This is a pork recipe. Walk through any Greek town after dark, from Athens to Thessaloniki, and the smell of souvlaki stands drifts down the street; cubes of pork shoulder grilled on thin skewers are the country's favourite cheap supper, eaten standing up or at a plastic-table taverna. At home you marinate the meat in lemon, olive oil, garlic and dried oregano, grill it hard and fast, and pile it on warm pitta with tzatziki, tomato and red onion. Chef's tip: cut the pork into even 2.5 cm cubes and leave a little fat on; lean loin dries out, shoulder stays juicy over high heat.
A new country every day, from every cuisine on the site.
Cock-a-leekie is Scotland's national soup, a clear broth of chicken and plenty of leeks, traditionally served on Burns Night and St Andrew's Day. A few prunes go in at the end, which sounds odd but gives little bursts of sweetness against the peppery broth. Some families thicken it with a handful of rice or barley. Chef's tip: add most of the leeks only for the last 15 minutes, so they stay green and silky instead of turning grey.
Testaccio was home to Rome's slaughterhouse, and the vaccinari who skinned the cattle were partly paid in offcuts, among them the tail. The trattorie of the quarter still serve coda alla vaccinara as their signature dish: oxtail braised for hours in tomato with a mountain of celery until the meat slides off the bone, the sauce finished with a hint of bitter cocoa, pine nuts and raisins for a sweet-sour depth. A splash of red wine goes in early, with an alcohol-free option in the ingredients. Eat the meat with bread, and toss any leftover sauce with rigatoni the next day. Chef's tip: braise it a day ahead, chill it and lift off the hard layer of fat before reheating; the sauce will be cleaner and the flavour deeper.
High on the Altiplano, where nights freeze even in summer, chairo is the soup that gets Puno's market workers and farmers through the day. It is thick and brothy at once: lamb on the bone and a little charqui (dried meat) simmered with crushed chuño, peeled wheat, broad beans, potatoes and squash, scented with cumin, oregano and huacatay or mint. Expect a deep, meaty, slightly smoky bowl with lots of chew. Soak the chuño and the wheat overnight. A common error is adding the potatoes with the meat, so they dissolve before the lamb is tender; they go in for the last 25 minutes. Chef's tip: crush the soaked chuño into small pieces by hand; they thicken the broth as it cooks.
When the grapes are picked in the vineyards of Olite and the Ribera in September, quail are fat from the stubble fields and the vines still have their leaves, so Navarrese cooks bring the two together. Each bird is wrapped in a vine leaf and a strip of bacon and roasted fast; the leaf keeps the lean meat moist and adds a gentle, lemony tang. This contains pork (streaky bacon). Serve with fried potatoes or bread and, in season, a bunch of grapes. Chef's tip: taste before salting, because brined vine leaves and bacon already bring plenty.
The lettuce hearts grown around Tudela in the Ribera of Navarre are small, tight and sweet, and they carry their own protected name. In the bars of Tudela and Pamplona they come to the table split lengthwise, still cold, with olive oil poured over them straight from the pan where garlic has just turned golden. Many places lay an anchovy on each quarter; this version leaves the fish out and is vegan. Chef's tip: dry the lettuce really well, because water left between the leaves makes the hot oil spit and leaves the dressing watery.
Chocho, or tarwi, is the Andean lupin bean, a protein-packed legume grown high around Huaraz, Cajamarca and Puno, and street carts in the highlands sell it in plastic cups dressed like a ceviche: lime, red onion, tomato, coriander and a little ají, sometimes with toasted corn for crunch. It is fresh, sour and pleasantly firm, a vegan stand-in for fish ceviche that works as a starter or a light lunch. Food safety matters here: raw or bitter lupins contain toxic alkaloids and must never be eaten as they are. Use only ready-debittered, cooked chochos, sold in jars, vacuum packs or chilled tubs in Latin shops; if they taste bitter, rinse and soak them longer or throw them away. Lupin is also a common allergen and may affect people allergic to peanuts. The usual mistake is to drown everything in lime and leave it, which makes the onion limp; mix the dressing just before serving. Chef's tip: squeeze the limes gently by hand rather than with a press, so the juice doesn't turn bitter.
On the beaches of Acapulco, vendors sell ceviche in tall glasses with saltine crackers and tostadas: small cubes of white fish in lime with tomato, onion, green olives, chilli, a sweet streak of ketchup and fresh orange juice, eaten cold on a hot afternoon. The classic version is raw fish 'cooked' only by lime, which does not kill bacteria or parasites, so that version is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. This safer recipe gently poaches the fish until just opaque, then chills it and dresses it in the same tangy, sweet-sharp mixture, so it keeps the firm, fresh texture. Serve with tostadas, crackers and slices of avocado. Chef's tip: dice the vegetables very small and the same size as the fish, so every spoonful has a bit of everything.
Çökertme is the kebab Bodrum is proud of: a bed of crisp, matchstick-thin fried potatoes, a layer of garlicky yoghurt, then tender strips of sautéed beef on top, finished with tomato sauce and butter. It is restaurant food in the town but easy to make at home for a Saturday lunch, and the contrast of hot, crunchy, cool and creamy is what makes it. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes very thin and fry them in two batches just before serving; made ahead, they go limp under the yoghurt.
At beach shacks along Narragansett Bay and in Galilee, clam cakes are bought by the paper bag, half a dozen at a time, to dunk in a cup of clear clam chowder. They are not patties but craggy, golden fritters, crisp outside and soft inside, studded with chopped quahog clams. Chef's tip: use the clam juice as part of the liquid; it puts the sea flavour into every bite of batter.
Street vendors in Cali, Buenaventura and Tumaco push carts piled with bright orange and red chontaduro, peeled to order and sprinkled with salt, then drizzled with honey. The fruit of the peach palm, it has a dense, floury flesh somewhere between roasted chestnut, squash and boiled egg yolk, and a savoury-sweet flavour that people from the Pacific coast swear by as an energy food. At home, the fruit must be cooked, as raw peach palm is unpleasant and irritating to the throat. Fresh fruit appears in Latin American shops in season; frozen or jarred cooked chontaduro is easier to find and only needs warming. Undercooking is the common slip: the flesh stays fibrous and scratchy, so keep boiling until it crumbles easily. This is vegetarian but not vegan because of the honey; panela syrup is a vegan swap. Chef's tip: cut the fruit in half and remove the stone before salting, so the seasoning reaches the warm flesh.
In autumn, when cèpes push up through the pine forests of the Landes and the oak woods of the Gironde, Bordeaux families fry them the local way: thick slices browned hard in a hot pan, then tossed with shallot, garlic and plenty of parsley. They come to the table as a side for Sunday lunch, piled on toast for a starter, or beside an omelette for supper. Many cooks use duck fat; this version uses olive oil, so it is vegan. Out of season, use chestnut mushrooms with a few soaked dried porcini for flavour. Chef's tip: wipe the cèpes with a damp cloth instead of washing them; wet mushrooms steam instead of browning.
Centolla, the southern king crab hauled from the cold waters of the Beagle Channel, is Ushuaia's pride, and seafood restaurants along the harbour serve it gratinada: sweet chunks of leg meat in a light white sauce, crowned with cheese and browned under a fierce grill. It is rich, so serve it in small dishes as a starter with lemon and a green salad, plus crusty bread for anyone who can eat gluten. Buy cooked, frozen king crab legs or meat and thaw them in the fridge overnight; if you ever cook crab yourself, it must be alive when it goes into the pot. A frequent mistake is a sauce so thick and cheesy that the delicate crab disappears; keep it pourable and the cheese thin. Chef's tip: fold the crab in gently at the end, in big pieces, and let the oven only heat it; it is already cooked and turns stringy if it boils.
Stargazy pie is baked in the Cornish fishing village of Mousehole every 23 December for Tom Bawcock's Eve, celebrating the fisherman who is said to have sailed out in a storm and saved the village from famine. Whole pilchards or sardines are baked under pastry with egg, potato and bacon, their heads poking out so they gaze at the stars and their oil runs back into the filling. The bacon is smoked pork. Chef's tip: ask the fishmonger to bone the fish but leave the heads on; it makes the pie much easier to eat.
Puebla's markets have whole aisles of cemita stalls, where a domed, sesame-crusted roll is split and piled with a thin, crisp milanesa, sliced avocado, a nest of stringy quesillo, smoky chipotle in adobo and leaves of pápalo, a pungent herb that tastes somewhere between rocket and coriander. This version uses pork loin for the milanesa, the most common choice alongside beef; thin beef steak works the same way. Pápalo is rarely sold outside Mexico, so coriander stands in for it here. It is a meal in itself, eaten with both hands at midday. Chef's tip: pull the quesillo into fine strands rather than slicing it, so it melts into the warm cutlet and holds the sandwich together.
Small enough to eat in two bites, colaciones have been Córdoba's sweet gift since colonial times, when they were made in the city's convents; today confiterías in the old centre still sell them stacked in paper trays, and visitors carry them home with the alfajores. A crumbly short pastry encloses a spoon of dulce de leche, shaped into a little dome, baked pale and then dipped in a glossy white glaze that hardens into a crisp sugary shell. They are lovely with coffee or mate after lunch. The usual problem is leaking: too much filling, or edges that aren't sealed, and the dulce de leche boils out in the oven, so use a level teaspoon and press the rims firmly. The glaze is a light Italian meringue, where hot syrup cooks the egg white. Chef's tip: chill the filled colaciones for 15 minutes before baking; cold pastry keeps its shape and seals better.
Up in the Calchaquí valleys of Salta, where goats graze between the vineyards and the cardón cactus, cabrito ends up in a heavy clay cazuela on Sunday or feast days. The meat simmers with onion, red pepper, cumin and ají molido until it slides off the bone, and the potatoes and thick rounds of corn on the cob drink up a brick-red, gently spiced broth. Bring it to the table in the pot with bread or a simple tomato and onion salad. Kid goat can be ordered from halal butchers and some farm shops; lamb shoulder works too. People often boil it hard to save time, which squeezes the lean meat dry and stringy; it wants the barest simmer. Chef's tip: brown the pieces in two or three batches so they colour properly instead of stewing in their own juices; that browning is where most of the flavour comes from.
In Cádiz, the tapa that sells out first in the fried-fish shops around La Viña is cazón en adobo: bite-sized cubes of dogfish soaked overnight in a sharp marinade of vinegar, garlic, cumin, oregano and paprika, then floured and fried. The marinade seasons the fish right through and gives it a tang that needs no sauce. If you cannot find dogfish, monkfish or any firm white fish works. A common mistake is a short marinade; the fish needs at least 8 hours in the fridge, for the vinegar and cumin to soak in. Chef's tip: marinate for at least 8 hours but no more than 24; past that, the vinegar starts to firm and 'cook' the fish and it goes dry.
Ask anyone from Santa Marta or Ciénaga what they ate growing up and cayeye will come up quickly. Unripe green bananas, the small cooking kind rather than plantains, are boiled and mashed with butter and grated salty cheese into a soft, slightly sticky purée, then topped with hogao, the tomato and spring onion sauce of Colombian kitchens. Breakfast is its moment, often with a fried egg or a slice of fried cheese and a strong black coffee, and it is filling enough to last until lunch. The cheese on the coast is queso costeño; a firm feta-style cheese works, and since both are usually set with animal rennet, look for a vegetarian microbial-rennet version. Mashing the bananas once they have cooled is the misstep to avoid, because they set into a gluey lump; mash them straight from the pot with a splash of the hot cooking water. Chef's tip: rub your hands with oil before peeling green bananas, as the sap stains skin and boards.
Resende, a town of cherry orchards above the Douro, has made cavacas for centuries, and stalls at its fairs and the Festa de São Pedro sell them by the bag. They are a curious and lovely thing: a simple batter of eggs, flour and oil puffs up in the oven into a hollow, crisp shell, which is then brushed with a boiled sugar glaze that dries brilliant white. A common mistake is opening the oven early, which makes the puffed biscuits sink before their crust sets. Chef's tip: keep the oven door shut for the first 20 minutes, because opening it early makes the cavacas collapse.
In Boston, Irish families made corned beef the centre of St Patrick's Day, swapping the bacon joint of home for the cheaper brisket sold by Jewish butchers, and New Englanders still call the whole pot a boiled dinner. Salt-cured beef brisket is simmered for hours with spices, then potatoes, carrots and wedges of cabbage cook in the same broth. Serve with grainy mustard. Chef's tip: slice the beef across the grain, thinly; cut along the grain it looks stringy and chews tough.
Cheap, filling and deeply loved, cau cau is a lunchtime staple at Lima's menú restaurants and market comedores, served with white rice. Pieces of honeycomb tripe are simmered until soft, then stewed with diced potato in a golden sauce of ají amarillo, garlic and turmeric, finished with a fistful of mint (hierbabuena) that freshens the richness. The texture is soft and slightly springy, the sauce mild, warm and herby. Buy tripe from a butcher or Latin, Asian or halal shop already cleaned and blanched (white honeycomb); it must be simmered until fully tender and cooked through. The common mistake is undercooking the tripe: if it squeaks between your teeth it needs longer. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes small and let some of them break up at the end; they thicken the sauce naturally.
Colcannon is the Halloween potato dish of Ireland, from Munster farmhouses to Dublin kitchens, where a ring or a coin was once hidden in the bowl to tell fortunes. Floury potatoes are mashed with hot milk, a lot of butter and dark leafy kale or green cabbage, so it is creamy, green-flecked and savoury. Serve it with a well of melted butter in the middle, alongside sausages or a nut roast. Chef's tip: warm the milk with the spring onions before mashing; cold milk makes the mash gluey and tastes flat.
In Guadeloupe and Martinique, colombo is the curry brought by Tamil workers in the nineteenth century and now a fixture of Sunday lunches, christenings and Carnival feasts. Its spice blend, also called colombo, mixes toasted coriander, cumin, fenugreek, mustard seed and turmeric with a little toasted rice that thickens the sauce. Chicken is marinated in lime and garlic in the fridge, then simmered with aubergine, chayote (christophine) or courgette and potato into a golden, earthy, gently tangy stew, with a whole Scotch bonnet for perfume. Serve with white rice and a wedge of lime. Chef's tip: leave the Scotch bonnet whole and lift it out at the end for flavour without fierce heat; prick it only if you want it hot.
Casoncelli (casonsei in Bergamo dialect) are the pride of the old upper town of Bergamo and of nearby Brescia, eaten at weddings, village festivals and Sunday lunch. The filling is a thrifty mix of pork sausage, leftover beef, breadcrumbs and grana, perfumed with a crushed amaretto biscuit, a few raisins and a little pear, so it tastes faintly sweet and savoury at once. The folded half-moons are pressed into a little saddle shape and served in plenty of butter with sage and crisp cubes of pancetta, which makes this a pork dish twice over. A green salad is all they need afterwards. Chef's tip: cook the sausage filling first and let it cool completely; warm filling makes the pasta soggy and hard to seal.
Setúbal claims fried cuttlefish, but the Algarve has its own treasure: choquinhos, cuttlefish no bigger than a thumb, sautéed whole in garlicky olive oil until their ink turns the pan glossy black. Seafood bars in Olhão and Faro serve them in small clay dishes, to be eaten with toothpicks and bread for mopping. The recipe uses a splash of white wine; use water with a squeeze of lemon instead for an alcohol-free version. Chef's tip: cook in a very hot pan in two batches, so the cuttlefish sizzle rather than stew.
Look in the window of any confitería in Oviedo or Gijón and you will find casadielles, plump little pastry rolls stuffed with ground walnuts and sugar, fried until blistered and rolled in more sugar. Village bakers turn out trays of them for patron-saint fiestas and for Antroxu, and they keep for days in a tin. The traditional dough is moistened with dry white wine and the filling scented with anise liqueur; both are given alcohol-free swaps below. Chef's tip: roll the dough very thin, about 2 mm, because thick dough stays doughy inside before the outside browns.
Every 27 September, homes across Salvador and the Recôncavo cook huge pots of caruru for the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian, and children are fed first; the rest of the year it turns up at acarajé stalls and on Bahian Sunday tables next to vatapá, rice and xinxim. Okra is chopped very small and cooked down with a paste of dried shrimp, toasted cashews and peanuts, ginger and onion, then finished with dendê oil until it is thick, glossy and gently sticky, nutty and faintly of the sea. Serve it with white rice, farofa de dendê and acarajé or abará. Most people make the mistake of slicing the okra into big rounds; cut tiny it melts into the sauce instead of sitting in slimy chunks. For a vegetarian caruru, skip the shrimp and use 40 g more of each nut. Chef's tip: toast the cashews and peanuts in a dry pan until they smell of popcorn before grinding them; it makes the stew taste deeper and less green.
Sweet, salty and hot all at once, cartola ('top hat') is a Pernambuco dessert that sounds odd and tastes like it was always meant to be. Bananas are fried in butter until caramel-edged, covered with slices of coalho or queijo manteiga that melt into a blanket, then showered with cinnamon sugar. It turns up on Recife lunch menus, in hotel buffets and in home kitchens after Sunday lunch, and needs nothing else, though a scoop of vanilla ice cream is welcome. Bananas-prata or ripe plantains are used locally; firm, just-ripe bananas are the nearest swap. Coalho is often made with animal rennet, so choose a vegetarian version or a vegetarian halloumi. Avoid overripe fruit; it collapses in the pan and the cheese slides off. Chef's tip: finish under a hot grill for a minute so the cinnamon sugar bubbles into a thin, crackly crust.
Quiroga, a lakeside town in Michoacán, is the capital of carnitas: on weekends the plaza fills with stalls simmering huge copper pots of pork, sold by the kilo with warm tortillas, salsa verde and lime. This pork dish uses shoulder cooked gently in its own fat and lard with orange and garlic, so it turns soft inside and then browns into crisp, golden edges at the end. Pile it into tacos with onion, coriander and salsa, or keep it for tortas ahogadas. Chef's tip: when the meat is tender, turn the heat up for the last 10–15 minutes and stir; this final fry in hot lard is what gives carnitas their crackly edges.
No Madeiran Christmas is complete without carne de vinha d'alhos: chunks of pork soaked for days in wine, vinegar, garlic and bay, then simmered and fried until browned and tangy. Families start it after the December pig-killing, and the leftovers fill bread rolls for days. Portuguese sailors carried the idea to Goa, where it became vindaloo. This contains pork and uses white wine; for an alcohol-free version use 250 ml water instead of the wine, as many Madeiran households do. Chef's tip: fry thick slices of bread in the pan juices at the end; they are the cook's reward.
Carne en su jugo, 'meat in its juice', belongs to Guadalajara, where whole restaurants are devoted to it and families go for a big bowl at weekend lunchtime. Paper-thin slices of beef cook in a sharp, green broth of tomatillo, chilli and coriander, with soft pinto beans spooned in and crisp bacon scattered over, so it is also a pork dish. Each bowl is finished at the table with chopped onion, coriander, radishes and plenty of lime, and eaten with warm corn tortillas. Chef's tip: put the steak in the freezer for 30 minutes before slicing; firm meat is far easier to cut into the thin pieces the dish needs.
Out in the sertão, beef was salted and hung in airy shade to cure, and the result, carne de sol, is now the pride of restaurants from Natal to Caruaru, where it arrives sizzling on an iron plate with boiled macaxeira (cassava) glossed in clarified butter, grilled squares of coalho cheese and a dish of feijão verde. The meat is firm, faintly salty and deeply beefy, the cassava soft and buttery, the cheese squeaky and browned. If you can't buy carne de sol from a Brazilian butcher, salt the beef yourself in the fridge for 24 hours (step 1), so allow an extra day. The mistake people make is frying the beef straight from the salt; a 30-minute soak in cold water keeps it pleasantly seasoned rather than harsh. The beef is cut into chunks and fried, so cook it to your taste: pink in the middle or well done are both fine for whole-muscle beef. Chef's tip: fry the beef in small batches in a really hot pan so it browns rather than stews in its own juice.
The smell of carne de fiesta, cubes of pork sizzling in a huge pan, drifts over every romería and village saint's day in Tenerife and Gran Canaria, where it is sold piled into bread rolls or with chips. This contains pork. The meat sits for a day in a deep red marinade of garlic, paprika, thyme, oregano, vinegar and white wine before it is fried until crusty. The wine can be swapped for water with an extra spoon of vinegar for an alcohol-free version. Chef's tip: fry in batches with plenty of space, so the meat sizzles and caramelises instead of boiling in its own juices.
Rabbit has always been the everyday meat of rural Aragon, and in the farmhouses of the Somontano and the Cinco Villas it is braised slowly in a clay pot with lots of garlic, thyme and rosemary from the hillside, and a glass of the local white wine. The result is lean, tender meat in a small amount of rich, garlicky sauce, served with fried potatoes or bread. The wine can be replaced with chicken stock and a spoonful of vinegar if you prefer no alcohol. A common mistake is boiling the rabbit hard; the lean meat tightens and goes stringy, so keep it at the gentlest simmer. Chef's tip: mash a few of the soft braised garlic cloves into the sauce at the end; they thicken it and make it sweeter.
Nothing to do with the cold tomato soup of Córdoba: in the Canaries salmorejo is a punchy marinade of garlic, red pepper, paprika, thyme, oregano, vinegar and wine, and rabbit cooked in it is the star of Tenerife's hillside guachinches and Sunday family lunches. The rabbit soaks overnight, then is fried and simmered in the marinade until tender, and served with papas arrugadas to mop up the sauce. The marinade uses white wine; for an alcohol-free version, swap it for water with an extra spoon of vinegar. Chef's tip: dry the rabbit pieces well before frying, so they brown properly rather than stew grey in the marinade.
On Réunion, the French island in the Indian Ocean, cari is simply lunch: a pot of something gently spiced with onion, garlic, ginger, thyme and the island's turmeric, which locals call safran péi. It arrives at the table with white rice, a bowl of lentils from Cilaos or red beans, and a sharp tomato rougail, and this vegetable version uses chayote (chouchou) from the green Salazie valley, potatoes, carrots and green beans. The heat comes from the chilli in the rougail, not the cari itself, so it suits children too. Chef's tip: let the onions take real colour before the spices go in; that golden base gives a cari its depth.
On Christmas Eve in Aragon and neighbouring Navarre, a dish of cardoon is as certain as turrón: the long, pale stalks are boiled until tender and served in a velvety sauce of ground almonds, garlic and the cooking water, often as the first course before fish or lamb. The flavour is like artichoke, gentle and slightly bitter, softened by the nutty sauce. It contains no animal products. A common mistake is leaving cut cardoon in the air; it blackens within minutes, so drop each piece into lemon water as you go. Ready-cleaned jars of cardoon are sold in Spain and work well if you skip the first two steps. Chef's tip: whisk a spoonful of flour into the cooking water; it keeps the stalks white and gives you a ready-thickened broth for the sauce.
Every farmhouse in the Périgord and Gascony once lined its larder with stoneware jars of confit, duck legs salted, cooked slowly in their own fat and sealed under it to last the winter. Today it is the order of the day at Sarlat's Saturday market restaurants, served with pommes sarladaises: potato slices fried in that same duck fat until golden, then tossed with garlic and parsley. The skin should crackle and the meat should fall from the bone in soft, savoury shreds. The legs are cured for 12–24 hours in the fridge before cooking, so start the day before; a sharp green salad with walnut oil is all it needs alongside. Chef's tip: add the garlic and parsley to the potatoes only in the last two minutes, so the garlic stays sweet instead of turning bitter.
High in the Alps of the Aosta Valley, carbonade was once made from beef preserved in salt over the winter; today mountain restaurants make it with fresh stewing beef and serve it in winter to skiers coming down from the slopes. Thin pieces of beef are browned, then simmered slowly with masses of onions, a whole bottle of red wine and cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg until the sauce turns dark, sweet and spicy and the meat falls apart. It is always spooned over soft polenta, ideally made with a little fontina stirred through. The dish uses red wine; for an alcohol-free version see the ingredient note. Chef's tip: slice the onions thin and give them the full time; they melt into the sauce and thicken it without any flour.
Of all the dishes served for the 25 May and 9 July national holidays, carbonada criolla is the most theatrical when it arrives inside a whole roasted pumpkin, the lid lifted at the table to let out a cloud of steam. The stew comes from the Spanish-colonial interior and is beloved across Buenos Aires Province: cubes of beef braised with onion, tomato and pepper, then joined by corn, sweet potato, squash and dried peaches (or pears) that melt into a sweet-savoury sauce. Pieces of the pumpkin wall are scooped out with each serving. Beef stew cubes are cooked until tender, well past any pinkness. Overcooking the pumpkin is the common trap: it collapses when you pour in the stew, so roast it only until a knife meets slight resistance. Chef's tip: soak the dried peaches in a little hot water and add both the fruit and the soaking liquid; it gives the sauce its rounded sweetness without extra sugar.
Older than Peru itself, carapulcra comes from the Afro-Peruvian kitchens of Chincha, south of Lima, where it is cooked in big pots for saints' days and family lunches and served next to a mound of sopa seca, a pairing locals call the 'matrimonio'. Pieces of papa seca, potato that has been boiled, sun-dried and broken into nuggets, are toasted and simmered with pork shoulder in a brick-red sauce of ají panca, garlic, cumin and ground peanuts, until the potato swells into chewy, savoury lumps and the sauce turns thick and nutty. Most people skip toasting the papa seca, and the stew tastes flat; the dry pan is where the flavour comes from. Chef's tip: stir often in the last half hour and add hot stock a ladle at a time; papa seca drinks liquid and catches on the base without warning.
In Portimão and Olhão, when the boats came in loaded with small carapaus, cooks poached them, peeled away skin and bones, and soaked the fillets in olive oil, vinegar, garlic and onion. The dish is served cold, on summer days, with boiled potatoes or just bread, and it tastes better the day after. Mackerel or large sardines work if you can't find horse mackerel. Chef's tip: poach the fish gently, at a shiver rather than a boil, so the fillets stay whole when you lift them off the bone.
Carantantas started as a thrifty by-product: the thin layer of corn dough that stuck to the bottom of the big pans in Popayán's masa kitchens, scraped off, dried and sold as golden shards. Today they are a cheap, crunchy snack sold in bags at Cauca markets, eaten with ají or broken into a sopa de carantantas. At home you can make them by spreading a thin layer of corn dough on a hot, dry pan, letting it toast into a crust, then frying or crisping the pieces. They taste of toasted corn, nutty and lightly salty, a little like the crunchy bits of a tortilla. Spreading the dough too thickly is where it goes wrong, giving leathery, chewy pieces instead of crisp ones; aim for a layer no thicker than a coin. Chef's tip: a non-stick or well-seasoned cast-iron pan lets the crust lift in large sheets; wait until the edges curl before scraping.
Thursday night is crab night in Fortaleza: the beach shacks along Praia do Futuro fill up for the quinta do caranguejo, and tables are covered in whole crabs, wooden mallets and bowls of broth. The crabs are boiled in a spiced broth of tomato, onion, peppers, coconut milk and plenty of coriander, then cracked open by hand, the sweet meat dipped back into the broth and eaten with pirão and lime. Mangrove crabs are used in Ceará; blue crabs or brown crabs work well elsewhere. Crabs must be alive and lively when you buy them, or bought frozen raw or ready-cooked from a fishmonger; never cook a raw crab that has died. The big mistake is under-salting the broth, which leaves the meat bland; it should taste like well-seasoned soup. Chef's tip: chill live crabs in the freezer for about an hour before cooking so they are completely still and insensible, then scrub them well.
Salas, a small town on the old pilgrim road through western Asturias, is known for these cracked, chewy mounds of toasted hazelnut and sugar. Local lore says they were first baked for a teacher at the town's school, and the pastry shops still sell them by the bag to travellers and to families heading home from Sunday market. They need only three ingredients and no flour, so they suit anyone avoiding gluten. Chef's tip: toast the hazelnuts until they smell like praline before grinding them; it is what gives the biscuits their deep flavour.
Named for the people of Callao, Lima's port, choros a la chalaca are what you order with friends at a seafront cevichería on a hot afternoon: steamed mussels, chilled, each on its half shell under a bright, wet salsa of red onion, tomato, Andean corn, rocoto and lime. Cool, sweet, briny and sharp, they are eaten with your fingers in two bites, often before a ceviche or a jalea. Here the mussels are fully steamed open first, so nothing is served raw. People often overcook them while waiting for the last stubborn shells, which leaves the rest rubbery; lift them out as soon as each one opens. Chef's tip: dress the salsa no more than 15 minutes ahead, and spoon a little of the juice onto every mussel; that juice is the whole point of the dish.
From the winstubs of Strasbourg to the brasseries near Paris's Gare de l'Est, choucroute garnie is the dish that announces autumn, when the new season's sauerkraut arrives. It is a pork feast: smoked pork belly and smoked pork loin braised on a bed of sauerkraut softened with white wine, juniper and onion, then crowned with Strasbourg and smoked sausages and boiled potatoes. The cabbage turns mellow and silky rather than sharp, and soaks up the smoky fat. The braise uses dry white wine; the ingredient notes give an alcohol-free swap. Serve it with strong Dijon mustard and a little horseradish on the side. Chef's tip: rinse the sauerkraut only once and squeeze it well, so it keeps a little tang but doesn't make the whole dish sour.
In Bergara, a market town in the Deba valley of Gipuzkoa, pastry shops have sold canutillos since the nineteenth century, and locals buy them by the tray for saints' days and family visits. Puff pastry is wound around metal cones, baked until crisp and caramelised, then piped full of custard scented with lemon and cinnamon. A common mistake is filling them too early: the pastry softens within a few hours, so fill them close to serving. Chef's tip: overlap the pastry strip by a third as you wind it, so the horns don't unravel in the oven.
Look at the tray of facturas in any Argentine panadería and the little cannons are easy to spot: flaky tubes of puff pastry, baked around metal moulds and filled from both ends with dulce de leche, then finished with a snowfall of icing sugar. They come from the Italian cannoncini, but here the filling is almost always dulce de leche. Each bite is crisp, buttery and shattering on the outside with a dense, caramel middle, and they sit on the Sunday table next to medialunas and bolas de fraile. Undercooking is the problem to avoid: pale pastry goes soft as soon as the filling goes in, so bake until it is a deep gold all over. Use all-butter puff pastry, and metal cannoli or cream-horn tubes (or rolls of foil). Chef's tip: wrap the strips without stretching them, overlapping each turn by a third; stretched pastry shrinks in the oven and the tubes split.
The Selkirk bannock is a round, glossy fruit bread from the Border town of Selkirk, first baked in the 1850s and famously eaten by Queen Victoria at Abbotsford. Unlike a plain oat bannock it is a rich yeast dough that is mostly sultanas, sliced and buttered with afternoon tea. Chef's tip: work the sultanas in only after the dough has risen once, or they tear the gluten and the loaf won't lift.
Big white corn kernels simmered until tender, then cooked again in milk with coconut and peanuts: canjica is the warming bowl that every festa junina from Porto Alegre to Belém hands out in plastic cups on cold June nights. In the Northeast it goes by mungunzá, and in Bahia and Pernambuco it is often made richer with coconut milk. The kernels stay chewy and whole, the broth turns creamy and smells of cinnamon and clove, and the crushed peanuts add a nutty bite. Look for white hominy sold as canjica or milho para canjica in Brazilian shops; dried white pozole corn works too. It needs overnight soaking, which is not counted in the times. The common mistake is rushing the first boil: if the kernels are not fully soft before the milk goes in, they will never soften afterwards. Chef's tip: a pressure cooker cuts the first cook to 35 minutes and leaves the kernels perfectly tender.
Carrageen is a frilly red seaweed picked from the rocks of the west coast, from Donegal down to Clare, and dried on the grass in the sun. Simmered in milk, it releases a natural setting agent, so this old Irish pudding sets like a soft blancmange without gelatine. It tastes of vanilla and lemon with a faint breath of the sea, and is served chilled with stewed rhubarb or soft fruit. Chef's tip: soak the carrageen well and rinse off the sand before you start; any grit ends up in the pudding.
Every Corsican bakery, from Bastia to Bonifacio, stacks bags of canistrelli: thick, square-cut biscuits that are dry and crunchy outside and crumbly inside, made to be dipped in morning coffee. They come in many flavours, such as lemon, chestnut and almond, but anise seed is the classic. Traditionally the dough is mixed with dry white wine; most of the alcohol bakes off, but if you prefer none at all use apple juice with a squeeze of lemon, as the ingredient list says. With olive or sunflower oil instead of butter, they are vegan. Chef's tip: stop mixing as soon as the dough comes together; kneading makes them hard rather than crumbly.
This contains pork (pork shoulder). On 26 December, Sant Esteve, Catalan families gather again and eat canelons, made from the meats left over from Christmas Day's carn d'olla or the roast. Rolled in pasta sheets, covered in béchamel and grated cheese and baked until bubbling, they are the reason many people say Sant Esteve is the better of the two feasts. This version cooks the meats from scratch, so you can make it any time. Cheeses like parmesan use animal rennet. Chef's tip: mince the meat finely and cook it down until it is moist but not wet, or the canelons go soggy.
Small, fluted and almost black on the outside, canelés are the signature cake of Bordeaux, sold in pâtisseries all over the city and eaten with morning coffee or at teatime. The thick, caramelised crust cracks to reveal a soft, custardy centre scented with vanilla. The batter traditionally includes dark rum; this version gives it as an option and uses extra vanilla and a little orange zest instead, so it can be made alcohol-free. Copper moulds are traditional, but silicone canelé moulds work well at home. Chef's tip: rest the batter for at least 24 hours in the fridge; fresh batter puffs up like a soufflé and the cakes lose their shape.
Catalan bakeries sell carquinyolis in paper bags, especially around Christmas and village festivals, and grandparents keep a tin of them to dunk in coffee, milk or, after a big lunch, a glass of sweet wine. They are cousins of Italian cantucci, but often rougher, with whole unpeeled almonds and a hint of lemon and cinnamon. Baked once as a log, sliced, then baked again, they keep for weeks. Chef's tip: slice the logs while still warm with a serrated knife and a single firm cut; cold logs crumble and the almonds shatter.
Beach restaurants along São Paulo's north coast, from Ubatuba to Ilhabela, bring camarão na moranga to the table as a showpiece: a whole roasted pumpkin, its lid lifted to reveal prawns in a creamy tomato sauce. You scoop the soft, sweet pumpkin flesh from the walls along with each serving, so it melts into the sauce. It is rich, gentle and celebratory, served with white rice and a green salad. The usual slip is roasting the pumpkin until it is too soft, so it slumps and splits; it should be tender but still standing. Use a kabocha or other dense, small pumpkin of about 2.5 kg. Cook the prawns only until they are pink and opaque all the way through. Chef's tip: brush the inside of the roasted pumpkin with a spoonful of cream cheese before you fill it; it seals the walls and makes every scoop creamier.
In old Madrid taverns around La Latina and Lavapiés, callos come in little clay dishes, sticky and brick-red, on winter Sundays and as a weekday tapa with bread. The tripe is cooked for hours with a pig's trotter until the sauce sets like gelatin when cold, then finished with chorizo, morcilla and paprika. This contains pork (chorizo, morcilla, ham and pig's trotter). Buy beef tripe that the butcher has already cleaned and blanched. Chef's tip: make it a day ahead; callos taste better reheated and the sauce thickens beautifully overnight.
Calissons are the sweet of Aix-en-Provence: a soft paste of ground almonds and candied melon pressed onto wafer paper, glazed with a thin white icing and cut into a pointed oval. Confectioners in the old town sell them in diamond-shaped boxes, they are handed out at weddings and christenings, and each September they are blessed in a church service in Aix. They also belong among the thirteen desserts of Christmas. Candied melon can be hard to find outside Provence; candied orange peel and dried apricot give a close result. The icing uses raw egg white, dried in a low oven, so use pasteurised egg white if you are serving anyone pregnant or vulnerable. Chef's tip: dip the knife in hot water and wipe it between every cut, so the icing stays sharp-edged.
Calentado literally means reheated, and that is the whole idea: the rice and beans left from yesterday's lunch are fried together in a hot pan with hogao until they catch and crisp at the edges. In Antioquia it is the breakfast of champions, topped with a runny fried egg and served with a corn arepa, a slice of white cheese and hot chocolate, and city cafés across Colombia now put it on weekend menus. This version is meat-free, using beans cooked without pork. Leftover rice needs care: it must have been cooled within an hour or two of cooking and kept in the fridge no more than a day, and it should be reheated until piping hot all through. Stirring constantly is what turns it to mush, so press it into the pan and let a crust form before turning. Chef's tip: add a few spoonfuls of the bean broth; it binds the rice and helps the crispy bits form.
On cold, rainy days in Santiago, Lugo or any village in between, a bowl of caldo starts lunch: a light broth with white beans, potatoes and turnip greens (grelos) or cabbage, flavoured with pork. This contains pork (cured rib and unto, Galician cured pork fat; bacon fat works in its place). The pork is cooked with the beans first, then the potatoes and greens go in. A common mistake is adding the greens too early, so they turn grey; they need only the last 15–20 minutes. Chef's tip: caldo tastes better reheated the next day, so make a big pot.
Ice-cold sugarcane juice pressed while you wait is the drink of Brazilian street fairs, poured into tall glasses at the pastel stall so you can wash down a hot, crisp pastel. São Paulo's feiras livres made the pairing famous, and in the Northeast the same juice is called garapa. It is pale green, very sweet, grassy and refreshing, sharpened with lime. Without a cane press, you can make it at home by blending peeled cane with a little water and straining it; buy fresh sugarcane sticks in Asian, Caribbean or Latin shops. It oxidises and darkens fast, so drink it immediately. Using cane that is not fully peeled is a common error, and the woody green rind makes the juice bitter. Chef's tip: chill the cane before peeling and blend it with ice cubes as well as water, so the juice comes out cold without being diluted later.
Order a round at a Rio de Janeiro boteco on a cool evening and a tray of caldinho de feijão is likely to follow: small glasses of smooth, thick black-bean soup, sipped hot, topped with crisp bacon, spring onion and a few drops of pepper sauce. It is earthy, smoky and silky, halfway between a soup and a dip, and often comes with a hard-boiled quail egg or cubes of fried cassava on a cocktail stick. This version is made with pork: smoked bacon cooked into the beans and crisped on top. Leftover feijoada beans make the best caldinho; tinned black beans work fine. People often fail to blend it long enough, leaving it grainy; it should pour like thick cream. For a vegetarian caldinho, leave out the bacon, fry the onion in olive oil and add 1 tsp smoked paprika. Chef's tip: pass the blended soup through a sieve if you want the glossy finish botecos serve.
Fishermen on the Mar Menor lagoon and at Cabo de Palos cooked caldero on board in a black iron pot: the catch of rockfish and grey mullet made a broth red with fried ñora peppers, the rice was cooked in it, and the fish was eaten separately with garlicky allioli. Restaurants along the lagoon at San Pedro del Pinatar and Los Alcázares still serve it in two courses, and Calasparra rice from inland Murcia is the classic choice. Chef's tip: ask the fishmonger for the heads and bones of the fish too; they make the broth.
In the Ribera of Navarre, calderete is the dish of fiestas and riverside gatherings: groups of friends, the cuadrillas, set an iron cauldron over vine cuttings and spend a long afternoon stewing lamb with peppers, potatoes and whatever the market gardens have that week. Artichokes are a Ribera signature. At home the same dish works on the stove in a heavy casserole and is just as good the next day. Chef's tip: snap the potatoes into chunks with the knife instead of slicing cleanly, so the rough edges release starch and thicken the sauce.
Caldereta is the feast dish of Extremadura's shepherds, cooked in a big iron pot at romerías, weddings and village fiestas, and in many homes for Sunday lunch. Pieces of lamb are browned and stewed with peppers, bay and smoky pimentón de la Vera, then the sauce is thickened with lamb's liver fried with garlic and bread and pounded to a paste, which gives it a deep, rich flavour. Chef's tip: make it a day ahead if you can; like most stews, it tastes better reheated.
In the fishing village of Fornells, on Menorca's north coast, caldereta de llagosta is the summer splurge people plan a whole holiday around, ladled from a clay pot onto plates lined with thin slices of dry bread. Spiny lobster is cut into pieces and simmered in a deep, tomato-rich sofrito with onion, green pepper and garlic, then thickened with a picada of the lobster's own liver, almonds and parsley. A splash of brandy is common; it is optional here, and the stew is just as good without. Chef's tip: let the sofrito cook until dark and jammy before the lobster goes in, because that slow base is where the broth gets its depth.
Peacock bass, tucunaré, is the prize of the Rio Negro, and in Manaus it ends up in caldeirada: a layered pot of firm fish steaks, potatoes, tomatoes, onions and peppers, simmered in their own broth with coriander and culantro and finished with boiled eggs. Riverside restaurants and Sunday lunches serve it in big clay pots with white rice, pirão made from the broth and plenty of pimenta-de-cheiro. The broth is light, tangy and fresh, the fish sweet and meaty. Outside Brazil, use sea bass, snapper or any firm white fish cut into steaks. The commonest slip is stirring the pot once the fish is in; shake it gently instead so the steaks stay whole. Chef's tip: layer the potatoes at the bottom where the heat is strongest, so they finish cooking just as the fish turns opaque on top.
Eels from the Ria de Aveiro, the lagoon behind the town, are a speciality of Murtosa and Torreira, where caldeirada is cooked in layers in a wide pot and eaten at long tables in waterside restaurants. Onions, potatoes, tomato and peppers stew with the eel pieces in olive oil until the broth is rich and orange, and it is ladled over slices of bread. Ask the fishmonger to skin and clean the eels; eel blood is toxic when raw, but thorough cooking makes it completely safe. Chef's tip: shake the pot rather than stirring once the eel is in, so the pieces stay whole.
The fragateiros sailed the flat-bottomed barges that carried cargo up and down the Tagus, and on board they cooked whatever fish they had in one pot, layered with potatoes, onions, tomatoes and peppers and left to steam in olive oil and wine. Lisbon restaurants still make caldeirada for a long lunch, ladled over toasted bread. Use at least three kinds of fish, mixing firm white ones with something richer. The wine contains alcohol; fish stock with a squeeze of lemon makes a good alcohol-free version. A common mistake is stirring the pot, which breaks the fish; shake it instead. Chef's tip: put the firmest fish at the bottom and the most delicate on top, so everything is done at the same time.
From January to April, the town of Valls near Tarragona and half of Catalonia go to calçotades: long country lunches where calçots, a tall, sweet onion grown banked up with earth, are flame-grilled until black, wrapped in newspaper to steam, then peeled by hand and dipped in salvitxada. Everyone wears a bib. This salvitxada leans on almonds, roasted tomato and garlic, with ñora peppers for colour and sweetness. If you cannot get calçots, use thick spring onions or slim young leeks. Chef's tip: hold a calçot by the green top, pull the charred outer layer off downwards in one go, then dip and lower it into your mouth from above.
Nobody hurries calapurca. In the villages of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, especially around Carnival and the August Pachamama rites, cooks heat stones in the fire until they glow and then drop them into a clay pot of soup made from dried maize, beef and lamb (or llama), potatoes and chilli, so it boils up in a hiss of steam and takes on a faintly smoky taste. Bowls are passed around the gathering with a sprinkle of fresh herbs. The stones are a ritual best left to people who know which ones are safe, because wet or river stones can crack or burst when heated, so this home version simply simmers on the stove. Look for dried white hominy (mote, or pozole corn) in Latin American shops; it needs soaking overnight. The usual problem is undercooked corn: it needs a good 2 hours before the meat goes in. Chef's tip: for a hint of the smoky flavour, char the onion and a dried chilli in a dry pan before adding them.
Next to brigadeiros on any children's birthday table in Brazil sit the cajuzinhos, small sweets moulded into the shape of a cashew fruit (caju) and crowned with a single peanut that stands in for the nut. The dough is condensed milk cooked with ground roasted peanuts and a little cocoa until it pulls into a fudge, then rolled in sugar. Each one is chewy, peanutty and gently chocolatey, a bite-size sweet that sits in its own paper case. They are a good make-ahead: shaped cajuzinhos keep for 3 days in a cool place. Undercooking the mixture is the usual problem: soft dough will not hold the cashew shape and slumps in the cases. Chef's tip: oil your hands lightly before shaping and roll each ball into a fat sausage first, then pinch one end narrower to get the cashew outline.
Teresina, the capital of Piauí, treats cajuína as a matter of local pride, and the drink's traditional craft is officially recognised as part of Brazilian cultural heritage. It is cashew-apple juice that has been clarified until crystal clear, bottled and cooked in a water bath until the natural fruit sugars caramelise and turn it amber-gold. No sugar is added. Served ice-cold, it tastes of baked apple and honey with a hint of cashew, smooth and non-alcoholic. Small producers clarify the juice with gelatin or cashew-tree resin; this vegan home version clears it by settling and filtering instead, which takes patience. Real cajuína is shelf-stable thanks to commercial sterilising; this home batch must be kept in the fridge and drunk within a week. Skipping the slow filtering is the usual error, and cloudy juice turns murky brown instead of gold. Chef's tip: let the juice settle in the fridge overnight before filtering and pour off the clear top, leaving the sediment behind.
In fishing towns like Ribeira, Bueu and Muxía, caldeirada was the fishermen's way of cooking whatever the boat brought in, and it is still served at seaside restaurants and at the July fiestas of the Virgen del Carmen, patron of sailors. Unlike merluza á galega, it uses several kinds of fish, such as monkfish, ray, conger or hake, layered with potatoes and onion and cooked in very little water, then finished with plenty of ajada. A common mistake is stirring the pot, which breaks the fish into flakes; shake it gently instead. Chef's tip: put the firmest fish at the bottom and the most delicate on top, so everything finishes cooking together.
Every juice bar in Tehran, from Tajrish Square to the stalls of Valiasr Street, sells ab havij bastani: a tall glass of fresh, ice-cold carrot juice with a scoop of saffron ice cream floating on top. People eat it with a long spoon in summer, stirring the melting ice cream into the juice until it turns creamy and pale orange. It is sweet, earthy and cooling, and kids treat it as a dessert. Chef's tip: chill the carrots well before juicing; warm juice melts the ice cream at once and loses its fresh taste.
Celaya, in the Bajío of Guanajuato, has made cajeta for centuries, once packing it into little wooden boxes (cajetes) that gave it its name. It is caramel cooked from goat's milk, so it is looser and has a gentle tang compared with the cow's-milk dulce de leche of Argentina. Mexicans spread it on crêpes and churros, pour it over ice cream, sandwich it between obleas (wafers) and turn it into glorias. A splash of rum-flavoured 'envinada' cajeta exists, but this one is plain and alcohol-free. Chef's tip: use a pan at least three times the volume of the milk; it foams high when the bicarbonate goes in.
In Erzurum and nearby Oltu, cağ kebabı is cooked on a huge horizontal spit turning beside a wood fire; the cook slices off the charred outer layer onto long flat skewers, and you eat it straight off the metal wrapped in lavaş. At home, thin slices of lamb marinated overnight with grated onion and black pepper, threaded tightly and seared on a very hot grill or griddle pan, capture much of the flavour. Serve with lavaş, sliced onion with sumac and grilled peppers. Common mistake: slicing the meat too thick, so it's tough and chewy; aim for 5 mm. Cook lamb to at least 63 °C with a little pink, or longer if you prefer. Chef's tip: squeeze the grated onion through a sieve and use only the juice; it tenderises without leaving bits that burn.
A tiny cup of black coffee is the first thing a Brazilian host offers, in a São Paulo office, a Minas farmhouse or a Recife shop, and saying no is almost impolite. Cafezinho is filtered rather than espresso: finely ground coffee goes into a cloth filter (coador de pano) and hot water runs through it, giving a strong, smooth, slightly thick brew served in small cups. Traditionally the sugar is dissolved in the water before brewing, so it arrives already sweet; leave it out if you prefer. A paper filter in a cone works if you have no cloth. Boiling the water with the coffee is the mistake to avoid, as it scorches the grounds and the cup turns bitter. Chef's tip: take the pan off the heat when the first bubbles break the surface and wait 30 seconds; water just off the boil, around 92–95 °C, gives the sweetest cup.
In ranch kitchens and roadside fondas across central Mexico, coffee is not dripped but boiled in a tall clay pot (olla de barro) with a cone of piloncillo and a stick of soft Mexican cinnamon, then strained into clay mugs. It is sweet, spiced and earthy, and is served with pan dulce at breakfast, on cold evenings, and to visitors on Day of the Dead. A saucepan works fine if you have no olla. Chef's tip: turn the heat off before adding the coffee and let it steep rather than boil, or it turns bitter.
This is Porto's late-night snack, born in the bars around the Praça dos Poveiros in the 1960s and still eaten standing at the counter after a football match. A thin sausage goes into a slim roll with cheese, the whole thing is toasted flat in a press until it shatters, then cut into bite-sized pieces and doused in a hot, tangy sauce. This contains pork (pork frankfurters). Chef's tip: brush the outside of the bread with butter before pressing, so it goes evenly golden and crisp.
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