Borage flower tea
Gol gav zaban is the calming tea Iranians make on stressful evenings or when a cold is coming on, sold in bags of dried purple flowers by herbalists in the old bazaars of Tehran and Tabriz. Steeped in hot water it turns a dusky blue-brown, then flashes pink the moment lime juice goes in, which children love to watch. It is sipped with a stick of saffron nabat (rock sugar), sometimes with a few dried limes or a pinch of valerian. Persian borage contains small amounts of natural compounds that can strain the liver, so drink it only now and then, and avoid it if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or have liver problems. Chef's tip: steep below boiling and keep the pot covered so the gentle aroma doesn't escape.
A new country every day, from every cuisine on the site.
The Bedfordshire clanger is a long suet-crust roll that held a whole working lunch for farm labourers and the lace and straw-hat workers of Bedfordshire: savoury pork and potato at one end and sweet jam or apple at the other, marked by slashes so you knew which end to start with. Bakeries in Luton and Bedford still sell them. Chef's tip: build a pastry wall between the two fillings so the jam doesn't run into the meat.
Guests leaving a Brazilian wedding are handed a bem-casado, 'well married', wrapped in crepe paper and tied with ribbon, as a wish for the couple's happiness. The sweet is said to have taken its modern shape in Campos dos Goytacazes, in the north of Rio de Janeiro state, where confectioners still make it by the thousand. Two thin, airy sponge rounds hold a layer of doce de leite and are dipped in a thin sugar glaze that sets matt white and slightly crisp, so the inside stays soft for days. Doce de leite is sold in jars in Latin shops; use a thick, spoonable one. Over-baking the discs is where most batches fail: they turn dry and crack when sandwiched. Chef's tip: pipe the batter in small rounds and pull them from the oven as soon as they spring back and the edges barely colour; pale is right.
In the arcaded Plaza Mayor of Almagro, in the province of Ciudad Real, shops sell these little aubergines from barrels, each one split, stuffed with a strip of red pepper and pinned with a fennel stalk. They are eaten as a tapa with a cold drink, or bought by the jar during the town's summer theatre festival. The tangy dressing of vinegar, cumin, garlic and paprika soaks in over a few days in the fridge. Chef's tip: use the smallest, firmest aubergines you can find, no bigger than an egg; large ones go mushy.
Jars of these marinated aubergines sit in every Argentine grandmother's fridge, a legacy of Italian and Spanish immigrants, and they come out for the picada before the asado, alongside salami, cheese and bread, or to fill a sandwich. Strips of aubergine are salted, blanched briefly in vinegar and water, then layered with garlic, chilli flakes, oregano and plenty of oil. They turn soft, silky and sharp, with a slow heat from the chilli. Overboiling is the error: the strips should be just tender after 2–3 minutes, or they turn to mush in the jar. Allow 2 hours for salting before you start and a day in the fridge before eating. Garlic kept in oil can carry botulism, so keep the jar refrigerated and eat it within two weeks. Chef's tip: press the drained aubergine hard between tea towels before jarring; the drier the strips, the longer they stay firm.
This is the soup of Berlin's cheap lunch counters and winter kitchens: potatoes and the 'Suppengrün' bundle of carrot, celeriac, leek and parsley root, simmered thick and seasoned with plenty of marjoram. In Berlin it usually comes with a sliced Wiener sausage floating on top; this vegetarian version is finished instead with crisp fried onions and croutons, which give the same savoury contrast. A common mistake is using waxy potatoes, which never thicken the soup; you want floury ones that collapse. Chef's tip: rub the dried marjoram between your palms as it goes in, which wakes up its sweet, piney scent.
In Berlin a Pfannkuchen is not a pancake but a round, sugar-dusted yeast doughnut with a pale ring around its middle and a squirt of jam inside; most of Germany calls them Berliner. Bakeries pile them up for New Year's Eve and for Carnival in February, and the old joke is to slip one filled with mustard into the batch. Good ones are light and springy, never greasy. A common mistake is frying in oil that is too hot, which browns the outside before the middle cooks; keep it at 170 °C. Chef's tip: let the shaped dough rise uncovered for the last 10 minutes so a thin skin forms; that is what gives the classic white band round the middle.
Beryani is Isfahan's signature lunch, eaten in old bazaar eateries near Naqsh-e Jahan Square for more than a century, and nothing like the rice biryanis of South Asia. Lamb shoulder and, traditionally, lamb lung are simmered, minced, seasoned with cinnamon and fried on a small round pan with the fat from the pot, then turned out onto soft sangak or taftoon bread and eaten with fresh basil, raw onion and walnuts. Lung is hard to buy outside Iran, so this home version uses lamb shoulder and a little lamb mince for the same soft texture. A common mistake is draining away the cooking fat; Isfahanis spoon it over the bread for flavour, so keep it. Chef's tip: press the meat into a small frying pan to make a neat round patty, the way the bazaar cooks do.
For many San Sebastián families, Christmas Eve dinner isn't complete without a whole sea bream, roasted or grilled and finished with a refrito: hot olive oil with sliced garlic, dried chilli and a splash of vinegar poured over at the table. The traditional fish is red sea bream (besugo), but gilt-head bream works well. A common mistake is letting the garlic go dark brown, which makes the dressing bitter; take it off when it is pale gold. Chef's tip: cut a few slashes into the thick part of the fish so it cooks evenly and the dressing soaks in.
When Adana's July heat pushes past 40 °C, handcarts on every corner serve bici bici: cubes of wobbly starch jelly piled with shaved ice, splashed with rose syrup and dusted with icing sugar. Children eat it in the shade of the clock tower; grown-ups claim it is the only thing that works in that heat. The jelly is just cornflour, water and a little sugar, set and cut into cubes. The usual mistake is undercooking it, which leaves a cloudy, floury jelly that won't hold a cut. Chef's tip: freeze water in a shallow tray and scrape it with a fork for snowy ice if you have no ice shaver.
Late every summer, rooftops in Gaziantep, Kilis and Hatay turn red with trays of puréed peppers drying in the sun, and families fill jars that will season soups, köfte, bulgur and lahmacun through the winter. This oven method makes a smaller batch with the same deep, sweet and slightly smoky flavour; use some hot peppers if you like it acı (spicy). Store it under a film of oil in the fridge. The common mistake is a too-hot oven: the edges scorch and turn bitter before the middle thickens. Chef's tip: stir every 20 minutes and scrape the dried rim back in; the paste is ready when a spoon drawn through it leaves a clean trench.
Pink balls of fudge in a paper cup, sitting in a row between the chocolate brigadeiros: that is bicho-de-pé, a fixture of children's parties in São Paulo and Rio. The odd name comes from a tiny burrowing flea, which the speckled pink sweet supposedly resembles, but it tastes nothing but fruity and creamy. Brazilian cooks usually flavour it with strawberry gelatin powder, which is not vegetarian; this version uses freeze-dried strawberry powder, which gives a brighter, real-fruit flavour and a natural pink. Find freeze-dried strawberries in supermarket baking aisles and crush them yourself. Over-thickening is the commonest mistake: cooked too long, the brigadeiro turns hard and sugary once cold. Chef's tip: take the pan off the heat as soon as the mixture slides away from the base as one piece; it firms more as it cools.
High in the mountains of Gran Canaria, the village of Tejeda is ringed by almond trees, and its pastry shops are famous for bienmesabe, 'it tastes good to me'. Finely ground almonds are cooked in a sugar syrup with lemon zest and cinnamon, then enriched with egg yolks into a thick, golden cream. Islanders eat it by the spoonful, over vanilla ice cream or layered on sponge; it is the dessert brought out in late January and February, when the Almond Blossom Festival fills the village. Chef's tip: temper the yolks with a little hot syrup before adding them, so they thicken the cream smoothly instead of scrambling.
On the chalkboard of any neighbourhood bodegón in Buenos Aires you will find bife a caballo, steak "on horseback": a thick bife de chorizo (sirloin) or rump seared hard in a hot pan, crowned with two fried eggs whose yolks run into the meat juices, and served with a pile of chips. It is the plate for hungry taxi drivers at lunch and for anyone recovering from a long night. Cook the steak to your taste; Argentines usually ask for it jugoso (medium rare, about 55 °C in the centre) or a punto (medium, about 60 °C). Use eggs fried until the whites are fully set, and cook the yolks firm for anyone vulnerable. Crowding a pan that isn't hot enough is the classic mistake, which stews the steak grey, so let the pan smoke first. Chef's tip: rest the steak while you fry the eggs in the same pan; the beef juices in the fat give the whites crisp, savoury edges.
In Greek grill houses (psistaries) and in summer back gardens, bifteki are big, flattened patties of minced beef with grated onion, mint and oregano, and the stuffed version hides a slab of feta that melts as they cook. Serve with chips fried in olive oil, a village salad and tzatziki. Common mistake: using lean mince, which makes dry patties; 15–20 % fat keeps them juicy. Chef's tip: grate the onion and squeeze out its juice before mixing; you keep the flavour without making the mixture too wet to seal around the cheese.
Bigoli in salsa is the dish of Venice's lean days, once eaten on Fridays, Christmas Eve and Ash Wednesday, and still served in the city's bacari and osterie today. Thick, rough wholewheat strands are tossed in a sauce of onions cooked slowly in olive oil until sweet and almost creamy, with salted anchovies melted through. It is salty, sweet and deeply savoury, with no cheese. If you can't find bigoli, thick wholewheat spaghetti or bucatini work well. Serve with a bitter leaf salad such as radicchio. Chef's tip: add the anchovies off the heat and let them dissolve in the warm oil; fried hard, they turn bitter.
Birnen, Bohnen und Speck is late-summer cooking from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, made in August when green beans and small, firm cooking pears ripen at the same time in the Vierlande market gardens. A piece of smoked pork belly bacon is simmered until tender, and its smoky broth then cooks the beans, whole pears and potatoes, with summer savory to tie the sweet and salty together. It is one pot, served straight from the stove with the bacon sliced on top. Chef's tip: choose pears that are still hard; ripe dessert pears collapse into the beans.
Birria comes from Jalisco, where it is the dish of weddings, baptisms and Sunday mornings after a long night, ladled out at market stalls in Guadalajara from dawn. Beef on the bone is rubbed with a paste of guajillo and ancho chillies, vinegar, garlic and warm spices, left overnight in the fridge, then braised for hours until it falls into soft, glossy strands. The cooking liquid becomes the consommé: sip it from a cup, spoon it over the meat in a bowl, or dip tortillas in its red fat and fry them with the beef and a little cheese for crisp-edged tacos. Serve with chopped onion, coriander, lime and a fiery chile de árbol salsa. Chef's tip: skim the red fat off the top of the finished consommé and keep it for frying the tortillas; it gives the tacos their colour and crunch.
Light enough to float off the plate, these rings are sold by the bagful at bus stations, beaches and football grounds all over Brazil, but they belong to Minas Gerais, where sour cassava starch (polvilho azedo) has been made for centuries. Scalding the starch with hot milk, water and oil and then beating in eggs gives a sticky paste that puffs in a hot oven into crisp, airy, slightly tangy shells. Mineiros eat them with coffee in the afternoon or nibble them all day. Bake them in a hot oven and do not open the door: the rings collapse into flat, hard discs if the heat drops in the first 20 minutes. Chef's tip: the paste should pipe like thick mayonnaise; add a spoon of water if it is too stiff, because a soft dough is what makes the biscuits hollow.
Bitoque is the dish Portuguese office workers order when they can't decide: on every café lunch menu in Lisbon there is a thin steak in a garlicky pan sauce, a fried egg sliding over it, and chips, rice and a little salad heaped alongside. It is cheap, filling and quick, and a good one depends on a properly hot pan and a runny yolk that mixes into the sauce. Some cooks splash in beer; this version keeps it alcohol-free with stock. A common mistake is crowding the pan, which stews the steaks instead of searing them. Chef's tip: fry the eggs in the steak pan's garlicky fat so they pick up its flavour.
A paper bag of bizcochitos de grasa sits next to the mate gourd in kitchens, offices and roadside service stations across Argentina, from Buenos Aires to the Andes. These little rounds, a couple of bites each, are layered with beef fat, so they flake and crumble, salty and plain enough to eat by the dozen with bitter mate in the afternoon. The fat is rendered beef fat (grasa vacuna), so they are not vegetarian; ask your butcher for dripping or render suet yourself. A dough worked too warm is the mistake that robs them of their layers; the fat melts into it instead of staying in sheets. Chef's tip: chill the dough for 10 minutes between folds whenever it starts to feel greasy, and prick each round right through so it puffs in flakes rather than domes.
Achira is a canna plant whose root gives a fine, silky starch, and in Huila and Tolima it becomes bizcochos: crunchy, cheesy little sticks and rings that dissolve on the tongue. They are sold in long plastic bags at roadside stands near Neiva, Altamira and the Magdalena valley, and they travel everywhere as a snack with coffee or a cold drink. Look for achira flour in Colombian shops; arrowroot powder is the nearest substitute, while tapioca starch gives a chewier result. The cheese is traditionally a dry, aged curd made with animal rennet, so pick a vegetarian hard cheese. The usual mistake is pulling them from the oven too early: they look done but go soft as they cool. Chef's tip: bake them right through until dry and only lightly coloured; they should snap cleanly once cold.
Fish restaurants on the harbours of Byblos, Batroun and Tyre bring bizri to the table within minutes of ordering: a heap of tiny whitebait, dusted in seasoned flour and fried so crisp you eat them whole, heads and all, with a squeeze of lemon. It is a mezze for sharing with fattoush, tahini sauce and fried pitta, usually while waiting for the bigger grilled fish. Buy the fish very fresh and keep it on ice until it goes into the pan. The common mistake is crowding the pan, which drops the oil temperature and leaves the fish greasy and soft. Chef's tip: toss the damp fish in flour in a sieve and shake off every bit of excess; a thin coating fries glassy-crisp.
In Martinique, blanc-manger coco is the cool, wobbly dessert that closes a Christmas or Sunday family lunch: coconut milk and sweetened condensed milk scented with lime zest, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg, set and turned out of a mould. Many island cooks set it with gelatine, which is not vegetarian; this recipe uses agar-agar, a seaweed setting agent, so it is meat-free and holds well even in the heat. Serve it chilled with passion fruit or a guava coulis. Chef's tip: once the agar is in, keep the mixture boiling for 2 full minutes; agar only sets after it has been properly boiled.
Madrid sits hundreds of kilometres from the sea, yet its most famous snack is a crusty roll stuffed with hot fried squid rings, eaten standing at the bars around the Plaza Mayor at any hour. Locals order one with a cold drink at the counter and squeeze over a little lemon; some add a smear of mayonnaise. Chef's tip: fry the squid in very hot oil and for barely a minute, so it stays tender inside a crisp coat.
Vélez, a hill town in Santander, has given its name to Colombia's favourite sweet. Bocadillo veleño is guava pulp cooked down with panela and sugar until it sets into a firm, sliceable paste, deep red and fruity with a caramel edge, then cut into bars and wrapped in dried bijao leaves. It is the snack of bus journeys and school lunchboxes, and with a slice of fresh white cheese it becomes the classic pairing Colombians call a matrimonio. Plan for overnight setting. Stopping the cooking too early is the familiar mistake: the paste looks thick in the pan but stays soft and weeps once cool, so cook until it pulls away from the pan and a spoon drawn across the bottom leaves a clear track. Long sleeves are a good idea; it splutters. Bijao leaves are hard to find abroad; banana leaves or baking paper work. Chef's tip: use pink-fleshed guavas for colour, and add the lime early so the pectin sets firm.
Lamego, the cathedral town above the Douro, is famous for its cured hams, and its bola is a bread baked with them inside: a soft, slightly rich yeasted dough layered with presunto, chouriço, salpicão and often chicken or veal. It is taken on picnics, to the pilgrimage of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios in September, and sold by the slice in local cafés. This contains pork (presunto and chouriço). Chef's tip: let the bola cool for an hour before slicing; the juices from the meats settle into the crumb.
Friars' balls, to translate them literally, are a fixture of the Buenos Aires panadería counter among the facturas that porteños buy by the dozen on Sunday morning: soft, round yeast doughnuts, fried golden, rolled in sugar and split or piped with dulce de leche or crema pastelera. Children dive for them first. Inside they are light and fluffy, outside slightly crisp and sweet, and they are at their best within a few hours, with mate or coffee with milk. Oil that is too hot is the mistake: the outsides brown in seconds and the centres stay raw and doughy, so keep it at 170 °C and fry slowly. A thermometer helps a lot. Pastry cream is the other classic filling if you prefer it. Chef's tip: let the shaped balls rise on individual squares of baking paper and slide them into the oil on the paper; they keep their round shape and the paper peels off after a few seconds.
In Portalegre, in the hills of the north Alentejo, boleima was born on baking day: a piece of the bread dough was set aside, enriched with olive oil, sugar and cinnamon, layered with sliced apples and baked in the cooling oven. It is not a delicate cake but a flat, moist, fragrant slab with caramelised edges, eaten at Christmas and at coffee time in autumn. It has no egg, butter or milk. A common mistake is slicing the apples thick, which leaves them hard while the dough is done; cut them thin. Chef's tip: give the dough a long, slow rise; that is where the bread-like flavour comes from.
Order a round of chope in a Rio boteco and a plate of these usually follows: golf-ball-sized fritters of mashed aipim (cassava) with a molten cheese centre, crisp and craggy outside, soft and stretchy within. Places like the bars of Tijuca and Botafogo fill them with everything from dried beef to shrimp, but cheese is the classic veggie order. The cassava dough needs no egg or flour to bind it, so they are naturally gluten free. Use a mozzarella or Minas cheese made with microbial rennet to keep them vegetarian. They go wrong when the cassava is mashed while wet: the balls soften and split in the oil. Drain it very well and let the steam escape. Chef's tip: chill the shaped balls for 30 minutes before frying, so the cheese stays inside and the crust sets before the centre melts.
Baianas de acarajé sell these next to their black-eyed pea fritters, and the name, 'student's cake', comes from how cheap and filling they are for schoolchildren in Salvador. A dough of granulated tapioca soaked in hot milk and coconut milk with grated coconut is shaped into short fingers, fried until the outside shatters, and rolled while still warm in cinnamon sugar. Inside they stay chewy and moist, a little like a coconut doughnut. Eat them with afternoon coffee, or make a tray for a festa junina. A common error is frying before the tapioca has fully absorbed the liquid, which makes the fingers burst open in the oil; give the dough its full 30-minute rest. Chef's tip: keep a bowl of water by you and wet your hands while shaping, so the sticky dough rolls into smooth fingers that fry evenly.
Along the Caribbean coast from Cartagena to Santa Marta, the bollo de yuca is a staple to set beside fried fish, a bowl of soup or a slice of fresh white cheese. Raw cassava is grated, kneaded with a little salt and sometimes a few anise seeds, then wrapped and boiled until it turns translucent and pleasantly chewy, with a mild, slightly sweet flavour. Market sellers stack them by the dozen, and they keep well, so many households buy enough for several days. Cassava must always be fully cooked and peeled down past the pink inner layer, since the raw root contains natural toxins that cooking removes. Squeezing the grated cassava too hard is the error that ruins it: bone-dry dough gives tough, rubbery bollos, so you only want to press out the loose juice. Frozen grated cassava from Latin or African shops works well. Chef's tip: wet your hands before rolling the logs, because the starch sticks to dry palms.
Carob trees grow all through the dry Barrocal hills behind the Algarve coast, and the toasted pods are ground into a sweet, cocoa-coloured flour that local bakers have used for generations. This cake, sold by the slice in cafés around Loulé and São Brás de Alportel, is made with olive oil and orange, so it stays moist for days. It has a gentle caramel, almost malty taste rather than a chocolate one. A common mistake is using too much carob; it is sweet and earthy and turns bitter when overdone, so stick to the amount given. Chef's tip: sieve the carob flour with the wheat flour, because it lumps easily and leaves dry pockets in the crumb.
Grated raw cassava makes a cake unlike any flour cake: heavy, sticky and pudding-like, with a chewy golden crust and a moist, almost translucent middle. Bolo de mandioca (or bolo de aipim in Rio) is baked all over Brazil, sold by the slice at roadside stands in the interior of Bahia and Minas, and is a regular at June festivals next to the corn cakes. Coconut milk and grated coconut make it fragrant, butter makes it rich. Fresh cassava is sold in Latin, African and Caribbean shops; frozen peeled cassava is fine once thawed. Raw cassava must be fully cooked, and baking this long is enough. A classic error is blending in the fibrous core of the root, which leaves woody threads in the cake; cut it out first. Chef's tip: squeeze a little of the liquid out of the grated cassava in a cloth before mixing, and the cake gets a firmer, more cake-like texture without turning dry.
Madeiran families bake bolo de mel on 8 December so it can mellow in time for Christmas, and a well-wrapped one is said to keep until the following year. It is dense, almost black and fragrant with cinnamon, clove and aniseed, sweetened with mel de cana, the island's sugarcane molasses, and studded with walnuts, almonds and candied peel. Tradition says it should be broken by hand, never cut with a knife. Many old recipes use some lard; this one uses butter only. Chef's tip: wrap it in foil and wait at least a week before eating; the spices and molasses soften and blend as it rests.
Almost every Brazilian padaria keeps a tray of bolo de milho verde by the till, and in June it multiplies across festa junina stalls, sliced into squares and wrapped in napkins. Everything goes into a blender: sweetcorn kernels, eggs, milk, oil, sugar and a little fine cornmeal, so the cake comes out yellow, dense and moist, almost custardy in the middle, with real corn flavour. It is made without wheat flour, which keeps it gluten free as long as your baking powder is. Eat it with afternoon coffee or warm from the tin. Opening the oven early is where it usually goes wrong; this batter is heavy and sinks if the door opens before 35 minutes. Chef's tip: leave the cake in the tin for 20 minutes after baking; it finishes setting as it cools and comes out in clean slices.
Cut a slice of bolo de rolo and you see a tight spiral of a dozen hair-thin layers, alternating pale butter sponge and dark red guava. It is Pernambuco's proudest cake, protected as a cultural heritage of the state, sold in Recife's bakeries and airport shops in long boxes and served at birthdays and with coffee in the afternoon. The batter is rich with butter and eggs, spread so thinly it bakes in minutes; each sheet is brushed with melted guava paste and rolled around the last. It takes patience rather than skill. The classic slip is spreading the batter too thick, which gives a fat swiss roll instead of fine stripes; you should almost see the paper through it. Chef's tip: roll each layer while it is still hot from the oven, on a clean cloth dusted with sugar, because the thin sponge cracks as soon as it cools.
Every street stall at the Funchal flower festival and every village arraial on Madeira has a hot stone griddle going, turning out these flat, chewy rounds of bread made with sweet potato. They are split while hot, spread with garlic and parsley butter and eaten on their own, or stuffed with a skewer's worth of espetada. The name comes from the caco, the basalt slab they were first baked on, but a heavy frying pan does the job at home. Chef's tip: cook them low and slow; a hot pan burns the crust before the thick middle is done.
Slice into a bolo formigueiro and the crumb is dotted with dark specks, like ants on a sandy anthill, which is where the name comes from. This is the cake a Brazilian kid would want at merenda time: a soft, buttery vanilla sponge with chocolate sprinkles (granulado) folded through, often finished with a simple chocolate glaze and more sprinkles on top. Padarias and lanchonetes from São Paulo to Belo Horizonte sell it by the slice with a coffee. The cake contains wheat flour, eggs and milk. People often stir the sprinkles into the batter at the start, so they melt and turn the cake muddy grey. Chef's tip: fold the sprinkles in last, with a light hand, and use the chocolate kind (not candy-coloured), which hold their shape in the oven.
From early December to Twelfth Night every Lisbon pastelaria stacks its counter with these glossy rings, crowned with candied fruit and sugar, and families buy one for Christmas Eve and another for the Day of the Kings. A Lisbon confectioner brought the idea from France in the nineteenth century and it became the centre of the Portuguese Christmas table. Traditionally the raisins are soaked in port wine, which contains alcohol; orange juice works just as well. Old recipes hid a dried broad bean inside, and whoever found it bought next year's cake; we leave it out, as it is a choking hazard for children. Chef's tip: let the dough rise slowly in a cool place, even overnight in the fridge; the rich, buttery dough needs time to taste of anything.
Named after a sugar-planter family of nineteenth-century Pernambuco, this cake is closer to a set pudding than a sponge: fresh grated cassava, coconut milk, a clove-scented syrup, butter and a generous number of egg yolks, baked slowly in a water bath until glossy and firm. In Recife it is a centrepiece at weddings, christenings and Christmas, sliced thin and eaten at room temperature with coffee. The texture is smooth, slightly sticky and very rich, so a small piece is enough. Use only sweet cassava (aipim/macaxeira) and bake it fully; cassava must never be eaten raw. The mistake people make is not squeezing the grated cassava dry, which leaves the cake watery and grey in the centre. Chef's tip: strain the batter through a fine sieve before baking; it removes the fibres and gives that silky, flan-like slice.
In the steamy valley of Furnas, on São Miguel, bakers have been cooking these slightly sweet, lemon-scented muffins on flat griddles for generations, and visitors queue for them warm on the way to the hot springs. Thick, soft and pale with golden tops and bottoms, they are split and toasted for breakfast with butter, or used as buns for a sandwich. Chef's tip: the dough is very soft and sticky, so use oiled hands rather than more flour when shaping, or they turn dense.
In the covered Hamidiyeh souk in Damascus, men pound booza in frozen metal drums with long wooden pestles, and the thump of the mallets is part of the show. The ice cream is milky, chewy and elastic, thanks to sahlab (orchid-root flour) and mastic, then rolled in crushed pistachios. This home version thickens the milk with sahlab powder or cornflour and beats it as it freezes to get that stretch. Serve in scoops or slices, plain or with a spoon of rose syrup. Common mistake: grinding the mastic alone, which turns gummy; always pound it with a spoonful of sugar. Chef's tip: real sahlab gives the true chew, but a mix of cornflour and a pinch of guar gum gets very close.
Borage grows all along the Ebro valley, and in Zaragoza it is almost a point of pride: markets sell bundles of the thick, hairy stalks from autumn to spring, and borraja con patatas is a weeknight supper in thousands of Aragonese homes. Boiled until tender, the stalks taste mild and green, a little like a cross between cucumber and chard, and the floury potatoes soak up a simple dressing of olive oil and fried garlic. It is vegan and gluten free. A common mistake is skipping the cleaning: the fine hairs and stringy outer fibres must come off, or the dish feels prickly. If you can't get borage, chard stalks are the closest stand-in. Chef's tip: fry the garlic in the oil slowly, off a high flame, and pour it over sizzling hot so it sings when it hits the vegetables.
This contains pork (botifarra sausage). Ask in any Barcelona neighbourhood restaurant for the most Catalan plate on the menu and you will probably get this: a coil of grilled botifarra, a fresh pork sausage seasoned with little more than salt and pepper, beside white beans sautéed with garlic and parsley until crisp at the edges. It is everyday lunch food, and often comes with allioli. If you cannot find botifarra, use coarse, plain fresh pork sausages. Chef's tip: let the beans sit untouched in the hot pan for a minute between stirs, so some of them catch and crisp.
Bourdeto, from the Venetian 'brodetto', is the fishermen's dish of Corfu: chunks of firm white fish (scorpion fish in the tavernas of Kassiopi and Paleokastritsa) poached in a fierce sauce of onions, olive oil, a little tomato and a lot of hot red pepper. It's eaten with bread for the oily, scarlet juices and a cool salad alongside. Common mistake: stirring once the fish is in, which breaks it up — shake the pan instead. Chef's tip: use fish on the bone, cut into steaks; the bones give the sauce body and the flesh stays moist.
Order a round of tsipouro in a Thessaloniki taverna and a little clay dish of bouyiourdi often arrives with it, still spitting from the oven. A slab of feta is buried under tomato, sweet and hot peppers, oregano and olive oil and baked until the cheese slumps and the edges catch. You scoop it straight from the dish with crusty bread. There's no alcohol in the dish itself; serve it with sparkling water and lemon instead of tsipouro if you like. Feta is usually made with animal rennet; a vegetarian feta-style cheese works well. Common mistake: using a big dish — the sauce spreads thin and burns, so pick one the cheese nearly fills. Chef's tip: wrap the dish in foil for the first 10 minutes so the feta turns creamy before the top browns.
Brandade is Nîmes' great Lenten dish, served on Fridays, on Christmas Eve and as a spread on toast in the bars around the Roman arena during the ferias. Salt cod is poached, then beaten with warm olive oil and milk until it turns into a pale, fluffy, garlicky cream with a gentle salty depth. Nîmes purists make it with fish, oil and milk only; many cooks elsewhere fold in a little mashed potato for a softer texture, which is optional here. The cod needs 24–36 hours of soaking in the fridge first, so plan ahead. Spread it on toasted bread, or bake it in a dish until golden and serve with a green salad. Chef's tip: keep both the oil and the milk warm as you beat them in, so the brandade stays smooth and never splits.
Brasato al Barolo is the winter centrepiece of the Langhe, the hills around Alba where Barolo is made, served for Christmas lunch and long autumn Sundays after the truffle fairs. A whole piece of beef is marinated overnight in red wine with vegetables and spices, then braised for hours until it can be cut with a spoon; the vegetables are blended into a dark, velvety sauce. The dish uses a whole bottle of red wine, and Barolo-style nebbiolo is traditional, but any full-bodied dry red works; an alcohol-free version with stock, grape juice and vinegar is given in the ingredient note. Serve thick slices with soft polenta or buttery mashed potato. Chef's tip: braise it a day ahead, chill it in its sauce and slice it cold; it cuts neatly, and the flavour deepens overnight.
Bratkartoffeln are the potatoes of every German pub and home kitchen, from Hamburg to Munich: yesterday's boiled potatoes sliced and fried slowly in a heavy pan until the edges are crisp and brown, then tossed with onion. They come with fried eggs, pickled herring, Sülze or a green salad, and many cooks add bacon cubes; this version stays vegetarian with butter, onion and marjoram. The mistake everyone makes is stirring too often and crowding the pan: the slices steam instead of crisping. Chef's tip: use waxy potatoes boiled in their skins the day before; cold, firm slices hold their shape and brown far better than fresh ones.
Brezenknödel are what thrifty Munich kitchens make from yesterday's pretzels: the cubes soak in warm milk with egg, onion and parsley, then are shaped into dumplings with a faintly salty, malty crust flavour running through them. They are served on Sundays in place of bread dumplings, alongside a creamy mushroom sauce or a pile of red cabbage, and leftovers are sliced and fried the next morning. The big mistake is adding too much milk: the mixture should hold when squeezed, not drip. Chef's tip: pick off most of the coarse salt before cubing the pretzels, otherwise the dumplings end up far too salty.
Afternoon coffee on a Minas Gerais farm almost always includes broa: craggy little cornmeal buns, golden and crusty outside, soft and slightly crumbly within, with the faint aniseed note of fennel seed. They are made by first cooking fubá with milk, butter and sugar into a thick porridge, then beating in eggs, flour and baking powder, so the crumb stays moist for days. Padarias in Belo Horizonte and the old mining towns sell them by the dozen. Serve them warm, split and buttered, with strong coffee or café com leite. Underbaking is where most batches fail; pale broas are gummy, so wait for a deep golden crust and a cracked top. Chef's tip: dip your hands in fubá rather than flour when shaping, so the buns get the rough, sandy crust they are known for.
Across the green hills of the Minho, broa was once baked weekly in a wood oven shared by the village, and a wedge of it still sits beside every bowl of caldo verde and every plate of grilled sardines. The crumb is yellow, close and slightly sweet from the maize, with a thick crust that splits as it bakes. Scalding the cornmeal with boiling water first is what gives it that moist, almost cake-like bite. A common mistake is slicing the loaf hot, while the crumb is still gummy; let it cool for at least an hour. Chef's tip: leave the loaf on a rack for at least two hours before slicing, because cutting it hot leaves the inside gummy.
Alongside bolo de mel, every Madeiran Christmas table has a tin of broas de mel: small, round, dark biscuits made with the same sugarcane molasses and spices, crisp at the edge and slightly chewy inside. Children are given them when they go door to door on the Missas do Parto mornings before Christmas, and they are good dunked in coffee or tea. Chef's tip: chill the dough for half an hour before shaping; molasses dough is sticky when warm.
Fishermen in Ancona made brodetto from the unsold catch, and the city's harbour restaurants still serve it as a festive dish, traditionally with many kinds of fish: scorpionfish, gurnard, monkfish, cuttlefish, mussels and clams among them. Unlike the saffron brodetto further south at Porto Recanati, this one is red, built on tomato, garlic and a sharp splash of vinegar, and every piece of fish keeps its shape in a thick, peppery sauce. It comes to the table in the pot and is spooned over slices of toasted bread rubbed with garlic. Use whatever firm white fish your fishmonger has; the more variety, the better. Chef's tip: layer the fish by cooking time, firm and bony pieces at the bottom, delicate fillets on top, and shake the pot rather than stirring.
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