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Fini roti
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Fini roti

Layered fried sugar bread

During Tihar, the five-day festival of lights in late autumn, sisters in Kathmandu and Pokhara prepare a basket of treats for Bhai Tika, and fini roti, a crisp round of fried bread made of dozens of paper-thin layers, sits in it beside sel roti, nuts and sweets. A simple dough of flour and ghee is rolled very thin, spread with a paste of ghee and rice flour, rolled into a log and cut, so that each piece fans out in the hot oil into a flaky spiral that shatters at the first bite. It is lightly dusted with sugar, lasts for days in a tin, and is eaten with tea or given to visiting relatives. The layers vanish if you make the paste with melted ghee, which seeps out instead of staying put. Chef's tip: beat the ghee and rice flour together until fluffy and pale like soft butter, and keep the dough cool so the layers stay distinct.

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Mchewek (almond cookies)

Mchewek means something like 'prickly', which is exactly how these cookies look: balls of almond paste rolled in flaked almonds so the flakes stick out like spines, each topped with half a candied cherry and baked only until the tips turn gold. Inside they stay soft and chewy, like a rustic macaroon. Being made with no flour, they suit anyone avoiding gluten, and they appear on Eid and wedding trays all over Algeria, often brushed with a little honey syrup for shine. Chef's tip: take them out when the edges are just golden and the centres still feel soft; overbaking is the classic mistake and leaves them dry and crumbly once cool.

38 minAlgerianBakingGluten free
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Arayeche (almond star pastries)

Picture a star with three plump arms: arayeche are shaped from a ball of orange-blossom almond paste wrapped in very thin pastry and pinched into points, baked pale, dipped in honey and then rolled in icing sugar until snow-white. Along with dziriettes and makrout, they are fixtures of the sweet trays at weddings and Eid in Algiers, set out in paper cases with mint tea. The pastry is crisp and fine, the almond filling dense and fragrant, and the coating of sugar sticks to the honey in a sweet crust. Chef's tip: pull them out of the oven while still pale with barely golden tips; browned arayeche are a common mistake and taste dry once the sugar goes on.

120 minAlgerianDesserts
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Bangladeshi aloo chopSpiced potato patties

Every chop-shop on a Dhaka street corner, and every iftar spread in the evening during Ramadan, has a tray of aloo chop: flattened ovals of mashed potato fried with onion, ginger and green chilli, dipped in a gram-flour batter and fried until puffed and golden. The inside is soft and fragrant with roasted cumin and coriander leaves, the coat thin and crunchy, and they are eaten hot, with a sprinkle of bit lobon (black salt), a squeeze of lime, kasundi mustard sauce or a dab of tamarind chutney, often tucked into a paper cone with muri. Watery potatoes are the commonest problem, as they make the patties split in the oil, so steam-dry them well after boiling. Chef's tip: add a pinch of rice flour to the gram-flour batter for a crisper coat that stays crunchy as it cools.

45 minBangladeshiSnacks & StartersVeganGluten free
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Bamboo chickenBamboo-roasted spiced chicken

Trekkers heading up to Nilgiri and Boga Lake in the Chittagong Hill Tracts look forward to one meal in particular: chicken that Marma and Bawm cooks pack into a freshly cut length of green bamboo, plug with leaves and lean against the embers until the tube blackens and hisses. Inside, the meat steams in its own juices with ginger, garlic, lemongrass, turmeric and bird's-eye chilli, and picks up a faint grassy sweetness from the bamboo. It is eaten with plain rice and a sharp chilli chutney, often at a jungle campfire. At home a heavy lidded casserole or a tight foil-and-banana-leaf parcel in the oven gives a very close result. The trap is packing in too much liquid, which boils the chicken instead of steaming it; the meat makes its own juice. Chef's tip: use small bone-in pieces, because large joints stay undercooked in the middle of a tube.

90 minBangladeshiChickenGluten freeSpicy
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Seven-layer tea

Visitors to the tea gardens of Srimangal, in Sylhet's Moulvibazar district, queue at small tea cabins to see a glass of tea striped in seven distinct bands, from creamy white at the bottom to pale green-gold at the top. The original recipe is a closely guarded secret of the tea-maker who made it famous, but the principle is simple physics: each layer carries a different amount of sugar, so the heaviest sits at the bottom and the lightest floats on top. This home version uses condensed milk, green tea, strong black tea, milk tea, lemon tea, spiced tea and plain tea, and it is drunk slowly, layer by layer, with a long spoon. Pouring too fast is what ruins it; each layer should trickle down the inside of the glass over the back of a spoon. Chef's tip: let all the brews cool to warm, about 50 °C, so temperature differences don't stir the layers.

35 minBangladeshiDrinksGluten free
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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 minRomanianBaking
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Sharmout (Sudanese dried beef, oven method)

Across Darfur and Kordofan, and in kitchens throughout Sudan around Eid al-Adha, strips of lean beef are salted and hung to dry in the hot, dry air for several days until they turn hard and dark. That sharmout is then pounded and fried with onion to give tagalia, kawal and other stews their rich, savoury depth. Air-drying raw meat at home is risky, so this safer version heats the strips to 71 °C first and then dries them slowly in a low oven, and the finished sharmout is kept in the fridge. The traditional raw air-dried version is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Leaving fat on the strips is the usual mistake: fat does not dry and turns rancid, so trim every bit. Chef's tip: partly freeze the beef so you can slice it into even 5 mm strips along the grain.

330 minSudaneseBasicsGluten free
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