Featured recipe

Patatas al cabrales

Fried potatoes with blue cheese sauce

Cabrales is ripened in limestone caves in the Picos de Europa, and the bars of Arenas de Cabrales and Cangas de Onís pour it, melted into cream, over hot chips as a ración to share with a bottle of cider. The sauce is sharp, salty and very rich, so a little goes a long way. Most cabrales is made with animal rennet; for a strictly vegetarian dish, choose a blue cheese labelled vegetarian. Chef's tip: keep the sauce below a boil once the cheese goes in, or it splits and turns grainy.

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Estonian kringle

Kringel is the celebration bread of Estonia, baked for birthdays and name days and carried to every visit: a rich yeast dough rolled with cinnamon butter and sugar, sliced lengthways, twisted into a braided wreath so the layers show, and baked until golden. In Tallinn's old-town cafés it is sold by the slice with coffee. A common mistake is cutting the roll with a blunt knife, which squashes the layers. Chef's tip: chill the filled roll for 15 minutes before slicing; it cuts cleanly and twists without the filling escaping.

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Salade liégeoiseWarm green bean and potato salad

Salade liégeoise is the warm salad of Liège, eaten as a main course in the city's brasseries in summer when green beans are in season: just-cooked green beans and waxy potatoes tossed while warm with onion softened in butter and a sharp vinegar dressing, scattered with parsley. In Liège it is made with crisp bacon lardons; this version leaves them out and adds a fried egg on top for a fuller meal if you like. A common mistake is dressing cold vegetables, which don't absorb the vinegar. Chef's tip: deglaze the onion pan with the vinegar, then pour it straight over the hot beans and potatoes.

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Cracked conch is the Bahamas' answer to fish and chips, served at Potter's Cay dock stalls in Nassau and family restaurants across the Out Islands: conch steaks pounded ("cracked") thin, soaked in lime, dipped in a peppery batter and fried crisp, with chips, peas 'n' rice or coleslaw. Done properly the inside is tender and sweet like calamari. The common mistake is not pounding enough, which leaves the conch chewy; it should be thin and almost lacy. Buy cleaned conch from a trusted fishmonger and discard any that smells strongly. Chef's tip: let the battered pieces rest on a rack for 5 minutes before frying so the coating sticks and stays crisp.

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Djouka (fonio with peanut sauce)

Fonio, the tiny ancient grain of the Sahel, cooks in minutes, and Fula (Peul) families in Mali turn it into djouka by steaming it fluffy and folding it into a thick, savoury peanut sauce with onion, tomato and chilli. Meat is often added for guests and festivals; this is the meat-free home version, rich enough to stand alone as a main dish. The grains stay light and separate, coated in a sauce that is nutty, gently sweet from slow-cooked onion and warm with pepper. Serve it with a fresh tomato and onion salad or a bowl of sour milk on the side if you are not keeping it vegan. The usual mistake is cooking fonio in too much water; it turns to paste. Steam it or use a small amount of water. Chef's tip: rinse fonio in several changes of water and let the grit settle each time, because unwashed fonio often carries fine sand.

45 minAfrican Rice & Grains

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Chanterelles in cream

From July, roadside sellers along the lake roads of Masuria hold up baskets of golden chanterelles, and holidaymakers in Mrągowo and Giżycko cook them the same evening. The mushrooms are fried with onion until their juices cook away, then bathed in sour cream and dill, giving a sauce that is peppery, faintly apricot-scented and very rich. Spoon it over new potatoes, buckwheat or a thick slice of toast. Where most people go wrong is washing chanterelles under the tap, so they boil in their own water and turn rubbery. Only eat wild mushrooms you have bought from a trusted seller or that an expert has identified. Chef's tip: brush the mushrooms clean, tear large ones and cook them in a hot, wide pan so they sear rather than stew.

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Grilled oscypek with cranberry

Walk down Krupówki street in Zakopane in any season and the smell of smoke and warm cheese leads you to the grills, where highlanders turn thick slices of oscypek until they are striped and soft. The real thing is a spindle-shaped, carved sheep's milk cheese smoked in mountain huts; grilled, it turns chewy and squeaky outside, salty and smoky within, and the sharp-sweet cranberry cuts through it perfectly. Oscypek is made with animal rennet, so for a vegetarian plate use a smoked sheep's or cow's cheese made with vegetarian rennet, firm enough to hold its shape. The usual slip is slicing too thin; the cheese then melts through the grill. Chef's tip: oil the pan, not the cheese, and don't move the slices until they release on their own.

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Highland grilled trout

Trout farms fed by cold Tatra streams supply the roadside grills and mountain inns of Podhale, and pstrąg po góralsku is what hikers order on the terrace with a view of Giewont: a whole fish, stuffed with garlic and fresh herbs, crisped in butter until the skin crackles. The flesh is sweet and delicate, scented by dill and parsley from the inside out. Serve it with boiled new potatoes, lemon and a cucumber salad with sour cream. The classic error is flipping too early, so the skin tears and sticks; leave it until it releases on its own. If you have a grill basket, the same fish is excellent over charcoal. Chef's tip: score the thickest part of each side twice, right down to the bone, so the head end cooks as fast as the tail.

28 min

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Malian tô (millet swallow)

Across Mali, from Bamako courtyards to villages along the Niger, the evening meal very often means tô: a firm, smooth paste of millet or sorghum flour, beaten in a pot over the fire until it holds its shape. It is the plain, filling partner to slippery sauces of okra or baobab leaf (lalo), torn off with the right hand and dipped. Tô has a mild, slightly sour grain taste and a texture like firm polenta. A little tamarind water or lime helps it set and keeps it from tasting flat. Chef's tip: add the flour to the porridge in several small batches and beat hard after each one; dumping it all in at once is the classic mistake, and it leaves dry lumps that never smooth out.

30 minAfrican Basics

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When the new rice is harvested in late autumn, Maithil households in Janakpur, Siraha and Saptari steam bagiya, plump spindle-shaped dumplings of rice-flour dough that are offered to the gods, given to married daughters visiting home and eaten warm on cold winter mornings. The smooth, chewy shell hides a sweet centre, here toasted sesame bound with melted jaggery and a pinch of cardamom, though some families use molasses toffee (chaku), grated coconut or sweetened milk solids instead. Plain bagiya are also made and eaten with chutney. A common slip is using cold water for the dough, which makes it crumble and split; it must be made with boiling water. Chef's tip: knead the dough while it is still as hot as your hands can bear, with a little oil on your palms, until it is as smooth as play dough.

60 min

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Jamaican pepper shrimp

Drive through Middle Quarters in St Elizabeth and women by the roadside will lean into the car window holding bags of bright red pepper shrimp, calling "pepa swimps!" The river shrimp are boiled whole in a fiery brine of scotch bonnet, pimento, garlic and salt, then left to soak up the heat, and eaten with the fingers, shells and all sucked clean. Large shell-on prawns make a fine substitute. The usual mistake is overboiling, which leaves the shrimp rubbery; they need only a few minutes before steeping off the heat. Discard any shrimp that smell of ammonia or have soft, slimy shells before cooking. Chef's tip: a teaspoon of annatto or paprika gives the deep red colour of the roadside bags.

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Fried gobies

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Sri Lankan patties

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Sri Lankan Chinese rolls

Nobody in Sri Lanka quite knows why they are called Chinese rolls, but every bakery glass case and tea-shop counter from Kandy to Matara has a tray of them: thin crêpes wrapped around a peppery filling, dipped in batter, rolled in breadcrumbs and fried to a golden crunch. Fish is the classic, usually tuna or mackerel cooked with potato, leeks, onion, curry leaves and green chilli, and the rolls go to office tea breaks, almsgiving receptions and children's birthday parties, always with a bottle of chilli sauce. A potato and leek version without fish is just as popular and makes them vegetarian. People often go wrong by making the pancakes too thick, which gives a doughy roll that never crisps. Chef's tip: roll each one tightly like a spring roll, tucking the sides in, so the filling cannot burst out in the oil.

80 min

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Sri Lankan buryani

At a Sri Lankan Muslim wedding or a Friday gathering in Colombo's Maradana or Kandy's old town, buryani arrives on huge platters, each portion crowned with a leg of chicken, a halved boiled egg, fried cashews and sultanas. It is lighter and more perfumed than most mainland Indian versions, built on chicken marinated in yoghurt and warm spices, layered with long-grain rice, fried onions, mint and rose water, then sealed and steamed so the grains take on the aroma. It is never eaten alone: a sharp mint sambol, a sweet-sour pickle called achcharu and a bowl of raita-like salad are the expected companions. A frequent misstep is boiling the rice fully before layering, which leaves it mushy after the steaming. Chef's tip: drain the rice when it is about 70 percent cooked, still with a firm white core, because it finishes in the steam.

120 min

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Jaffna goat curry

Goat is the celebration meat of the Tamil north, and a Jaffna aattukkari cooked for a temple feast day, a wedding lunch or a Sunday at home is thick, brick-red and ferociously spicy. The secret is the local curry powder, roasted much darker and hotter than in the south, fried in oil with onion, garlic and fennel until it almost catches, then simmered slowly with the meat until the gravy reduces to a coating. Chunks of potato soak up the sauce, and the whole thing is eaten with rice, idiyappam or Jaffna-style puttu, with a cooling bowl of curd or coconut sambol on the side. The pitfall here is rushing the simmer; goat needs patience and goes chewy if it is cooked hard and fast. Chef's tip: brown the meat well in the spice paste before any liquid goes in, which gives the gravy its deep, almost smoky flavour.

120 min

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Jaffna crab curry

The shallow lagoons around Jaffna and the islands of Kayts and Delft produce big, sweet mud crabs, and the town's answer to them is a curry so dark and hot that visitors are warned before they order. Jaffna curry powder, heavy with roasted red chilli, coriander and fennel, is fried in sesame oil with onion and garlic, then loosened with tamarind and a little coconut milk so the sauce clings to every crack in the shell. A handful of moringa leaves wilted in at the end adds a grassy note, and the crab is eaten with the hands, sucked from the shell, alongside plain rice or puttu. A frequent misstep is boiling the crab hard for too long, which makes the meat dry and stringy. Chef's tip: crack the claws before cooking so the sauce soaks in and the meat is easy to reach at the table.

60 min

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Hot butter cuttlefish

Along Colombo's Galle Road and in the seafood restaurants of Negombo, hot butter cuttlefish is the dish nearly every table orders first, a heap of golden, crunchy strips that disappear while the rice and curries are still on their way. The cuttlefish is scored, dipped in a light, chilli-spiked batter and fried hard, then thrown into a pan of foaming butter with garlic, dried chilli flakes, green chilli and a big handful of spring onion. The result is crisp outside, tender within, rich, salty and properly hot, and it is eaten as a starter or alongside fried rice and a fresh lime. It goes wrong when the cuttlefish fries too long, because it turns rubbery after about two minutes in the oil. Chef's tip: score the inside of each piece in a fine criss-cross so it curls and grabs the batter, and fry in small batches so the oil stays hot.

35 min

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Senegalese ginger juice

Nearly every Senegalese party, baptism and wedding table carries a jug of jus de gingembre next to the bissap, and Dakar street sellers keep it in frosted plastic bottles. Fresh ginger is blended with water, left to steep, strained and sweetened, then brightened with lemon and mint. Expect a sweet first sip followed by a strong, warming burn that is surprisingly refreshing when the drink is ice cold. Some cooks add a little pineapple juice or vanilla for a rounder taste. Chef's tip: taste before serving and dilute with cold water if it is too fierce; the most common mistake is serving it undiluted, when it can be strong enough to make people cough.

20 min

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Café Touba (spiced Senegalese coffee)

Poured from tall kettles into small cups on street corners from Dakar to the holy city of Touba, café Touba is coffee roasted together with djar, the smoky, peppery pods also called grains of selim, and often a few cloves. The drink is linked with the Mouride brotherhood and its founder Cheikh Amadou Bamba, and it is drunk sweet and strong at any hour. It has a deep roasted bitterness with a tingle of pepper and clove at the back of the throat. Roasting green beans at home takes about 20 minutes and makes enough for several pots; if you cannot get green beans, toast the spices separately and grind them with medium-roast coffee. Most people go wrong by grinding the djar (selim pepper) too coarsely, so its peppery note never comes through. Chef's tip: roast over a moderate heat and keep the beans moving, since high heat burns the outside while the inside stays raw and sour.

30 min

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Abunuabunu (Ghanaian green soup)

Green from cocoyam leaves (kontomire), garden eggs and green chillies, abunuabunu is a home-style soup from the Ashanti and Bono farmlands, cooked when the leaves are young and plentiful. Traditionally it is made with giant land snails or bush meat; this version uses goat or beef with smoked fish, which are easier to find. The leaves and vegetables are boiled, pounded or blended and returned to the meat stock, giving a fresh, grassy, peppery soup with a gentle bitterness. It is eaten with fufu or ampesi (boiled yam and plantain). Spinach works if you cannot buy cocoyam leaves. Don't skimp on the cooking time for the cocoyam leaves; undercooked, they leave an itchy, scratchy feel in the throat. Chef's tip: always boil cocoyam leaves for at least 15 minutes, because underdone leaves leave an itchy, scratchy feeling in the throat; if you use snails, buy them cleaned from a reputable seller and simmer them until firm.

90 min

Ghanaian Meat

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Devilled chicken

Few plates are more Colombo than devilled chicken, the sticky, fiery stir-fry born in the city's Sri Lankan-Chinese restaurants and now cooked in home kitchens for birthday parties, Saturday fried-rice nights and office lunch boxes. Bite-sized pieces of chicken are fried crisp, then tossed in a wok with wedges of onion, green capsicum and tomato in a glossy sauce of chilli flakes, ketchup and soy, so every piece is sweet, salty and hot at once. It is served with yellow fried rice or simply as a side to a rice-and-curry spread, and for a meat-free version you can devil button mushrooms or parboiled potato cubes in exactly the same sauce. Where most people go wrong is overloading the wok with vegetables, which then steam and go limp instead of staying crunchy. Chef's tip: separate the onion wedges into single petals before they hit the pan, so they char at the edges in under a minute.

45 min

Sri Lankan Chicken

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Abenkwan (palm nut soup with goat)

Sunday lunch in Kumasi often means a deep bowl of abenkwan, the brick-red palm-nut soup that chop bars serve all week with pounded fufu. Goat is first steamed in its own juices with onion and ginger, then simmered with garden eggs, tomatoes and pepper that are blended back in, and finally with the rich cream of palm fruit until a layer of orange oil floats on top. Smoked fish adds a savoury, smoky edge. The soup is thick, slightly sweet, earthy and peppery. Canned palm nut cream, sold in African shops, saves hours of pounding fresh fruit; small white aubergines can replace garden eggs. Chef's tip: simmer until the palm oil rises and collects on the surface; serving it earlier is the most common mistake and leaves the soup tasting raw and heavy.

130 min

Ghanaian Meat

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Dakuwa (groundnut and grain balls)

Hawkers in northern towns carry dakuwa on trays to schools and motor parks, and it keeps well enough to be a travelling snack. Roasted groundnuts are pounded with toasted maize or millet, sugar and warm spices until the oil from the nuts binds everything, then pressed into firm balls that are sweet, nutty and gently peppery. No cooking beyond toasting is needed. The usual mistake is over-blending until the nuts turn to butter and the mixture goes greasy; pulse and stop as soon as it holds when squeezed. Chef's tip: shape the balls while the mixture is still warm from the processor, when the oils are soft and it presses together easily.

40 min

Nigerian Desserts

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Domedo (Ghanaian spiced pork)

Domedo is pork: chunks of pork shoulder or belly rubbed with ginger, garlic, onion, cloves and chilli, simmered until tender, then roasted or fried until the edges turn crisp and caramelised. Around Accra it is a favourite at chop bars and roadside grills in the evening, wrapped in paper with raw onion, sliced tomato and a pile of fresh pepper, often alongside kenkey. The meat is juicy and spicy with a crackling, salty outside. Cooking it twice means the fat renders out and the chunks stay moist. Chef's tip: dry the boiled pork well before roasting and give the pieces space on the tray; crowding them is the usual mistake, and they steam instead of crisping.

90 min

Ghanaian Meat

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BacánPlantain and pork parcels

Bacán belongs to Baracoa, the coconut-growing corner of eastern Cuba, where it is made for family gatherings and sold wrapped at weekend markets. Grated green plantain is mixed with fresh coconut milk into a soft dough, wrapped around a filling of seasoned pork in a banana leaf and steamed until set, a little like a tamal but sweeter and silkier. The pork is shoulder, cooked in a sofrito before wrapping. The common mistake is using ripe plantain, which won't set; it must be hard and green. Chef's tip: pass the banana leaves briefly over a flame or hot pan until they turn glossy and supple, and they will fold without splitting.

120 min

Cuban Meat

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Chura gerte (Gambian rice and peanut porridge)

Groundnuts are The Gambia's great crop, and chura gerte, rice porridge cooked with ground roasted peanuts, is how many families in Banjul and Serekunda start the day. Broken rice is simmered until soft and creamy, then the peanut paste goes in with sugar, a pinch of salt and sometimes vanilla or nutmeg. It is thick, comforting and nutty, a bowl that keeps children going until lunch. Some households pour sour milk over the top; leave it out, as here, and the porridge is vegan. Avoid adding the peanut paste in one lump; whisk it in loosened with hot liquid or it clumps. Chef's tip: stir the peanut paste into the rice only once the grains are completely soft, because rice cooked in peanut from the start catches on the base and stays chalky.

40 minAfrican Breakfast & Brunch

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Sombi (Senegalese coconut rice pudding)

Spooned warm from a pot at the Ramadan ndogu, the evening break of the fast, or eaten as a gentle supper on cool Dakar nights, sombi is the Senegalese take on rice pudding. Broken rice is simmered in water first, then in coconut milk and a little dairy milk until it turns soft and creamy, sweetened just enough and finished with vanilla and a pinch of nutmeg. The texture is looser than a baked rice pudding, almost porridge-like, with a clean coconut taste. Broken rice, sold as brisures in African shops, cooks fastest and gives the right silky feel. Avoid boiling hard once the coconut milk goes in, or it splits and turns greasy. Chef's tip: add the coconut milk only after the rice is half cooked in water, because grains boiled from raw in coconut milk stay hard and the fat can split.

45 min

Senegalese Desserts

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Ngalakh (millet in baobab-peanut cream)

Every Easter, Christian families in Dakar, Thiès and Ziguinchor make big pots of ngalakh and carry bowls of it to Muslim neighbours and friends, a gesture of sharing that many Senegalese treasure. Steamed millet pellets are folded into a thick, tangy cream of baobab pulp and peanut butter, scented with vanilla, orange flower water and nutmeg, and sometimes studded with raisins. It is served chilled, sweet and nutty with a citrus-like sourness from the baobab, and it keeps well for a couple of days. No dairy is used, so it is vegan. Chef's tip: use plain peanut butter with no added sugar or palm oil, and let the dessert rest in the fridge for a few hours, because the flavours only come together once the millet has drunk up some of the cream.

70 min

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Lakh (millet porridge with sweet curd)

Thick, warm millet porridge topped with cold, sweetened curd: lakh is a Senegalese pairing of contrasts that turns up at naming ceremonies, family gatherings and on Ramadan evenings in Dakar. The millet is rolled into tiny pellets and simmered until it sets like soft polenta, then a creamy sauce of soured milk, sugar and baobab powder is poured over, its tang lifted by vanilla or orange flower water. Each spoonful mixes chewy, nutty grains with something cool and lightly sour. Plain yoghurt mixed with a little cream stands in well for Senegalese soow; use pasteurised dairy and keep leftovers in the fridge. Don't pour the curd over hot porridge; let the lakh cool so the curd stays thick and fresh. Chef's tip: cool the porridge until just warm before adding the curd, so the sauce stays thick instead of thinning out.

60 min

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Babka wielkanocnaEaster yeast cake

A golden babka standing tall in the Easter basket used to be a matter of family pride, and old cooks whispered while it baked, convinced a slammed door would make it sink. The dough is soft and rich with egg yolks and butter, beaten until it is elastic, then baked in a fluted ring tin into a cake with a fine, feathery, saffron-yellow crumb. Raisins are often soaked in rum; this version uses orange juice, but a couple of spoons of rum work if you prefer. The usual slip is adding too much flour to a sticky dough, which makes the babka dry; it should stay soft and almost batter-like. Chef's tip: cool the babka on its side, turning it now and then, so the delicate crumb doesn't collapse.

185 min

Polish Baking

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Ekwang with mushrooms

Rolling ekwang is a job for many hands: in the Southwest and around Douala, relatives sit together grating cocoyam and tucking it into leaves for a festive Sunday or a homecoming. The little green cigars are packed into a pot, drenched in red palm oil and left to simmer until the grated tuber binds into soft, almost creamy rolls in a rich, glossy sauce. Smoked fish and crayfish are the usual partners; this meat-free version gets its depth from fresh and dried mushrooms and a pinch of smoked paprika, so it suits vegetarian and vegan guests alike. Serve it on its own, scooping up the sauce, or with boiled plantain. Chef's tip: grate the cocoyam on the finest holes, almost to a purée, so the rolls hold together; coarse shreds stay separate and the pot turns grainy.

135 min

Cameroonian Vegetarian

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Sri Lankan chicken curry

Sunday lunch in a Colombo family home very often means a pot of kukul mas curry, the chicken chopped small on the bone and simmered in a gravy darkened by curry powder that has been roasted until it smells almost like coffee. Pandan leaf, curry leaves, cinnamon bark and cardamom carry the perfume, while coconut milk stirred in towards the end rounds off the chilli heat without making the sauce heavy. It shares the table with red rice, parippu, pol sambol and a green mallung, and whatever is left over tastes even better the next morning with string hoppers. A common slip is using raw, unroasted curry powder, which tastes dusty and flat instead of deep and smoky. Chef's tip: roast the spices for the powder until they are the colour of milk chocolate and grind them while still warm, so the oils release into the powder.

70 min

Sri Lankan Chicken

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Superkanja (Gambian okra stew)

Superkanja is one of The Gambia's best-loved stews, cooked in compounds from Banjul to the river villages and always served with plain white rice. Okra is simmered and beaten into a thick, glossy stew with red palm oil, beef, fish and nététou, the pungent fermented locust beans that give West African cooking its deep savoury base. Smoked or dried fish adds smokiness, Scotch bonnets bring the heat, and the whole thing is slippery, rich and earthy. If you cannot find nététou, iru or dawadawa from African shops do the same job. Chef's tip: beat the okra vigorously with a wooden spoon for the last few minutes of cooking; that beating is what turns it into the smooth, cohesive kanja rather than a loose soup.

80 minAfrican Fish

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Sri Lankan milk toffee

Every school fair, office bake sale and Avurudu table in Sri Lanka has a plate of milk toffee, the pale golden squares that are firm when you pick them up yet melt away in a sweet, slightly grainy crumble in your mouth. A tin of condensed milk is cooked with sugar and butter, stirred constantly for half an hour until it thickens and leaves the pan, then flavoured with chopped cashews and a whisper of cardamom and vanilla. It is simple enough for children to help with, as long as an adult does the hot stirring. Stopping too early is the trap almost everyone falls into, leaving a soft, chewy fudge instead of the proper crumbly snap. Cook until the mixture rolls into a ball, turns a shade darker and a drop set in cold water is firm. Chef's tip: mark the squares with a buttered knife while the toffee is still warm, because once it cools it will only break into rough pieces.

40 min

Sri Lankan Desserts

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Aprapransa (Fante palm nut pottage with crab)

A coastal Fante dish from Cape Coast and the Central Region, aprapransa is made for festive days and big family meals: palm-nut soup with crab and smoked fish is stirred with toasted corn flour until it becomes a thick, spoonable pottage, then finished with tender black-eyed beans. The texture is somewhere between a stew and a soft dumpling, the colour a deep orange-brown, and the toasted corn gives a nutty, almost biscuity flavour under the rich palm fruit. It is often served with sliced avocado. Live crabs must come from a good fishmonger; discard any that are dead or smell off. The usual mistake is adding the toasted corn flour all at once, which makes lumps; sprinkle it in while stirring. Chef's tip: toast the corn flour until it is evenly deep golden and smells like popcorn, then add it to the soup gradually while stirring, because tipping it in at once is how the pottage turns lumpy.

90 min

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Ghanaian rock buns

Rock buns came to Ghana with colonial-era baking and never left: every neighbourhood bakery and many school canteens sell these rough, golden mounds, eaten with tea in the morning or with a soft drink after school. They are crisp on the craggy outside, soft and cakey inside, scented with nutmeg and studded with raisins. They take minutes to mix and are a good first bake for children. Chef's tip: keep the dough stiff and drop it in rough heaps without smoothing; too much milk is the common mistake, and the buns spread into flat cookies instead of rising into 'rocks'.

33 min

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Pickled green tomatoes

In southern Ukraine the first cold nights of October leave every garden full of hard green tomatoes that will never ripen, and rather than waste them, cooks around Odesa and Kherson slit each one and stuff it with a punchy paste of garlic, dill, parsley and hot chilli. A week in brine turns them sour and fizzy, with a crunch and a slow burn from the chilli. They are the pickle everyone reaches for at the winter table, next to potatoes fried with onions or a bowl of buckwheat. Most people go wrong by cutting the tomatoes right through, so the filling falls out; slice only two-thirds of the way. As with any ferment, keep everything below the brine and discard the jar if it grows fuzzy or coloured mould or smells rotten. Chef's tip: pick tomatoes that are just starting to blush pale; fully hard dark-green ones stay bitter.

30 min

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Pickled watermelon

When the melon fields of Kherson and Mykolaiv end their season, the small, late watermelons that never got properly sweet go into barrels of brine. A few weeks later they come out fizzy, salty and sour, with the pink flesh still faintly sweet and the rind crisp like a pickled cucumber. Southern families eat them through the winter with boiled potatoes, buckwheat or a plate of fried mushrooms. A big glass jar works just as well as a barrel for wedges. The classic error is using a ripe, soft watermelon, which turns to mush in the brine; pick small, firm ones with pale pink flesh. Keep everything under the brine and throw out the batch if fuzzy or coloured mould appears or it smells rotten rather than sour. Chef's tip: slip a horseradish or cherry leaf into the jar; the tannins keep the rind crunchy for weeks.

30 min

Ukrainian Basics

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Beet kvass

Before lemons and vinegar were easy to buy, Ukrainian cooks soured their borscht with beet kvass, a ruby-red brine made by leaving sliced raw beetroot in salted water for a few days. It is lightly fermented, so it contains no more than a negligible trace of alcohol, and it tastes earthy, salty and pleasantly sharp. In Poltava and Chernihiv villages a jar always stood by the stove; a splash went into the soup pot and a small glass was drunk in the morning as a tonic. Some families add a crust of rye bread to speed things up, which makes it no longer gluten-free. The mistake most people make is leaving the beetroot floating: anything above the brine can grow mould, so keep it weighed down. Discard any batch with fuzzy or coloured mould, a slimy texture or a rotten smell. Chef's tip: a few slices left in the jar from the previous batch start the next one in half the time.

30 min

Ukrainian Drinks

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Babi pangangCrispy pork in sweet-sour sauce

Babi pangang is one of the most ordered dishes in the 'Chinees-Indisch' restaurants found in every Dutch town: crisp-skinned roast pork belly, sliced and smothered in a bright red, sweet-sour sauce with tomato, ginger and pickled vegetables, served with rice or nasi goreng. This is a pork dish. A common mistake is pouring the sauce over too early, which turns the crackling soft. Chef's tip: dry the skin overnight in the fridge and roast it hot at the end, then pour the sauce around, not over, the pork at the table. Whole pork joints are safe at 63 °C plus a rest; belly is best cooked longer, until tender.

105 min

Dutch Meat

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Ampesi with garden egg stew

Ampesi is about as plain and honest as Ashanti food gets: slices of yam, green plantain and cocoyam boiled until tender and eaten with a stew, here one made from garden eggs, the small white or green African eggplants sold by the bowlful in Kumasi markets. They are boiled, mashed and simmered with onion, tomato and pepper into a soft, slightly bitter, savoury stew with very little oil. Ghanaian homes often add fish or egg to it; this version is fully vegan and light. Asian or Thai aubergines are a good swap if you cannot get garden eggs. Chef's tip: boil the yam, plantain and cocoyam separately or add them in stages; cooking them together from the start is the common mistake, and the yam turns to mush before the plantain is done.

45 min

Ghanaian Vegetarian

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Babath curryBeef tripe curry

Babath curry belongs to the Muslim and Malay kitchens of Colombo and Slave Island, a frugal, rich dish of beef tripe that turns up at family lunches and in small rice-and-curry cafés where regulars ask for it by name. The tripe is cleaned, boiled with turmeric and vinegar until soft, then sliced into ribbons and simmered in a dark roasted curry with black pepper, cinnamon and a little coconut milk until it soaks up all the spice. The texture is pleasantly chewy and the gravy deep, hot and slightly sour, and it is eaten with rice, roti or bread to mop up the sauce. Many first attempts fail because the tripe is not boiled long enough first, so it stays rubbery however long it spends in the curry. Chef's tip: buy cleaned, bleached honeycomb tripe from a halal butcher, and boil it until a knife slides through with no resistance before you start the curry.

150 min

Sri Lankan Meat

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Batticaloa fish curry

Batticaloa sits between a long lagoon and the sea, and its Tamil and Muslim cooks make a fish curry that tastes of both: sour with tamarind, round and mellow with coconut milk, and fragrant with fennel, fenugreek and curry leaves. Seer fish, called thora or vanjiram, is the favourite because its firm steaks hold together in the gravy, though any meaty sea fish works. The curry is a weekday staple, cooked in the morning and eaten at lunch with rice, a lentil dhal and a fried vegetable, and it is even better a few hours later once the fish has absorbed the sauce. Most disappointing versions come from stirring the pot after the fish goes in, which breaks the steaks into flakes. Chef's tip: swirl the pan instead of stirring, and spoon the sauce over the fish so it cooks evenly without being moved.

45 min

Sri Lankan Fish

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Sri Lankan vegetable roti

The glass cabinet of every Colombo bakery and railway canteen holds a pile of short eats at teatime, and the neat, golden triangles of vegetable roti are usually the first to go. They are made from godamba dough, oiled and rested until it can be stretched almost transparent, then wrapped around a peppery potato filling with leek, carrot, curry leaves and chilli, and cooked on a hot griddle until crisp and blistered. People eat them hot from the paper bag with a bottle of chilli sauce or a cup of milk tea. Fish and egg roti are just as common; this one is fully vegan. Most first attempts fail because the dough is not rested long enough and springs back when stretched; give it at least two hours under oil, or overnight in the fridge. Chef's tip: make the filling fairly dry and cool it completely before folding, otherwise the steam tears the delicate dough.

70 min

Sri Lankan Snacks & Starters

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AmiwoRed tomato cornmeal

Fon cooks in southern Benin make amiwo for weddings, christenings and big Sunday tables, and you will find it at celebrations across the border in Lomé too. Maize meal is cooked straight into a well-fried tomato, onion and pepper base until it becomes a thick, brick-red paste that is savoury, slightly sweet and full of tomato. Most often it arrives with fried chicken; this meat-free version uses vegetable stock and comes with fried ripe plantain and an extra spoonful of tomato sauce. Chef's tip: hold back a ladle of the tomato base before adding the cornmeal and spoon it over each portion to serve.

55 minAfrican Rice & Grains

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