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Methi palak dhokra
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Methi palak dhokra

Fenugreek and spinach bean cake

A soft, spongy, low-calorie dhokra made from soaked black-eyed beans blended to a batter with fresh fenugreek, spinach and green chilli-ginger paste, lifted with fruit salt and steamed. Cut into squares and serve with green chutney as a snack or light meal.

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Kachi lassiMilk and water lassi

Harvest time in the Punjab is thirsty work: when the wheat is being cut in the April heat, a steel jug of kachi lassi is carried out to the workers: fresh milk thinned with cold water, stirred with sugar and poured over chunks of ice. Unlike yogurt lassi there is no tang, just a light, clean, milky sweetness that quenches thirst better than plain water, and in many villages it is the drink offered to any guest who arrives on a hot afternoon. Some people add a pinch of salt instead of sugar, or a few drops of rose water. The traditional kind uses raw milk straight from the buffalo; use pasteurised milk instead to be safe. The usual mistake is making it with too little water, which turns it heavy instead of refreshing. Chef's tip: whisk it hard or shake it in a jar so it turns frothy, which makes it feel even cooler.

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Kachumar saladTomato, onion and cucumber salad

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Bahamian stew fishGrouper in roux gravy

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In Doha and Kuwait City, aseedat bobar arrives on winter evenings and at Ramadan iftar in a shallow dish, smooth and orange, with a little pool of melted ghee in the centre. Bobar is the Gulf word for red pumpkin, cooked down and thickened with toasted flour, sugar and cardamom into a soft, spoonable sweet that tastes a bit like a spiced pumpkin pie filling. Scoop it warm with a spoon or with pieces of bread, alongside Arabic coffee. Stopping the stirring too soon is the usual mistake: the pudding must cook until it pulls away from the sides, or it tastes of raw flour. Chef's tip: toast the flour in a dry pan until it smells like biscuits before it goes in; that nutty note is what makes it.

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Every October the town of Békéscsaba holds a sausage festival where teams grind, season and stuff pork by hand, and the town's name is on Hungary's most famous paprika sausage. The real csabai is smoked over beech and then air-dried for weeks; curing like that needs curing salt, careful temperature and humidity control and a lot of experience, so this recipe makes the same spicy pork mixture as a fresh sausage that is cooked through to 71 °C and never eaten raw. It is fiery, garlicky and deep red from sweet and hot paprika with a warm hint of caraway, and is excellent grilled or pan-fried, with mustard, fresh bread, pickled peppers and raw onion. The usual slip is letting the meat get warm while you work, which smears the fat and gives a dry, crumbly sausage; keep everything ice cold. Chef's tip: fry a small test patty before stuffing to check the salt and heat.

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CsalamádéSweet-sour mixed pickle

Late August in the Hungarian countryside means a kitchen full of jars: the last cucumbers, a white cabbage and a basket of pale wax peppers all go into csalamádé, the mixed pickle that sits on the table all winter next to pörkölt, sausages and fried meat. It is shredded, crunchy and bright, sweet-sour with a peppery bite, and it makes a fine side to any rich stew. The brine needs vinegar of at least 5% acidity (check the label) to keep the jars safe; never dilute it more than the recipe says. The usual slip is skipping the salting stage, which leaves the vegetables watery and the brine weak; salting draws out their juice first. Store unopened jars in a cool, dark cupboard for up to 6 months if processed, or in the fridge for a month if not; once a jar is open, keep it in the fridge and eat within 2 weeks. Chef's tip: wait at least 2 days before opening, so the flavours settle.

60 minHungarianChutneys & DipsVeganGluten free
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DibsDate syrup

Across the Gulf, from the date gardens of Al-Ahsa to the oases of Oman and the UAE, dibs is the dark, glossy syrup pressed and boiled from ripe dates, and it was the region's sweetener long before sugar was common. It tastes of toffee and dried fruit with a faint bitterness, and families pour it over chebab and khameer, mix it with tahini for dipping bread, and use it in sweets like luqaimat. Making it at home takes time but little effort, and a kilo of dates gives a jar that lasts for months in the fridge. The mistake is boiling the strained juice too hard at the end: it scorches and turns bitter. Chef's tip: squeeze the date pulp in the cloth when it is still warm; you get far more juice than from cold pulp.

180 minGulf ArabianBasicsVeganGluten free
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Doodh sodaMilk with lemon-lime soda

It sounds odd until you are standing in a crowd at a Lahore milk shop on a 45 °C June night, when a tall glass of doodh soda, foamy and sweet with a sharp citrus fizz, is the most refreshing thing in the city. The doodh-walas of Gawalmandi and Mozang chill milk in steel drums over ice, then pour it from a height into a glass with lemon-lime soda so that it froths like a milkshake, and people drink it straight after dinner or after a late plate of fried fish or chana. It tastes like a lighter, bubbly lassi, and children love it. What usually goes wrong is warm milk or flat soda, which makes it taste curdled rather than crisp. Chef's tip: chill both the milk and the soda until very cold, pour the milk first and add the soda in one go, then serve at once while the foam is high.

5 minPakistaniDrinksGluten free
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KartofdzhynPotato and cheese pie

Ossetian pies come in threes at every celebration in Vladikavkaz, stacked on one plate for the sun, earth and water, and kartofdzhyn, with potato and cheese, is the everyday family favourite of North Ossetia. Soft kefir-yeast dough is wrapped around a ball of filling and patted flat by hand into a wide, thin round, so dough and filling are each barely a centimetre thick, then baked hot and soaked with butter. Ossetian cheese is a fresh brined cheese made with animal rennet; for a vegetarian pie use a feta-style or young brined cheese labelled vegetarian. The usual slip is overfilling, which makes the pie burst as you flatten it; aim for about the same weight of dough and filling. Chef's tip: stack the hot pies and butter each one, so the butter soaks through and they stay supple.

90 minRussianBaking
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KesäkeittoSummer vegetable and milk soup

In July, when Finland's first new potatoes, baby carrots, peas and cauliflower arrive at market stalls in Helsinki and Turku, families make kesäkeitto: the vegetables simmered in water until just tender, then finished with milk and a knob of butter and lots of dill. It is light, sweet and pale green, eaten with rye bread and butter. A common mistake is boiling it once the milk is in, which can curdle the soup. Chef's tip: add the vegetables in order of cooking time, so each is just tender and keeps its colour.

40 minScandinavianSoupsGluten free
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Kancha gollaFresh cheese balls with cardamom

Natore, a quiet district town north of the Padma, is known throughout Bangladesh for one sweet, and a visit there is incomplete without a clay pot of kanchagolla to carry home. Kancha means raw, and the name is a joke at the sweet's expense: unlike rasgulla or chomchom, it is never boiled in syrup but simply kneaded fresh chhana with sugar, warmed in a pan for a few minutes and rolled into soft balls scented with cardamom. The texture is moist and faintly grainy, the taste milky and gently sweet, best eaten within a day or two. Cooking the mixture too long is what most home cooks get wrong; it turns dry and crumbly, more like sandesh. Chef's tip: make the chhana from full-fat milk and squeeze it only lightly, so plenty of moisture stays in for that melting Natore texture.

60 minBangladeshiIndian SweetsGluten free
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Khaddi kebabRoast spiced lamb over rice

A khaddi, in Baloch country, is a pit dug in the ground and lined with hot stones; a whole goat or lamb, rubbed with salt and spices and stuffed with rice, is lowered in, covered with earth and left for hours, then dug out for weddings and tribal feasts. Few home cooks have a pit, so this version roasts a bone-in lamb shoulder low and slow under foil, then sets it on a tray of part-cooked rice so the rice drinks the dripping juices, the same marriage of meat and rice the pit gives. The meat should pull apart with a spoon and the rice taste deeply of lamb. Stuffing raw rice inside a big joint is where cooks go wrong at home: the centre stays underdone and is not safe, so cook the rice under the meat instead. Chef's tip: roast the lamb the day before, chill it in its juices and lift off the hard fat, then reheat with the rice; it carves more neatly too.

300 minPakistaniMeatGluten free
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CovrigiRomanian pretzel rings

Morning commuters in Bucharest buy them hot from a hole-in-the-wall covrigărie, a paper bag of rings still warm enough to fog the glass; in Buzău, the town most proud of them, people swear by the thin twisted kind. Covrigi are a lean yeast dough with no egg or milk, so they are eaten through the fasting seasons too. Each ring is dipped briefly in boiling soda water, scattered with coarse salt and seeds, then baked until shiny and chewy with a crisp crust. A common mistake is leaving them in the water bath too long, which wrinkles the surface; 20–30 seconds is plenty. Serve them on their own, with a glass of ayran-style yogurt drink or with soup. Chef's tip: shape the rings on a dry, unfloured worktop, as a little grip makes the ropes easier to roll thin and even.

90 minRomanianBreads & ParathasVegan
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