Featured recipe

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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Shanghai drunken chicken

Shanghai's cold-dish counters always have a tray of drunken chicken: smooth, pale poached chicken with jelly-like skin, steeped overnight in a fragrant, slightly sweet bath of Shaoxing wine. Please note that the wine here is not cooked, so the classic dish contains alcohol and is not suitable for children, during pregnancy or for anyone avoiding alcohol. For them, make the fragrant alcohol-free version given in the ingredients, which steeps the chicken in stock with goji berries, dried tangerine peel and a little rice vinegar. Serve it chilled as a starter in summer or at Chinese New Year with other cold dishes. Chef's tip: plunge the chicken into iced water straight after poaching; the quick chill is what gives the skin its springy texture.

60 min

Chinese Chicken

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Puerto Rican sofrito

Open a freezer anywhere in Puerto Rico, or in the Puerto Rican neighbourhoods of New York and Orlando, and you'll find a tub or ice-cube tray of green sofrito. It is the start of almost everything savoury on the island: beans, rice, stews, soups and sauces. Unlike the slow-cooked Spanish sofrito, this one is raw, blended from culantro (recao), cilantro, little sweet ajíes dulces, cubanelle peppers, onion and lots of garlic. It smells grassy and sharp in the jar and turns mellow and savoury as soon as it hits hot oil. Chef's tip: if you can't find ajíes dulces, use extra red pepper and a tiny piece of seeded scotch bonnet; you want their fruity perfume, not heat.

20 min

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Shanghai red-braised pork

Every Shanghai family has its own hong shao rou, the dark, sticky pork belly at the heart of benbang (local) home cooking. Unlike the Hunan version linked to Chairman Mao, there is no chilli here; the colour and gloss come from rock sugar, soy sauce and a long, quiet braise, and the flavour is unmistakably sweet and savoury. The cubes should hold their shape but give way under chopsticks, with soft fat and a sauce that clings like syrup. It is weekend and festival food, served with plenty of rice and something green, and it tastes even better the next day. Chef's tip: reduce the sauce uncovered over a high heat in the last 10 minutes and keep tossing; that is when the shine appears.

90 min

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Nanjing salted duck

Nanjing people are said to eat more duck than anyone in China, and this cold, pale salted duck is the one bought by the half from neighbourhood shops for the dinner table, especially around the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the ducks are plumpest. It is cured in pepper salt, brined, then poached at a bare simmer so the skin stays white and smooth, the fat turns clear and the meat is pink-tinged, moist and savoury. Serve it chilled, chopped into pieces, with rice or as part of a cold platter. Start a day ahead, as the duck needs 12 hours of curing and brining in the fridge on top of the cooking time. Chef's tip: toast the salt and Sichuan pepper together until fragrant; the warm, numbing aroma is what makes it taste of Nanjing.

240 min

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Arroz con gandules

No Nochebuena table from San Juan to Mayagüez is complete without a big caldero of arroz con gandules, and in December every grandmother's pot is judged on it. Medium-grain rice is cooked with pigeon peas (gandules), fresh sofrito, achiote oil, tomato sauce and a scoop of alcaparrado (olives and capers), until each grain is tender and golden-orange. Island cooks usually add pork; this version gets its depth from a generous spoon of sofrito and good stock, and loses nothing. The best part is the pegao, the crisp golden crust left on the bottom of the pot. Chef's tip: once the lid goes on, leave the rice alone; stirring breaks the grains and releases starch, and you will lose both the fluffy texture and the pegao.

60 min

Puerto Rican Rice & Grains

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Squirrel-shaped mandarin fish

The showpiece of Suzhou banquets, this fish is deboned, scored into a deep criss-cross and fried so the flesh fans out into spikes; with its tail curled up, someone once decided it looked like a squirrel. The sauce poured over it at the table crackles as it hits the crisp edges, sweet and tangy with tomato and vinegar. Mandarin fish is hard to find outside China, so sea bass is the practical choice. Serve as the centrepiece with rice and a few simple vegetables. Chef's tip: work starch into every cut with your fingers and shake off the excess; any bare patch fries soggy and the spikes collapse.

60 min

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Pian'er chuan noodles

Ask a Hangzhou local what they eat at a noodle shop and the answer is often pian'er chuan, a quick bowl named for its sliced (pian) pork and bamboo that are flash-cooked (chuan) in the broth. Salty, crunchy pickled mustard greens give it its savoury depth, the bamboo adds a clean sweetness, and the thin noodles soak up a cloudy, peppery soup. It is everyday lunch food, eaten at speed. A common mistake is skipping the rinse on the pickled greens; unrinsed, they make the whole bowl too salty. Chef's tip: slice the pork as thinly as you can while it is half-frozen, so it cooks in seconds and stays tender.

30 min

Chinese Soups

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Mango pomelo sago

Yeung chi gam lo was created in a Hong Kong restaurant in the 1980s and quickly became the city's favourite summer dessert, served in dessert shops late into the night. It's half drink, half pudding: puréed ripe mango mixed with coconut and evaporated milk, studded with chewy sago pearls, mango cubes and juicy pomelo. Chef's tip: rinse the cooked sago under cold water until it stops feeling slimy; this keeps each pearl separate and the dessert clean-tasting.

35 min

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Beggar's chicken

Legend has a hungry beggar near Hangzhou wrapping a stolen chicken in mud and burying it in the embers; restaurants in Hangzhou and Changshu still crack open the crust at the table for a bit of theatre. This home version swaps the mud for a salt-and-flour dough, so it bakes in an ordinary oven. Inside two lotus leaves, the bird steams in its own juices with pork, mushrooms and bamboo shoots, so the meat is fall-apart tender and smells of the leaves. Make it for a special dinner and serve with rice and greens. Chef's tip: the crust is only an oven, not something to eat; seal every crack with a scrap of dough so the steam stays in.

240 min

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