and nobody wants a hot drink, Gujarati homes keep a bottle of variyali sharbat concentrate in the fridge. Fennel seeds are soaked, ground with rock sugar, strained and mixed with lemon and a little black pepper, then diluted with iced water for guests, after lunch, or to break a fast, since nothing in it is off-limits on upvas days if you use rock salt. It is pale green and cloudy, with a sweet aniseed taste, a sharp lemon finish and a faint peppery tingle. The common mistake is grinding dry fennel straight away: it stays gritty and the flavour is harsh. Soak the seeds for at least two hours so they swell and grind into a smooth paste. It is ready when the strained concentrate is silky, smells clearly of fennel and tastes very sweet, as it will be diluted three or four times. The concentrate keeps 5 days in the fridge in a clean bottle. Chef's tip: add a few mint leaves or a pinch of cardamom when grinding for a more rounded cooler.

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Ginger milk curd

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Kimbula banisCrocodile-shaped sweet bun

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Maple cream

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65 minCanadianChutneys & DipsVeganGluten free
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Water chestnut cake

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Amala ko acharGooseberry pickle

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Ginger scallion sauce

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African chicken (Macanese galinha africana)

Macau restaurants have served galinha africana since the 1940s, and the story most often told is that a hotel chef in the city created it from spices that Portuguese sailors brought back from Mozambique and Angola. Today it is a signature at Macanese and Portuguese restaurants from Taipa village to Coloane, eaten at long weekend lunches with rice or crusty bread. Chicken pieces are marinated, grilled until charred, then baked under a thick, brick-coloured sauce of ground peanuts, coconut milk, chilli, paprika, garlic and onion that is rich, nutty and quietly fiery. It is often made with a pale, timid sauce; cook the onion, garlic and paprika slowly until really deep red before the coconut goes in. Chef's tip: marinate the chicken overnight in the fridge so the garlic and chilli reach the bone.

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AlivenciCornmeal and cheese cake

Across the Prut, in villages from Vaslui to the Republic of Moldova, alivenci is what happens when a farmhouse has fresh cheese, sour cream and a sack of cornmeal: a soft, custardy cake baked in a tray and cut into squares while warm. It is lighter than mămăligă and richer than bread, with a tender, slightly crumbly crumb studded with curd, and is eaten for Sunday breakfast or as a side with stews and a dollop of sour cream. Traditional brânză de vaci (cottage-style cheese) is usually made without rennet, but some brands use it, so check the label. Where most people go wrong is using coarse polenta, which stays gritty; fine cornmeal gives the silky texture. Chef's tip: let the batter sit for 15 minutes before baking so the cornmeal hydrates and the cake sets evenly.

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Chitoi pithaSpongy rice flour cakes

As soon as the cold arrives in December, women set up clay stoves on the pavements of Dhaka, Mymensingh and every district town, and chitoi pitha is what they sell: round, white rice cakes steamed and baked in small covered clay moulds, smooth and slightly crisp underneath and full of tiny holes on top. Winter evenings are spent queuing for them, and they are eaten hot with a row of bhortas, mustard, coriander, garlic or dried fish, or with duck curry. At home, leftover chitoi is soaked overnight in milk sweetened with date-palm jaggery to make dudh chitoi for breakfast. A batter that is too thin gives flat, dense cakes; it should be like a thick pancake batter. Chef's tip: blend a spoonful of cooked rice into the batter, which keeps the pitha soft and spongy even after it cools.

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Kittitian goat waterPeppery goat stew

Goat water is what St Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat serve at weddings, village fêtes and every Saturday cookshop: a thick, dark, peppery goat stew-soup flavoured with cloves, thyme, tomato and a heap of hot pepper, thickened with flour and studded with breadfruit, green papaya or dumplings. On Montserrat it is the national dish and comes with crusty bread rolls. The common mistake is thinning it out; despite the name, true goat water should coat a spoon. Ask your butcher to chop bone-in goat into small pieces. Chef's tip: brown a spoonful of flour in the pot before adding the liquid; it gives the gravy its deep colour and nutty taste.

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KobeteLamb and potato pie

Kobete is the grand pie of Crimean Tatar celebrations, a tall golden dome cut at the table like a cake, its name thought to come from an old word for a pastry dome. Inside, small cubes of raw lamb, potato and onion are seasoned with black pepper and baked slowly in a soft, buttery yoghurt pastry, so the meat cooks in its own juices into a peppery broth that soaks the potato. Chicken versions are common too. Serve warm with a sharp salad or ayran. People tend to cut the meat too big; in a sealed pie, large chunks stay chewy while the crust burns. Allow time for the long bake and a short rest before slicing. Chef's tip: pour a ladle of hot stock through the steam hole halfway through baking, which keeps the filling juicy and tells you, by the bubbling, that it is cooking well inside.

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Bak chor meeMinced pork noodles

Queue at almost any Teochew noodle stall in a Singapore kopitiam before work and the order you hear most is a bowl of bak chor mee, dry, with extra vinegar. Springy flat mee pok is tossed at the bottom of the bowl in black vinegar, chilli paste, soy and a spoon of pork lard, then crowned with loosely poached minced pork, slices of pork liver, fish balls and sweet braised mushrooms, with a small bowl of clear pork soup on the side. It should taste sour first, then hot, then rich, and the noodles must stay bouncy rather than soft. Where most home cooks go wrong is cooking the noodles in one long boil: they turn limp and soak up the sauce instead of carrying it. Chef's tip: blanch the noodles twice, plunging them into cold water in between, which is how the hawkers get that al dente snap.

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KhupluBeef, lamb and potato pie

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Bein montJaggery coconut rice pancake

When the November nights cool down for the Tazaungdaing festival, food stalls outside pagodas in Yangon and Mandalay start cooking bein mont in small, lidded iron pans with embers piled on top, so the cake bakes from above and below at once. The batter is rice flour sweetened with dark jaggery, so it cooks into a thick, springy, brown pancake with a crisp base, studded on top with shreds of coconut and sliced peanuts; some vendors still scatter poppy seeds, the bein that may have given the snack its name. It is eaten warm in wedges with hot green tea. High heat is what usually goes wrong: the base scorches while the centre stays raw, so keep the flame low and the lid on. Chef's tip: a small cast-iron pan finished under the grill copies the charcoal top heat at home.

45 minBurmeseDessertsVeganGluten free
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Barley water

Ask for 'barley' at any drinks stall in a Singapore kopitiam and you get a tall glass of cloudy, faintly sweet barley water, the drink older relatives swear by on the hottest afternoons because it is said to cool the body. Home cooks simmer pearl barley for an hour with knotted pandan leaves, and in Teochew and Cantonese households chunks of winter melon go in as well for a gentle, cucumber-like sweetness. The result is light and clean, ideal beside a plate of chicken rice, char kway teow or anything greasy and salty. The usual mistake is boiling it hard, which turns the liquid starchy and slimy instead of smooth and pale; keep it at a gentle simmer. Chef's tip: don't throw away the softened barley grains; spoon some into each glass, as the stalls do, or eat them warm with a little rock sugar as a light dessert.

65 minSingaporeanDrinksVegan
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Khubz ahmarRed date bread

In the palm groves of Al-Ahsa in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, bakers slap rounds of khubz ahmar onto the walls of tannour ovens, and its colour, a deep reddish brown, comes from date syrup kneaded straight into the dough. Locals eat it for breakfast and with tea, often spread with cream cheese or dipped in more syrup. Fenugreek and black seed give it a warm, almost maple-like perfume, and the crumb is dense and soft with a chewy crust. A common mistake is adding too much flour because the dough feels sticky; the syrup makes it tacky, and extra flour turns the bread heavy. Oil your hands instead. Chef's tip: bake on a very hot stone and pull the breads once the edges darken; the sugars burn quickly after that.

150 minGulf ArabianBreads & ParathasVegan
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Khobz mellaEmber-baked bread

Around Douz, on the edge of the Tunisian Sahara, nomadic herders bake khobz mella by digging a hollow in sand heated under a fire, laying in a thick round of dough and burying it under more hot sand and embers. Brushed off and broken up, the crusty, smoky bread is crumbled into a tomato, pepper and onion stew to make mella, or eaten with olive oil and dates. Visitors to desert camps watch it being made by firelight. At home, a pizza stone or an upturned heavy tray in a very hot oven gives a similar chewy loaf with a thick crust; a charcoal barbecue gets you close to the smoky flavour. Chef's tip: dock the dough well with a fork; without it the round puffs up into a hollow ball and the crust cracks.

90 minTunisianBreads & ParathasVegan
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Singapore breakfast fried bee hoon

Before office hours in Toa Payoh or Ang Mo Kio, the economy-rice stalls already have a steel tray of pale-brown fried bee hoon on the counter, and people point at it, then add a side or two from the trays beside it: a fried egg, fried tofu, braised cabbage, a curry potato. The noodles themselves are kept deliberately simple, springy and lightly savoury from soy sauce, threaded with cabbage, carrot and crunchy bean sprouts, then finished with a spoon of sambal chilli. Because it is plain, every strand needs to be seasoned evenly and still separate. The usual mistake is over-soaking the vermicelli, which then clumps and breaks in the wok; soak it only until bendy. Chef's tip: toss the noodles with tongs or chopsticks in a lifting motion rather than stirring with a spatula, so the soy coats every strand without breaking it.

25 minSingaporeanPasta & NoodlesVegan
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Salt and pepper squid

Late at night in Temple Street, or at a seafood restaurant on Lamma Island after a ferry ride, someone at the table always orders the jiu yim squid: tender pieces under a thin, shattering coat, wok-tossed with a heap of fried garlic, chilli and spring onion and showered with a peppery spiced salt. It is crunchy, salty and a little fiery, ideal with a cold soft drink or as one of several dishes with rice. Squid cooks in seconds. The most frequent mistake is crowding the oil, which drops its temperature so the coating turns soggy and the squid goes rubbery while you wait; fry in small batches. Chef's tip: score the inside of the squid in a criss-cross pattern so it curls up and catches more of the salt.

25 minHong KongFishSpicy
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AlaniWalnut-stuffed dried peaches

Every autumn in the Ararat Valley, the orchards below Mount Ararat produce more peaches than can be eaten fresh, so families split them, dry them in the sun and then stuff them with a mixture of crushed walnuts and sugar, pressing them closed again. The finished alani are sold on strings at Yerevan's covered market and given as gifts at New Year, chewy, sweet and nutty. At home, start with good soft dried peaches. A common mistake is using very dry, leathery fruit, which cracks when you open it. Chef's tip: steam the peaches for 2 minutes first, so they turn soft and pliable and close neatly around the filling.

30 minArmenianDessertsVeganGluten free
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KhirshaReduced milk fudge

In the dairy belt of Sirajganj and Pabna, where milk is cheap and plentiful, khirsha is made the patient way: milk is boiled in a wide iron karai and stirred for well over an hour until it has reduced to a sixth of its volume and become a thick, pale-caramel paste, then sweetened and cooked a little longer. Sold in clay saucers or pressed into blocks, it tastes of pure cooked milk, sweet and slightly toffee-like, with a fudgy, fine-grained texture. It is eaten on its own, spread on puffed rice, rolled into pithas or packed into the shells of other sweets. Burning the bottom is the classic mishap, which makes the whole batch taste scorched, so stir constantly and scrape the corners once it thickens. Chef's tip: use a wide, heavy pan rather than a deep one; the bigger the surface, the faster the milk reduces.

90 minBangladeshiIndian SweetsGluten free
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KholodetsMeat jelly

Kholodets is winter food, made in big batches before New Year and Orthodox Christmas when the cold balcony doubles as a fridge. Pork trotters and beef shin are simmered for hours until the broth is rich enough to set on its own, no added setting agent; the meat is shredded, layered with garlic and covered with the strained stock to set into a trembling, clear jelly. It is eaten cold, cut into squares, with sharp horseradish and mustard and hot boiled potatoes. This dish uses pork (trotters and knuckle) as well as beef. Where most people go wrong is letting the pot boil hard, which makes the jelly cloudy and greasy. Chef's tip: spoon a little broth onto a cold saucer after 5 hours; if it sets firm in the fridge in 15 minutes, the stock is ready.

480 minRussianMeatGluten free
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