Featured recipe

Tah-chin

Saffron rice cake with chicken

Tah-chin is the showpiece of a Tehran dinner party: a round cake of saffron rice set with yogurt and egg, turned out of its dish so the thick golden crust sits on top like a lid, with a layer of tender chicken hidden inside. Families make it for birthdays, Nowruz visits and any day guests are coming, and the barberries scattered over the top add tart red jewels. The crust should crack like a crisp biscuit while the rice inside stays soft. A common mistake is skimping on the resting time after baking; turned out too early, the cake slumps and the crust sticks. Chef's tip: marinate the cooked chicken in a spoon of the yogurt mixture while the rice boils, so the filling is as well seasoned as the rice.

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195 min

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KalkanFried turbot steaks

Turbot season on the Bulgarian Black Sea is short and strictly controlled, so in spring locals in Burgas and Balchik queue at the fish market for kalkan, the flat, diamond-shaped fish with firm, sweet white flesh. Seaside restaurants cut it across the bone into thick steaks, dust them with flour and fry them in sunflower oil until the skin is crisp and the flesh pearly, then serve them simply with lemon and a crunchy salad of shredded cabbage and carrot dressed with vinegar. Brill or halibut steaks work the same way if turbot is out of reach. A common mistake is turning the fish too soon, which tears the crust; leave it until it releases from the pan by itself. Chef's tip: score the dark skin twice so the steaks stay flat and cook evenly.

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105 min

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Bahamian stew fishGrouper in roux gravy

Bahamian stew fish is old-fashioned Sunday breakfast in Nassau and the Family Islands: firm fish such as grouper or snapper simmered in a dark brown gravy built on a flour-and-oil roux, with onion, celery, tomato and thyme, served over grits or with johnnycake. The flavour is deep, savoury and a little smoky from the browned flour. The usual mistake is a pale roux; cook the flour slowly until it is the colour of milk chocolate, but don't let it burn. Ask for thick fish steaks or fillets. Chef's tip: stir the roux with a flat wooden spatula so you can scrape every corner and keep it browning evenly.

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10 minCaribbean Drinks

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Kalo jeera bhortaNigella seed mash

A bhorta lunch spread in a Bangladeshi home always has one tiny, dark mound that people eat a pinch at a time, and that is kalo jeera bhorta. Nigella seeds are toasted until fragrant, then ground on the shil-pata, the stone slab and roller, with garlic, roasted dried chilli, onion and mustard oil into a coarse, almost black paste that is nutty, bitter and fiery all at once. Grandmothers serve it in winter, believing it wards off colds, and a little is mixed into the first handful of hot rice before moving on to fish or dal. Burnt seeds make it acrid, so the trap is toasting over too high a heat; stop as soon as they smell toasty and start to pop. Chef's tip: grind the seeds alone first, then add the garlic and oil, for a smoother paste in a small grinder.

15 min

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MuhammarSweet saffron rice

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70 minGulf Arabian Rice & Grains

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KamaRoasted grain flour with kefir

Kama is a uniquely Estonian food: a fine flour of roasted barley, rye, oats and peas, sold in every Tallinn supermarket, stirred into kefir, buttermilk or yogurt with a little sugar or honey and berries. It was once farmers' food for the fields; today it is a fast, filling breakfast and the flavour of Estonian ice creams and sweets. If you can't find kama, roast equal parts barley, rye and oat flour with a little pea flour in a dry pan until nutty. A common mistake is eating it at once; give it a few minutes to thicken. Chef's tip: stir in the kama, leave for 5 minutes, then add the berries, so it thickens like a mousse.

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50 min

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Baigan chokaRoasted aubergine mash

In south Trinidad, from Penal to Siparia, baigan choka is the breakfast or dinner you make when there is an aubergine, a fire and some sada roti on the tawa. The skin is charred right over the flame until the flesh inside collapses, smoky and silky, then it is mashed with raw garlic and hot pepper and "chunkayed" with a spoonful of sizzling oil. The usual mistake is pulling the aubergine off the flame too early; any firm part in the middle tastes raw and spongy. Eat it with roti or rice and dhal. Chef's tip: push slivers of garlic into slits in the aubergine before roasting, then mash them in; you get mellow roasted garlic and a sharp raw note together.

30 min

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KondreGoat and green plantain stew

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105 min

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Bajan jug jugPigeon peas and salt meat mash

Jug jug belongs to Christmas in Barbados, served alongside baked ham and roast pork on the big lunch table: green pigeon peas and salted beef and salted pork, cooked tender and minced, then stirred with guinea corn (sorghum) flour, herbs and onion into a thick, savoury, mouldable mash. Its roots are often traced to Scottish settlers' haggis and West African grain cookery, and it tastes rich, salty and herby. The common mistake is not soaking the salt meats long enough, which makes the whole pot too salty to eat; soak them overnight in plenty of water. Cook until the minced meat mixture is piping hot (71 °C) throughout. Chef's tip: stir in the sorghum flour a spoonful at a time while the pot bubbles, like making polenta, so it never turns lumpy.

180 min

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AmandineChocolate sponge cakes

Every Bucharest cofetărie keeps a tray of amandine in the glass case, neat dark oblongs that generations of schoolchildren have bought with their pocket money. Despite the almond-sounding name there are no almonds in them: a cocoa sponge is split, soaked with a cocoa syrup, sandwiched with a rich chocolate custard buttercream and coated in a shiny ganache. Bakeries traditionally add rum to the syrup; this version is alcohol-free and uses vanilla and orange zest instead, though you can add 2 tablespoons of rum if you like. A common mistake is soaking the sponge while the syrup is still hot, which turns it to mush; both should be cool. Chef's tip: chill the filled cake until really firm before glazing and cutting, and wipe the knife hot between each cut for clean edges.

155 min

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KulishMillet and potato soup

The Zaporizhian Cossacks of the Dnipro steppe cooked kulish in a black kettle over a campfire, and it is still the dish of fishing trips, summer camps and folk festivals on the island of Khortytsia. Millet, potato and onion simmer together into something halfway between a thick soup and a loose porridge, then a sizzling spoonful of fried salo, the salted pork fatback, goes in for smoky, savoury depth. It is humble, golden and comforting, best eaten hot with rye bread and a raw onion or pickle. The most common mistake is skipping the hot rinse of the millet, which leaves the porridge bitter. Kulish thickens as it stands, so loosen leftovers with a splash of water. Chef's tip: fry the salo slowly until the cubes are crisp, then fry the onion in the rendered fat; that fat carries all the flavour through the pot.

50 min

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Amala ko acharGooseberry pickle

Amala trees grow wild across the Chure hills and the lower valleys of Nepal, and in winter the hard, translucent green gooseberries are piled high in vegetable markets in Kathmandu, Hetauda and Butwal, prized as a source of vitamin C during the cold months. Steamed until they split into neat segments, then mixed with chilli, turmeric, fenugreek and hot mustard oil, they make a pickle that is crunchy, astringent, sour and spicy all at once, with a lingering sweetness that comes up after each bite. A spoonful goes alongside dal bhat or with a plain bowl of rice porridge when someone is unwell. The trap to avoid is steaming the berries too long, which turns them mushy and dull. Chef's tip: stop as soon as the first cracks appear on the skins; the segments should pull off the stone easily but still have a firm bite.

30 min

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Ful nabitSprouted fava bean soup

Sprouted beans are ladled out with their cooking liquor in Cairo homes when the weather turns cold or someone is feeling run down, and Egyptians swear by the broth as a pick-me-up. The beans are soaked and left to sprout for a few days, then simmered with onion, garlic and cumin into a light, earthy soup that is sharpened at the table with plenty of lemon. You can eat the beans with a spoon or pop them from their skins. Allow 3 to 4 days for sprouting, although the hands-on work is only about 20 minutes. People with G6PD deficiency (favism) must not eat fava beans. Chef's tip: stop the sprouting when the shoots are about 1 cm long; longer sprouts taste grassy and bitter.

70 min

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DhidoBuckwheat flour porridge

Before rice reached every corner of Nepal, dhido was what filled bellies in the high villages of Jumla, Dolpa, Mustang and the middle hills, and it is now enjoying a comeback in Kathmandu restaurants as a wholesome, gluten-free choice. Buckwheat or millet flour is rained into boiling water and stirred with a flat wooden paddle until it becomes a smooth, heavy, elastic mass, which is eaten with the fingers, pinched off and dipped into a sour vegetable soup, a bowl of lentils or a fiery tomato pickle. It has an earthy, slightly bitter flavour and a satisfying, sticky texture that is meant to be swallowed rather than chewed. Lumps are what ruin it most often, and they come from adding the flour too quickly. Chef's tip: add the flour in a thin stream with one hand while stirring hard with the other, and keep beating for a full 10 minutes once it is all in.

30 min

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Aloo tuk is the crunch on a Sindhi plate, the thing children steal first: small potatoes boiled, fried, squashed flat and fried again until they are craggy and crisp at the edges and fluffy within, then showered with red chilli, tangy amchur and salt. In Sindhi homes from Karachi to Shikarpur they sit beside Sindhi kadhi and rice or dal and bhuga chawal, and they are also served on their own as a teatime snack with green chutney. The most common error is pressing the potatoes while they are still raw-centred or too hot and wet, which makes them tear instead of flatten neatly. Chef's tip: after the first fry let them cool for five minutes, then press each one under a flat-bottomed bowl so it cracks at the edges, since those cracks become the crispest bits. For children, go easy on the chilli and use more amchur.

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Damietta, the port city where the Nile meets the Mediterranean, is famous across Egypt for its sweet shops, and meshabek is one of their signatures: lattice wheels of fermented batter piped into hot oil and dunked in syrup. Fresh from the fryer they shatter like glass and drip with sugar; by the next day they soften into something chewy and just as good. Families buy them by the box for Ramadan evenings, visits and holidays. The batter needs an hour to ferment before frying. The common mistake is frying in oil that is not hot enough, which leaves them pale, soft and greasy, so test it first. Chef's tip: a squeeze bottle with a 4 to 5 mm opening gives the neatest, thinnest lines.

60 min

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BakarkhaniLayered ghee bread

Before dawn in Lalbagh and Nazira Bazar, bakers slap rounds of dough onto the inside walls of clay tandoors, and by sunrise stacks of bakarkhani are wrapped in newspaper for the first cup of milky tea. The Old Dhaka kind is small, about the size of a palm, with dozens of paper-thin layers that shatter at the edges and stay a little tender in the middle; the faintly sweet, buttery taste is what makes it so good dipped in cha or crumbled over a bowl of firni. Local legend ties the name to a Mughal-era romance, but the technique is pure bakery craft: the dough is spread with a ghee paste, rolled up, coiled and rolled again. Most failed batches come from soft, warm ghee paste, which soaks into the dough instead of sitting between the layers. Chef's tip: chill the rolled coils for 15 minutes before the final rolling so the fat sets and the layers stay separate in the oven.

105 min

Bangladeshi Breads & Parathas

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DammsugareMarzipan cake-crumb rolls

The dammsugare, 'vacuum cleaner', got its name because Swedish bakeries invented it to use up crumbs and offcuts of cake swept up at the end of the day: the crumbs are mixed with butter, cocoa and flavouring, rolled into logs, wrapped in bright green marzipan and dipped in dark chocolate at both ends. Bakeries usually flavour the filling with punsch, a sweet arrack liqueur; this version uses vanilla and a little orange, and is alcohol-free. A common mistake is rolling the marzipan too thick, which makes it cloying. Chef's tip: roll the marzipan thin between sheets of baking paper and chill the filled logs before cutting.

40 minScandinavian Desserts

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Bakeapple jamCloudberry jam

Bakeapples, the amber cloudberries of the Labrador and Newfoundland bogs, ripen for a few weeks in late July and August, and families on the Northern Peninsula and the Labrador coast pick them by the bucket. Turned into jam, they taste of apricot, honey and wild herbs, and the soft seeds give it texture. It is spread on toast, tea biscuits and toutons, or stirred through cream. Frozen cloudberries work if you can't get fresh. A common mistake is boiling too long, which darkens the colour and dulls the flavour. Chef's tip: test the set early, on a cold saucer.

40 min

Canadian Chutneys & Dips

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DanbaukChicken biryani

Weddings, birthday donations and the Friday lunch crowd after mosque prayers in downtown Yangon all call for danbauk, the Burmese take on biryani brought by the city's Indian-Muslim families. It is gentler than most South Asian versions: long grains scented with cardamom, cloves and butter, tender yoghurt-marinated chicken hidden underneath, and a crown of fried onions, plump raisins and golden cashews. Every plate comes with a bowl of sour onion, cucumber and green-chilli salad that cuts through the richness, and often a thin sour soup on the side. The usual slip is boiling the rice fully before layering; it then turns to mush during the slow steam, so pull it while each grain still has a chalky white core. Chef's tip: once the pot is sealed, leave the lid alone and dig in from the side at the table so every scoop brings up chicken and rice together.

120 min

Burmese Rice & Grains

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Kalai rutiUrad dal and rice flour bread

In Chapai Nawabganj and Rajshahi, kalai ruti stalls fire up as the weather turns cold, and the bread has become such a regional symbol that people from Dhaka make the trip just to eat it. Flour ground from mashkalai, or urad dal, is mixed with rice flour and hot water, then patted by hand between wet palms into thick rounds and baked on a clay tawa until speckled and toasty. The texture is dense, soft and slightly chewy, with an earthy, nutty taste. It is always eaten with something sharp: a raw bhorta of onion, green chilli and mustard oil, a smoky begun bhorta, or duck or beef curry in winter. Over-wet dough is what defeats most first attempts; it should be soft but hold its shape when patted. Chef's tip: keep a bowl of water beside you and wet your palms before shaping each ruti, which stops sticking and gives the characteristic smooth surface.

45 min

Bangladeshi Breads & Parathas

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Dambun namaSpiced shredded beef floss

During Ramadan and Eid in Kano, Kaduna and Maiduguri, tins of dambun nama appear on every table: beef boiled tender with onion and ginger, pounded in a mortar until it falls into fine threads, then fried slowly with onion and spices until it is dry, fluffy and golden. It keeps well, which is why it was made before long journeys, and it is eaten as a snack, with rice or tucked into bread. The texture should be like soft wool, not crunchy crumbs. Because the meat is fully cooked before drying, it is safe; store it in the fridge. Chef's tip: let the boiled beef steam dry for ten minutes before pounding, as wet meat clumps in the pan instead of separating into threads, which is the usual mistake.

130 min

Nigerian Meat

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Bakra Eid kalejiStir-fried goat liver

The first thing cooked in countless Pakistani homes on the morning of Eid-ul-Adha, just after the sacrifice, is kaleji: the goat's liver, still very fresh, sliced and stir-fried in a karahi with onion, tomato, ginger and green chilli, then eaten at once with hot paratha or naan while the rest of the meat is being divided. The dish is quick and fierce, tender in the middle, sharp with chilli and lemon. Outside Eid, butchers in every city sell goat or lamb liver for the same breakfast. Overcooking makes liver rubbery, but undercooking is not safe, so cut it into even pieces and cook until it reaches 71 °C with no pink left; it will still be tender. Chef's tip: add the salt only at the very end, as salting liver early draws out moisture and toughens it.

25 min

Pakistani Meat

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KalakukkoFish and pork rye loaf

Kalakukko is the travelling food of Savonia in eastern Finland, a speciality of Kuopio's market square: a thick rye crust packed with small whole fish, usually vendace (muikku) or perch, and slices of fatty pork belly, sealed and baked for five or six hours, until the fish bones soften completely and the juices soak the inside of the crust. This dish contains pork. It is cut open like a lid and eaten in slices, crust and all, hot or cold. A common mistake is a crack in the crust, which lets the juices escape and dries out the fish. Chef's tip: patch any cracks with a little rye dough during baking, and wrap the loaf in foil and a towel after baking to rest.

420 minScandinavian Fish

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Dal goshtMutton and chickpea stew

Stretching a kilo of mutton to feed a big family is an old Pakistani household skill, and dal gosht is its most loved result: chana dal cooked with the meat until the lentils melt into a thick, golden, peppery gravy that is half curry, half stew. It turns up for Friday lunch in Punjab and for everyday dinners in Karachi Urdu-speaking homes, eaten with hot chapati, rice and a sharp salad of onion and tomato. Done right, some dal stays whole while the rest thickens the gravy. A common slip is adding raw dal to the pot at the same time as the meat; dal cooks faster, so it collapses into paste before the mutton is tender. Chef's tip: finish with a tarka of ghee, cumin and fried garlic for a Sunday version, or leave it plain with oil for an everyday pot that stays dairy free.

100 min

Pakistani Meat

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BalachaungDried shrimp relish

Every Burmese pantry keeps a jar of balachaung, and along the Rakhine coast, where the dried shrimp come from, families fry it in big batches after the dry-season catch. Pounded dried shrimp are fried slowly with crisp shallots, garlic, chilli and a dab of shrimp paste until the whole lot turns into a dry, golden, crackling floss that is salty, smoky, a little sweet and quite hot. A spoonful lifts plain rice, a fried egg, rice porridge or a bowl of noodles, and it travels well, so students and travellers pack a jar to take away from home. Rushing it over a high heat is where most batches go wrong: the shrimp scorch and turn bitter before they are crisp, so keep the heat at medium-low and stir patiently. Chef's tip: fry the shallots and garlic separately and stir them back in only when the shrimp are done, so they stay crunchy for weeks.

45 min

Burmese Chutneys & Dips

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Mbongo tchobiFish in black spice sauce

The Bassa people of the Littoral, between Douala and Édéa, are famous for mbongo tchobi, fish cooked in a startling jet-black sauce. The colour comes from mbongo, the pods of a wild plant in the ginger family, charred over a flame until black and ground with onion, garlic, ginger and njansang; the taste is smoky, peppery and deeply aromatic rather than burnt. Freshwater fish such as carp or tilapia is traditional, simmered gently in the sauce for family gatherings and in Douala restaurants, with boiled plantain, miondo or rice on the side. If mbongo is hard to find, charred black cardamom with grains of paradise gives a similar smoky warmth. Chef's tip: shake the pan instead of stirring once the fish goes in, so the pieces stay whole.

65 min

Cameroonian Fish

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Dal chawal paliduLayered rice and dal

In the Dawoodi Bohra community of Karachi's Saddar and Kharadar, dal chawal palidu is the comfort meal of Sunday lunch and of the shared thaal at community gatherings, and nobody who grew up with it considers it complete without all three parts. Long-grain rice is layered with whole, separate grains of spiced toor dal and crisp fried onion, then steamed, while palidu, a thin, tangy curry made from the dal's own cooking water thickened with gram flour, tempered with mustard seed, curry leaves and garlic and studded with drumsticks, is poured over at the table. It is gentle, sour and deeply savoury. Overcooking the dal is the error to avoid, since it must stay in whole grains for the layers. Chef's tip: drain the toor dal as soon as it is tender and save every drop of the water, because that water is the base of the palidu.

80 min

Pakistani Rice & Grains

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Dal pakwanFried bread with spiced chana dal

Sunday morning in Karachi's old Sindhi neighbourhoods, and in Hyderabad, means a queue at the dal pakwan stall, or a home kitchen hot with frying oil. Pakwan are crisp, bubbly discs of cumin and black-pepper dough, fried until they shatter like a cracker, and they are eaten broken into a bowl of soft, lightly spiced chana dal, then topped with sweet-sour tamarind chutney, raw onion and a dusting of chilli. The contrast of crunchy, soft, sweet and sharp is the whole point, so the parts are kept separate until the last moment. Thick pakwan are the most common disappointment: rolled too thick, they turn chewy instead of crisp. Chef's tip: roll each one as thin as you can and prick it all over with a fork before frying, so it puffs only a little and stays flat and crunchy.

75 min

Pakistani Breakfast & Brunch

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Cascos de guayaba con quesoGuava shells with white cheese

On Cuban tables from Havana to Pinar del Río, the most loved dessert is also one of the simplest: guava halves, scooped of their seeds and simmered in syrup until glossy and tender, served beside a slab of salty white cheese. The sweet, perfumed fruit and the sharp cheese balance each other perfectly. Cooks often overcook the shells until they fall apart; they should still hold their cup shape. Queso blanco and cream cheese are usually made with animal rennet or microbial enzymes depending on the maker, so check the label and choose a vegetarian one if needed. Chef's tip: simmer the scooped-out seeds and pulp in a little water, sieve them and add that purée to the syrup, which gives it a deep pink colour and real guava flavour.

85 min

Cuban Desserts

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Balatoni fogasButter-fried pikeperch

Fogas, the pikeperch of Lake Balaton, has been the pride of the lakeside restaurants of Tihany, Keszthely and Balatonfüred for over a century, and a fillet on a plate with parsley potatoes is the classic order on a summer evening with a view of the water. The flesh is white, lean and delicate, with a clean, slightly sweet flavour, and the simplest treatment is best: skin side down in foaming butter until the skin turns crisp, with lemon at the end. Zander from any good fishmonger works the same way. Where most people go wrong is moving the fillets too soon, which tears the skin; leave them until they release by themselves. Chef's tip: score the skin lightly twice so the fillets stay flat in the pan.

30 min

Hungarian Fish

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Aloo goshtMutton and potato curry

If one curry stands for a weekday dinner in a Pakistani house, from Rawalpindi flats to Karachi's Nazimabad, it is aloo gosht: mutton on the bone and halved potatoes in a loose, peppery shorba meant to be soaked up with chapati or poured over plain rice. Nothing about it is fancy; its comfort comes from a long bhuna of onion, tomato and spice before any water goes in, so the thin gravy still tastes deep. The potatoes go in once the meat is half done and come out soft at the edges, having drunk the gravy. Adding them at the start leaves them falling apart while the meat is still chewy, so wait. Chef's tip: when the masala is fully fried, add the water boiling hot, not cold, so the meat keeps cooking and the shorba stays clear rather than greasy.

90 min

Pakistani Meat

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BalayHand-pulled noodles in mutton broth

Skardu sits at almost 2,500 metres, and through its long, dry winters Balti households lean on balay, a sturdy soup of thick wheat noodles pinched and pulled by hand into a mutton broth with turnip, potato, carrot and greens. It is the Balti cousin of Tibetan thukpa, eaten for supper in deep bowls, often with a hot green chilli on the side and salty butter tea to follow. The noodles are fat, chewy and irregular, and they thicken the broth slightly as they cook, which is exactly right. Rolling the dough too thin is a common slip; balay noodles should be the thickness of a pencil so they stay springy. Chef's tip: let the dough rest a full 20 minutes before pulling it, because a rested dough stretches without tearing and gives silkier noodles.

100 min

Pakistani Soups

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Aloo andayPotato and egg curry

Ask almost anyone who grew up in a Punjabi household in Pakistan what was cooked at the end of the month, when the meat money had run out, and aloo anday will come up with real affection. Halved hard-boiled eggs and chunks of potato sit in a loose, brick-red shorba of browned onion and tomato, thin enough to soak into a chapati and rice alike, with a cut green chilli on top. It is a weeknight and Sunday-brunch dish rather than a guest dish, and children tend to love it. Where it goes wrong is in the masala: if the onions and tomatoes are not fried until the oil separates, the gravy tastes raw and watery however long it simmers. Chef's tip: score the peeled eggs lightly with a knife and fry them in the masala for a minute before the water goes in, so they take on colour and flavour.

40 min

Pakistani Curries

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