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Sayur lodeh

Sayur lodeh is everyday cooking in Central Java, made in big pots in Solo and Semarang kitchens and ladled over rice, with lontong rice cakes at Lebaran, or alongside opor and sambal goreng on festive tables. It's soupy rather than thick: a fragrant broth of coconut milk, galangal, lemongrass and lime leaf that carries chunks of aubergine, long beans, chayote and sweetcorn, plus tempeh and tofu to make it a meal. The flavour is mellow and slightly sweet, so the heat comes from sambal on the side. Chef's tip: keep the pot at a gentle simmer once the coconut milk goes in and stir now and then — a rolling boil splits the coconut milk into oily curds.

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Akara

Akara is fried at dawn on street corners across south-west Nigeria, where it is bought hot in paper and eaten with soft agege bread, or dunked into a bowl of warm ogi (fermented corn porridge). It is made from nothing but peeled beans, onion, chilli and salt, whipped until airy, then dropped into hot oil, so the outside turns crisp and craggy while the inside stays soft and light. It is a weekend breakfast at home too, often with custard or pap. Chef's tip: beat the blended bean paste hard for a few minutes before frying; the trapped air is what makes akara puff instead of turning heavy and oily.

45 min

Nigerian Breakfast & Brunch

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Moi moi

Moi moi (also written moin moin) is the soft, savoury bean pudding of Yorubaland that turns up at every Lagos party beside jollof, and in lunchboxes and on Sunday breakfast plates with ogi or custard. Peeled black-eyed beans are blended with red pepper, onion and oil, then steamed until set and sliceable, like a light, spicy terrine. Traditionally it is wrapped in broad uma (thaumatococcus) leaves; ramekins or foil cups work at home. Party versions often hide boiled egg or fish inside; this one is fully plant-based. Chef's tip: the batter should drop thickly from a spoon, like a cake batter; too runny and the moi moi never firms up.

90 min

Nigerian Snacks & Starters

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Ewa agoyin

In Lagos, ewa agoyin is the breakfast you buy from a woman with a big cooler of soft, mashed beans and a second pot of almost-black pepper sauce glistening with palm oil. The name points to the Agoyin, people from neighbouring Togo and Benin who made the dish famous in Lagos markets, and it is eaten with soft, chewy agege bread or fried plantain. The beans are the small, naturally sweet brown 'honey beans' (ewa oloyin), cooked until they collapse. The sauce is the star: dried chillies and onions fried slowly in palm oil until deep brown, smoky and slightly bitter-sweet. Chef's tip: don't rush the sauce; the onions need to go from soft to very dark brown slowly over a medium-low heat, which is where the smoky depth comes from.

120 min

Nigerian Curries

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Karnıyarık

Karnıyarık is a summer weekday dinner in kitchens all over Turkey, made when aubergines are glossy, cheap and piled high at the street markets. Small whole aubergines are peeled in stripes, fried until silky, then slit down the middle and packed with minced beef cooked with onion, green pepper and tomato. A short spell in the oven melts it all together. It is eaten warm with plain rice pilaf and a bowl of cacık or yogurt. Chef's tip: press the fried aubergine open with the back of a spoon to make a deep boat, so the filling sits inside rather than rolling off.

75 min

Turkish Meat

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Nigerian fried rice

Nigerian fried rice sits next to jollof at nearly every party buffet from Abuja to Port Harcourt, its pale yellow colour and confetti of vegetables making the two a classic pair on one plate. It owes nothing to Chinese fried rice: the grains are first boiled in stock with curry powder and thyme, then tossed in a hot pan with small diced vegetables. Party versions often hide liver or prawns; this one stays fully vegetable and serves well with fried plantain, moi moi or a spicy pepper sauce. Chef's tip: cut every vegetable to the size of a pea so they cook in the same couple of minutes and each spoonful gets a bit of everything.

40 min

Nigerian Rice & Grains

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Nigerian jollof rice

Every Nigerian wedding, naming ceremony and Saturday owambe in Lagos has a giant pot of jollof, and the guests judge it before they judge the bride's dress. The rice is long-grain parboiled rice, cooked in a thick base of fried red peppers, tomatoes and scotch bonnet until every grain is orange, separate and lightly smoky. The prized bit is the slightly scorched layer at the bottom of the pot, which party cooks call the 'bottom pot' flavour. Serve it with fried ripe plantain, moi moi and a crunchy coleslaw. Chef's tip: fry the tomato paste and the blended pepper base hard, until the oil floats on top and the raw, sour smell is gone, before a single grain of rice goes in.

75 min

Nigerian Rice & Grains

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Kinderpunsch

At every German and Austrian Christmas market, from Nuremberg to Vienna's Rathausplatz, the stalls selling Glühwein also sell Kinderpunsch: a steaming, alcohol-free mix of fruit tea and juices with cinnamon, cloves and orange, served in the market's own decorated mugs. Children love it, but so do drivers and anyone who just wants something warm to hold on a cold evening. It takes 20 minutes at home and makes the whole house smell of Advent. Chef's tip: keep it just below a simmer; boiling makes the spices bitter and dulls the fruit flavour.

20 min

German Drinks

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Stollen

Dresden has baked Christstollen for more than 500 years, and every December the city holds a Stollen festival with a giant loaf paraded through the old town to the Striezelmarkt. The loaf's shape, folded over and dusted white, is said to show the Christ child wrapped in swaddling cloth. It's a rich, dense yeast bread, heavy with butter, raisins, candied peel and almonds, brushed with melted butter straight from the oven and buried in sugar. It's baked weeks before Christmas and sliced thinly through Advent. Chef's tip: wrap it tightly and let it rest for at least a week before cutting; the flavours ripen and the crumb turns moist.

120 min

German Baking

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Sweet potato salad (Nairobi style)

Slices of sweet potato dipped in batter, coated in breadcrumbs and fried until crisp, arranged around lettuce, grated carrot, tomato and sliced hard-boiled egg. The book's Handy Hints say sweet potato is good for the eyes and lifts the mood. Serve with tomato sauce, chilli sauce and mayonnaise; leave out the eggs (and use egg-free mayonnaise) for an egg-free salad.

40 minAfrican Salads

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Kafta

Kafta is the everyday grilled mince of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine: a Sunday barbecue staple in the Lebanese mountains and a quick dinner in city flats, cooked on skewers, shaped into fingers for the pan, or baked in a tray with potatoes and tomato. Lamb and beef are mixed with plenty of onion and parsley and warmed with baharat (seven spice). Wrap them in bread with tomato, onion and a smear of hummus or tahini sauce. Chef's tip: grate the onion and squeeze it hard in a clean cloth; dry onion keeps the kafta firm on the skewer and stops it steaming.

27 min

Lebanese Meat

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Louisiana jambalaya

Jambalaya feeds crowds at church fairs and Mardi Gras parties all over south Louisiana, from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. This is the Creole or 'red' style from the city, with tomato in the pot; the Cajun country version leaves it out. Chicken thighs and smoked andouille (a pork sausage) are browned first, then rice cooks in the spiced tomato stock with the holy trinity, and prawns go in at the end. Chef's tip: once the rice is in, resist stirring; just turn it once halfway so the bottom does not catch.

65 min

American Rice & Grains

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Singapore Hokkien prawn mee

Singapore's Hokkien mee is nothing like the dark, soy-coated noodles of Kuala Lumpur: here yellow egg noodles and thick rice vermicelli are fried with egg, then braised in a cloudy, intensely savoury stock made from prawn heads and shells until the noodles soak it up and stay just wet. Hawkers at Old Airport Road and Geylang serve it with lime and fiery sambal belacan on a square of paper or opeh leaf. It is a late-lunch or supper dish, eaten hot from the wok. Traditional versions use pork belly and pork lard; this one uses prawns and squid only, with vegetable oil. The common mistake is adding all the stock at once, which makes it soupy; add it in two goes and let the noodles drink it. Chef's tip: fry the prawn heads hard until they turn deep orange before adding water; the stock is the whole dish.

65 min

Singaporean Pasta & Noodles

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Sunday roast chicken

Sunday lunch across England and Wales means a roast, and a golden chicken is the most common one on family tables, with crisp roast potatoes, vegetables and gravy made in the roasting tin. A lemon and herbs perfume the bird from inside, and a sage-and-onion stuffing is baked alongside so the chicken cooks evenly. The stuffing can include sausage meat (pork) if you like; leave it out for a pork-free roast. Chef's tip: dry the skin with kitchen paper and leave the bird uncovered in the fridge overnight; dry skin is crisp skin.

130 min

British Chicken

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Lebkuchen

Nuremberg has been the German capital of Lebkuchen since the Middle Ages, when the city sat on the spice trade routes, and at its Christkindlesmarkt the stalls are piled with them every Advent. The finest kind, Elisenlebkuchen, contain almost no flour: they're made mostly of ground nuts, candied peel, eggs, sugar and a warm spice mix, baked on thin Oblaten wafers so they stay soft and chewy inside, then glazed with chocolate or sugar. They keep for weeks in a tin and get better as they rest. Chef's tip: bake them only until just set; a common mistake is baking until firm, which makes them dry and hard by the next day.

50 min

German Baking

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Laugenbrezel

The Brezel is the emblem of German bakeries in Bavaria and Swabia: deep chestnut-brown and shiny outside, soft and chewy inside, with a fat 'belly' and thin crisp arms, studded with coarse salt. In Munich it's eaten with sweet mustard and Obatzda in beer gardens; in Stuttgart it's split and buttered for breakfast. Bakeries dip them in a lye solution, which is too caustic for most home kitchens; a bath of baked baking soda gets close in colour and flavour and is safe to handle. Chef's tip: chill the shaped pretzels uncovered for 30 minutes before the bath; a slightly dry skin holds its shape and turns darker and shinier.

120 min

German Baking

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Bienenstich

Bienenstich, the 'bee sting', is a sheet cake found in every German bakery: a soft, buttery yeast dough baked under a crackling layer of almonds caramelised with butter, honey and sugar, then split and filled with vanilla cream. The story goes that a bee, drawn to the honey topping, stung the baker. It's a Sunday afternoon cake, at its best on the day it's made. This version sets the filling with cornflour custard folded with whipped cream, no gelatine. Chef's tip: cut the topping layer into portions before you put it back on the cream; the hard almond crust otherwise squeezes all the filling out when you slice it.

90 min

German Baking

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Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte comes from the Black Forest in south-west Germany, a region famous for its sour cherries and the clear cherry brandy, Kirschwasser, distilled from them. Layers of light chocolate sponge are soaked with cherry syrup (and traditionally kirsch), filled with thickened sour cherries and lots of whipped cream, then covered in cream and chocolate shavings and topped with cherries. It's the cake of birthdays, Sunday Kaffee und Kuchen and Konditorei windows. This version leaves out gelatine: the cherries are set with cornflour and the cream with a little mascarpone. Chef's tip: chill the assembled cake for at least 4 hours; cut too early and the layers slide apart.

95 min

German Baking

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Boerewors

This sausage contains pork. Boerewors, 'farmer's sausage', is the centre of every South African braai, from a Pretoria back garden to a Durban beach on Heritage Day. A thick coil of coarsely minced beef and pork, perfumed with toasted coriander, nutmeg and cloves and sharpened with vinegar, is grilled over coals and eaten with pap and chakalaka or in a roll as a boerie. Making it takes a sausage stuffer and natural casings, but the spicing is what matters. The classic mistake is pricking the sausage, which lets the juices run out and dries it; never pierce boerewors. Chef's tip: toast the whole coriander seeds until they crackle and grind them coarsely; the bits of seed are the signature of good boerewors.

80 min

South African Meat

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Kaiserschmarrn

Kaiserschmarrn, the 'emperor's mess', is Austria's favourite sweet meal, said to have been made for Emperor Franz Joseph, and today it's served from huge pans in every ski hut in Tyrol and Salzburg and in Viennese restaurants. It is a thick, fluffy pancake made with whisked egg whites, torn into rough pieces in the pan with two forks, then caramelised with butter and sugar and heaped with icing sugar. Eat it with Zwetschkenröster (plum compote) or apple sauce. Chef's tip: let the pancake set and brown properly underneath before tearing it up; tear it too early and you get scrambled batter instead of soft, golden pieces.

30 min

German Desserts

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Tatale

Tatale is how Ghanaian cooks rescue plantains that have gone soft and black: they are mashed with onion, ginger and chilli, bound with a little flour, and fried as thick pancakes. In Accra and the Volta region they are sold warm from roadside pans and eaten as a snack or with a bowl of bean stew (aboboi). The outside crisps and caramelises while the inside stays soft and sweet. This version uses fine cornmeal, which keeps it gluten free. Chef's tip: the blacker the plantain skins, the better; they should feel soft like an overripe banana.

30 min

Ghanaian Snacks & Starters

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Groundnut soup (nkatenkwan)

Nkatenkwan is the Sunday soup of Ghanaian homes, simmered while families are at church and eaten afterwards with omo tuo (soft rice balls) or fufu. Roasted groundnut paste is cooked slowly in a peppery tomato and ginger broth until the oil separates and turns the soup a rich orange-brown. It usually carries chicken or goat; here garden eggs (small African aubergines) and mushrooms keep it meaty without meat. Chef's tip: cook the groundnut paste long and slow; it is ready only when reddish oil rises and pools on top, and rushing it leaves a raw, pasty taste.

60 min

Ghanaian Soups

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Kontomire stew

Kontomire stew comes from the Ashanti region around Kumasi, where young cocoyam (taro) leaves are picked from farms and cooked down with palm oil, tomatoes and ground agushie (egusi) seeds. It is a thick, dark green, nutty stew eaten with boiled yam, ampesi (boiled plantain) or rice. Many families add smoked fish or salted fish; this version uses boiled eggs instead, which is also common. Spinach is the best stand-in when fresh cocoyam leaves are not available. Chef's tip: cocoyam leaves must be cooked thoroughly; under-cooked ones leave an itchy, scratchy feeling in the throat.

45 min

Ghanaian Curries

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Lamb potjiekos

Potjiekos is the long, sociable cook of South African weekends: a cast-iron three-legged pot (potjie) sits over a small fire for hours while friends talk around it, and the rule is that once the layers are in, nobody stirs. The lamb is browned at the bottom, then potatoes, carrots, butternut, green beans and mushrooms are stacked on top so the hardest vegetables are nearest the heat. A heavy casserole on the hob or in the oven works just as well. Some cooks add a glass of red wine or beer; this version uses stock only, and you may swap 150 ml of it for wine if you like. The mistake is stirring the pot, which turns the neat layers into mush. Chef's tip: add only a little liquid; the vegetables give off their own juice as they steam.

210 min

South African Meat

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Shorshe ilish

Hilsa, ilish, is the national fish of Bangladesh, and during the monsoon, when the shoals swim up the Padma and Meghna rivers, families in Dhaka and Chandpur cook it almost daily. Shorshe ilish is the most loved way: steaks of the rich, silvery fish gently simmered in a paste of ground yellow and black mustard seed, green chillies and mustard oil until the sauce turns sharp, creamy and nose-tingling. Eat it with plain white rice and nothing else. Hilsa is very bony, so warn guests and eat slowly; salmon steaks are an easier, less traditional swap. The common mistake is boiling the sauce hard after the mustard paste goes in, which turns it bitter. Chef's tip: grind the mustard seeds with a pinch of salt and a green chilli, and let the paste rest for 10 minutes before cooking; this tames the bitterness.

45 min

Bangladeshi Fish

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Red red

Red red is Ghanaian chop-bar comfort food, eaten at lunchtime from Kumasi to Cape Coast, and it gets its name from its two reds: the bean stew glowing with palm oil and the fried ripe plantain served alongside. Black-eyed beans simmer in a tomato and onion sauce until creamy, then a sprinkle of gari on top adds crunch. It is often made with smoked fish or momoni; this meat-free version uses smoked paprika for the same savoury edge. Chef's tip: choose plantains with mostly black skins; they fry up sweet and caramelised, the perfect partner for the salty stew.

50 min

Ghanaian Curries

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Waakye

Waakye (say 'waa-chay') came south from the Hausa communities of northern Ghana and is now Accra's favourite breakfast and lunch, sold from big pots wrapped in leaves at roadside stalls before most offices open. Rice and black-eyed beans are cooked together with dried sorghum leaf stalks (waakye leaves), which dye the pot a deep reddish brown and add a faint earthy note. A full plate comes loaded with shito, gari, spaghetti (talia), salad and fried plantain. Chef's tip: cook the beans almost soft before the rice goes in; beans and rice finishing together is the whole trick.

75 min

Ghanaian Rice & Grains

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Ghana jollof rice

Ask anyone in Accra and Ghana jollof is the only jollof worth arguing about, a friendly rivalry with Nigeria that plays out at every West African party and all over social media. The difference is real: Ghanaians favour long, fragrant basmati or jasmine rice rather than parboiled rice, a base heavier on ginger and garlic, and a softer, more aromatic finish without the smoky 'bottom pot'. It is served with fried plantain, a fresh salad and shito, Ghana's dark pepper sauce, on the side. Chef's tip: wash the basmati until the water runs clear and keep the liquid tight; fragrant rice turns sticky very quickly if it swims in sauce.

70 min

Ghanaian Rice & Grains

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