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Nasi dagang
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Nasi dagang

Breakfast on the east coast, in Kuala Terengganu and Kota Bharu, very often means nasi dagang: soft, slightly sticky rice steamed twice with coconut milk, ginger and fenugreek seeds, wrapped in paper with a ladle of gulai ikan tongkol, a gentle tuna curry. The rice is fragrant and a little chewy from the glutinous grains mixed in, while the curry is mellow, coconutty and sour from dried tamarind slices. Stalls sell it from dawn, with hard-boiled eggs and cucumber pickle on the side. It also makes a fine weekend brunch at home. Chef's tip: soak the two kinds of rice overnight so the grains steam evenly and turn plump rather than chalky.

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Kürtőskalács, or chimney cake, comes from the Székely Hungarian villages of Transylvania and is now sold at every Budapest Christmas market and summer festival, turning on spits over glowing coals. A strip of sweet yeast dough is wound around a wooden roller, rolled in sugar and baked until the sugar caramelises into a thin, crackling shell; you unwind the soft, steaming spiral as you eat it. At home you can bake it in the oven on foil-wrapped rolling pins or tins. Chef's tip: press the dough spiral firmly into the sugar before baking; loose sugar falls off, but pressed sugar melts into the glassy crust. A common mistake is leaving gaps between the strips, which makes the cake tear apart when you slide it off.

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Paprikás krumpli

Paprikás krumpli is a thrifty potato stew that every Hungarian student learns to cook, and it turns up at school dinners, on autumn weekdays and in cauldrons at village harvest festivals. Potatoes simmer in an onion and paprika base with pepper and tomato until they start to break and thicken their own sauce. Most versions add sliced smoked sausage; this vegan one swaps it for a pinch of smoked paprika and caraway, which give the same savoury depth. Serve in bowls with crusty bread and a pickled cucumber or a spoon of pickled peppers on the side. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes unevenly on purpose; the smaller pieces melt and thicken the sauce while the bigger ones stay whole.

45 minHungarianVegetarianVeganGluten free
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Ginger drink (tangawizi)

Tangawizi is a warming Swahili drink of ginger boiled with cinnamon, clove and black pepper and sweetened to taste. It's hot, peppery and soothing on a cool evening or when you have a cold. Serve hot in small kahawa cups.

24 minAfricanDrinksVeganGluten free
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Quiche lorraine

Quiche lorraine comes from Lorraine in north-eastern France, near Nancy and Metz, where it began as a bread-dough tart filled with eggs, cream and smoked bacon. It contains pork. The true Lorraine version has no cheese, just a deep, wobbly custard and crisp lardons, and it is eaten warm for lunch with a green salad or cut into slices for picnics. Chef's tip: blind-bake the pastry until it is golden and sealed; a pale base turns soggy under the custard.

105 minFrenchBaking
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Fish ambul thiyal

Ambul thiyal means 'sour stew', and it comes from the fishing towns of the south coast, around Matara, Galle and Tangalle. Fishermen once cooked it so the tuna would keep for days without a fridge: almost no liquid, plenty of goraka and black pepper, slowly reduced in a clay pot until each chunk is dark and coated. Today it is a favourite rice-and-curry dish on Sundays and holidays, and people often pack it for long journeys. It is sharp, peppery and firm, so a little goes a long way with rice and a coconut sambol. Chef's tip: cut the tuna into big 4 cm chunks; small pieces fall apart during the long, slow reduction.

60 minSri LankanFishGluten freeSpicy
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Neenish tarts

Neenish tarts have sat in the windows of Australian country bakeries for more than a century, and they're also found across the Tasman in New Zealand. Where the name comes from is still argued over, with one story placing it in the small town of Grong Grong in New South Wales. A crisp sweet pastry case holds a thin layer of raspberry jam and a fluffy mock cream, a beaten mixture of butter, sugar and milk, and the top is iced in two halves: one white, one chocolate. Many bakery mock creams use gelatine; this one doesn't. Chef's tip: beat the mock cream for a long time, a full 8–10 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved and it is white and fluffy, not gritty.

80 minAustralianBaking
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Bambalouni

Bambalouni are the big, flat, chewy doughnuts sold hot and wrapped in paper at the top of the blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said, outside Tunis, and on beaches all along the coast in summer. The dough is very soft and yeasty; it is stretched by hand into a ring and fried until puffed and blistered, then rolled in sugar. They are best eaten warm with a mint tea. Chef's tip: oil your hands, not the bench, to shape them; floured dough browns too fast and loses its blistered look.

40 minTunisianBakingVegan
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Coconut sweet (kashata ya nazi)

Kashata ya nazi is a simple Swahili sweet of desiccated coconut cooked with milk, sugar, evaporated milk and cardamom until thick, then pressed into a dish and cut into diamonds. It's chewy and sweet, and it keeps well. Store in an airtight container.

35 minAfricanDessertsGluten free
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Beef bulgogi

In Seoul, bulgogi restaurants still cook it on a domed grill set into the table, with a moat around the edge that catches the sweet juices for spooning over rice. At home it is made in a hot pan, and it is a favourite for family dinners, lunch boxes and birthday tables. Grated Asian pear softens the meat and adds a gentle sweetness to the soy and garlic. Wrap it in lettuce with a little ssamjang, or eat it over rice. Chef's tip: put the beef in the freezer for 30 minutes before slicing; firm meat cuts into wafer-thin slices easily.

40 minKoreanMeat
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Okinawa soba with soki

Okinawa soba has nothing to do with buckwheat: the noodles are thick, chewy and made from wheat, and the dish is the islands' everyday lunch. Small soba shops all over Okinawa serve it in a clear, gentle broth of pork and bonito, and the soki version is crowned with spare ribs braised so long that even the cartilage turns soft. Slices of fishcake, spring onions and red pickled ginger finish the bowl, and every table has a bottle of chilli steeped in awamori to splash on. October 17 is Okinawa Soba Day on the islands. Chef's tip: braise the ribs a day ahead; cold, the fat sets on top of the cooking liquid and lifts off in one piece, and the broth is cleaner for it.

150 minJapaneseSoups
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Huangshan braised pigeon

In the villages below the Huangshan mountains of Anhui, pigeon slowly stewed with Chinese yam in a clay pot is a classic nourishing dish, given to people recovering from illness and served to guests in cold weather. The broth is clear, light and gingery; the dark, rich squab turns tender enough to pull off the bone, and the yam goes soft and slightly creamy. Bring the pot to the table and eat the meat with rice, sipping the broth between mouthfuls. Squab is sold by good butchers and Asian grocers, often frozen. Chef's tip: wear gloves when peeling the yam; its sticky juice makes many people's hands itch.

120 minChineseMeatGluten free
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Kagoshima kurobuta shabu-shabu

Kagoshima, at the southern tip of Kyushu, is known across Japan for kurobuta, black Berkshire pork raised on farms in the prefecture. The meat is sweet with soft, clean-tasting fat, and shabu-shabu restaurants in Kagoshima city serve it sliced paper-thin so diners can cook it themselves at the table. Any thinly sliced pork loin or belly works well at home; Asian grocers sell it frozen for hot pots. Each slice is swished through the simmering kombu broth, then dipped in tangy ponzu or creamy sesame sauce. Chef's tip: when the meat is finished, cook a handful of rice or noodles in the leftover broth; it has taken on all the flavour of the pork and vegetables.

30 minJapaneseMeat
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Chicken nanban

Chicken nanban comes from Miyazaki prefecture in Kyushu, where it was created in the city of Nobeoka in the mid 20th century as staff food at a Western-style restaurant. Today it is the region's best-known lunch set, served in diners all over Miyazaki with shredded cabbage, rice and miso soup. Chicken thighs are dipped in flour and beaten egg, fried golden, then briefly bathed in sweet soy vinegar and covered with a chunky egg tartar. The sharp vinegar and the rich tartar balance each other. Chef's tip: dip the hot chicken in the vinegar only for a few seconds per side; you want it seasoned, not soaked.

40 minJapaneseChicken
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Vermicelli in coconut (tambi ya nazi)

Tambi ya nazi: soft vermicelli stirred into sweetened coconut milk with crushed cardamom, then baked briefly so it sets lightly. It's creamy, gently sweet and fragrant, and is often made for Eid. Serve hot, sprinkled with more cardamom.

30 minAfricanDessertsVegan
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Kumamoto ramen

Kumamoto's ramen grew from the same Kyushu pork-bone tradition as Hakata's, but it took its own road. The broth blends pork bones with chicken for a rounder, milder soup, the noodles are thicker and firmer, and every bowl is finished with mayu, a black oil made by slowly burning garlic, plus a handful of crisp fried garlic chips. Ramen shops around Kumamoto city and its castle serve it with chashu, wood ear mushroom and a seasoned egg. This version is a long weekend project, but the mayu and the chashu can be made a day ahead. Chef's tip: make the mayu over low heat and keep stirring; the garlic must go slowly from gold to brown to black, which takes about 15 minutes.

120 minJapanesePasta & Noodles
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Gombapaprikás

Gombapaprikás is the meatless cousin of chicken paprikás, cooked in Hungarian homes on Fridays and through Lent, and a regular on the vegetarian line of Budapest's self-service étkezde lunch rooms. Mushrooms simmer in onion, paprika and a little pepper and tomato, then the sauce is finished with sour cream until it turns a soft brick-pink. It is quick, rich and comforting, and nokedli are its natural partner, though rice or boiled potatoes work too. Chef's tip: brown the mushrooms in a hot pan in two batches before they meet the onions, so they fry instead of stewing in their own water and the sauce tastes deep rather than watery.

30 minHungarianVegetarianGluten free
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Mangalorean kori rotti

Kori rotti belongs to the Bunt community of Mangalore and Udupi, where it is cooked for weddings, the Aati festival and Sunday lunches. Kori is chicken, simmered in a thin, red coconut-milk gravy built on roasted Byadgi chillies; rotti are paper-thin dried rice wafers, bought in stacks and crumbled into the plate just before the curry goes over. They soften at the edges and stay crunchy in the middle. Chef's tip: pour the curry over the rotti only at the table; left to sit, the wafers turn to mush.

75 minIndianChickenSpicy
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Sai oua

Walk through Chiang Mai's Warorot market and you will smell sai oua before you see it: long coils of sausage smoking over charcoal, flecked green with lime leaf and orange with chilli paste. The meat is coarse and juicy, the flavour loud with lemongrass, galangal and turmeric, and Northern Thais eat it in thick slices with sticky rice, raw cabbage, nam prik noom and a few slices of fresh ginger. If you have no casings or sausage stuffer, the same mixture makes excellent flat patties. Chef's tip: fry a teaspoon of the mixture before you stuff anything and taste it; this is your only chance to fix the salt and chilli.

90 minThaiMeatGluten freeSpicy
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Lecsó

Lecsó is what Hungarian kitchens cook in late August, when markets in Szeged and Kecskemét are heaped with pale yellow wax peppers and over-ripe tomatoes. It is a soft, sweet-sour stew of peppers and tomato cooked down in paprika-scented oil; many families add smoked sausage or scramble eggs into it, but this version keeps it vegan and lets the peppers carry the flavour. Eat it hot with crusty bread or rice, or cold the next day, and jars of it are put up for winter. Chef's tip: add the tomatoes only once the peppers have softened; if they go in together, the tomato juice stews the peppers instead of letting them sweeten in the oil.

40 minHungarianVegetarianVeganGluten free
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Afghan biscuits

Afghans are a New Zealand classic, found in the old home baking books passed down in Kiwi kitchens and in the glass cabinets of cafés and bakeries from Christchurch to Whangārei. Nobody is quite sure where the name came from. The dough is rich with butter and cocoa, and lightly crushed cornflakes give each biscuit a crunchy, slightly rugged texture. A swirl of soft chocolate icing and a walnut half finish them off. They're not too sweet underneath, which is why the icing works so well. Chef's tip: crush the cornflakes only lightly with your hand; fine crumbs disappear, but big flakes give the crunch an afghan is known for.

35 minAustralianBaking
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Mombasa kachri bateta

A Mombasa street favourite: potatoes cooked in a thin, garlicky tomato and raw mango sauce, ladled into bowls and piled with crushed potato crisps, crunchy sev and a fresh coconut and mango chutney. Everyone builds their own bowl to taste. Serve straight away so the crisps stay crunchy.

60 minAfricanSnacks & StartersVeganSpicy
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Hokey pokey ice cream

Hokey pokey is what New Zealanders call honeycomb toffee, and vanilla ice cream full of crunchy little nuggets of it has been the country's best-loved flavour since the mid-twentieth century; it's scooped into cones at dairies and beaches from Auckland to Invercargill. The honeycomb is a bubbling golden syrup toffee that foams up when bicarbonate of soda goes in and sets glassy and light. Folded through a rich no-churn vanilla base, it stays crunchy at first and slowly turns chewy and toffee-like. Chef's tip: don't stir the sugar once it starts to melt; swirl the pan instead, or it will crystallise and turn grainy.

30 minAustralianDessertsGluten free
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Dobos torta

Dobos torta was created in Budapest in 1885 by the confectioner József C. Dobos, and it is still the cake Hungarians order in old coffee houses on Andrássy Avenue and bake for name days and big birthdays. Six thin sponge layers are stacked with a rich chocolate buttercream, and the top layer is glazed with hard amber caramel, cut into wedges and set at an angle like a fan. It is a project cake, but each stage is simple and the finished torte keeps for days. Chef's tip: mark the caramel into wedges with an oiled knife within the first minute; once it sets, it shatters instead of cutting.

150 minHungarianBaking
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Mala crayfish

On summer nights the pavements of Changsha and Wuhan fill with folding tables, plastic gloves and mountains of glossy red crayfish, the season's great shared feast from May to August. Each little shell is sucked for its spicy sauce before you twist off the tail for a sweet, firm bite of meat; the sauce is hot from chillies and bean paste, numbing from Sichuan pepper and rounded out with garlic and a bottle of lager. Large shell-on prawns make an easy swap if you can't buy live crayfish. Serve with cold drinks, cucumber, steamed buns or rice to mop up the sauce, and lots of napkins. Chef's tip: once the crayfish turn red, simmer them for no more than 8 minutes; longer and the tail meat goes mushy and comes away in shreds.

50 minChineseFishSpicy
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Fairy bread

No children's birthday party in Australia, and in New Zealand too, is complete without a plate of fairy bread, a tradition going back about a hundred years. Soft white bread is spread with butter and pressed face-down into a pile of hundreds and thousands, the tiny round coloured sprinkles, then cut into triangles. It's sweet, crunchy, buttery and gloriously bright, and children love making it as much as eating it. Many sprinkles are coloured with insect-based carmine (E120) or glazed with shellac (E904); for a vegetarian plate, choose a brand that uses neither. Chef's tip: use soft, spreadable butter right to the edges; it's the glue that holds every sprinkle.

10 minAustralianSnacks & Starters
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Pogácsa

Pogácsa are small, round, flaky savoury scones that appear on every Hungarian buffet table, at weddings, christening parties and wine tastings in Tokaj and Villány, where they are eaten with a glass of white. Bakeries sell them by weight, and every region has its own: with crackling, potato, cabbage or, like these, butter, sour cream and cheese. The dough is folded a few times, so they split into tender layers, and the top is scored in a criss-cross before baking. Chef's tip: cut straight down with a sharp cutter and don't twist; twisting seals the edges and the pogácsa rise lopsided. Use a cheese made with vegetarian rennet.

60 minHungarianBaking
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Anzac biscuits

Anzac biscuits are baked in kitchens all over Australia and New Zealand in the days before 25 April, Anzac Day, when both countries remember the soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who landed at Gallipoli in 1915. Recipes appeared in fundraising cookbooks soon after the war, and they keep well because they contain no eggs: just oats, flour, coconut, sugar, butter and golden syrup, raised with bicarbonate of soda. Bake them short for chewy, longer for crunchy; every family has its side. Chef's tip: add the bicarbonate to the hot butter and syrup and wait for it to foam up before mixing; that froth is what makes them light and lacy.

25 minAustralianBaking
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Túrós csusza

Túrós csusza is a simple dish of wide pasta squares tossed with crumbly túró curd cheese and sour cream, loved across Hungary and especially in the Danube villages, where it is served as a filling main after a bowl of fish soup. At home it is a Friday or end-of-the-month supper made from what is in the fridge. Traditionally it is topped with crisp pork crackling; here, fried onions and a little smoked paprika give the same crunch and savouriness. The flavour is mild, tangy and comforting. Chef's tip: toss the cheese into the pasta while it is still steaming so the túró warms through, but serve the sour cream cold on top for contrast.

30 minHungarianPasta & Noodles
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