Featured recipe

Hong suan tang

Fermented tomato sour soup base

In the Miao and Dong villages of Qiandongnan, south-east Guizhou, small wild 'hairy' tomatoes and red chillies ripen together in late summer, and every household fills tall jars with them to ferment into hong suan tang, the red sour base of the region's famous sour-soup fish and sour-soup beef hot pots. The fermented paste is bright scarlet, sharply sour, fruity and fiery, with a funk from the ferment that ordinary tomato never has. People say three days without sour and you walk unsteadily, and it goes into soups year round. Outside Guizhou, use cherry tomatoes, which have a similar high acidity. Common mistake: fermenting with too little salt or with wet produce, which goes mushy and off; dry everything first and weigh the salt. Normal signs: bubbles, a sour, wine-like fruity smell and liquid rising. Bad signs: fuzzy coloured mould, pink or black patches, or a rotten smell; discard. It is ready after 2–3 weeks, when it tastes clearly sour and the raw tomato taste has gone. Then keep it in the fridge for 3 months or freeze it. Chef's tip: fry a few spoonfuls in oil with ginger before adding stock; it turns a deeper red and smells richer.

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210 min

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Halve HahnRye roll with Gouda and mustard

Order a Halve Hahn in a Cologne brewpub and you will not get half a chicken, whatever the name says: you get a buttered rye roll, a slab of aged Gouda, sharp mustard and raw onion rings. It is the standard snack on the long wooden tables of the Altstadt, eaten with a small glass of the local beer, though it is just as good with apple juice spritzer. The point is the contrast of crusty rye, nutty crystalline cheese and the bite of onion and mustard. Aged Gouda is usually made with animal rennet, so look for one labelled vegetarian or made with microbial rennet. A common mistake is slicing the cheese thin like a sandwich; the Cologne way is a slice as thick as your finger. Chef's tip: take the cheese out of the fridge 30 minutes ahead so its flavour opens up.

5 min

German Snacks & Starters

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Halim bademjanAubergine, wheat and lentil porridge

In Kashan and Isfahan, halim bademjan is the thick, savoury porridge served at religious vows and at long family lunches in autumn, ladled onto a platter and drawn over with patterns of kashk, fried mint and crisp onion. Usually it is cooked with lamb that is pounded into the grains; this vegetarian version keeps the soaked wheat and green lentils, which give the same velvety body. The texture should be smooth enough to spread but still hold a spoon line. Kashk is a fermented whey product made without rennet, so the dish is vegetarian; sour cream thinned with lemon is the nearest swap. A common mistake is not soaking the wheat overnight, which leaves the halim gritty. Chef's tip: mash the aubergine into the grains with a wooden pestle rather than a blender, so you keep some threads of texture.

100 min

Persian Vegetarian

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Halva-ye khormaDate halva

Along the Gulf coast, in Bushehr, Ahvaz and Abadan, halva-ye khorma is made from the year's soft dates and served at breakfast with bread, at funerals and on Thursday evenings in memory of the dead. Flour is toasted slowly until nutty, then beaten with warm date paste, saffron, cardamom and rosewater into a dense, glossy halva that is pressed into a dish and decorated. A common mistake is adding cold date paste to the hot flour, which seizes into lumps; warm the dates first. Chef's tip: keep stirring until the halva leaves the sides of the pan in one smooth ball, which means it will slice neatly once cool.

40 min

Persian Desserts

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Halvas FarsalonCaramelised almond halva

Farsala, a market town on the Thessalian plain, is famous across Greece for its halva: not the sesame kind but a chewy, translucent sweet of cornflour, sugar and butter, cooked until it caramelises, then baked until the top turns glassy amber. Shops sell it by the slab at fairs and on Sundays, and visitors take it home to Athens. Common mistake: stopping too early, when it's still pale and starchy — keep stirring until it pulls away from the pan in one golden mass. Chef's tip: use a heavy non-stick pan and a strong wooden spoon; it gets very thick, and you'll be glad of both.

70 min

Greek Desserts

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FranzbrötchenCinnamon butter pastries

No Hamburg bakery opens without a tray of Franzbrötchen: flaky, buttery yeast pastry rolled with cinnamon sugar, cut into pieces and pressed down hard in the middle with a wooden spoon handle so the spirals splay out into a squashed butterfly. The sugar caramelises underneath into a sticky, crunchy base. They are breakfast with coffee on the way to work and a Sunday treat at the harbour. The common mistake is letting the butter go soft while laminating: it oozes out and you get bread, not layers. Chef's tip: chill the dough between every fold, and press the shape down firmly before the final rise or it will spring back in the oven.

80 min

German Baking

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Hamburger PannfischFish and potatoes in mustard sauce

Pannfisch began as the thrifty Monday supper of Hamburg's harbour families, made from the odds and ends of the weekend's fish and the cold potatoes from Sunday. Chunks of white fish are fried golden and laid over crisp Bratkartoffeln, with a creamy mustard sauce poured round, and today it is a fixture of the fish restaurants along the Elbe. Use whatever firm white fish is good: cod, saithe, haddock or plaice. Chef's tip: boil the potatoes the day before and chill them; cold potatoes fry crisp instead of breaking up.

45 min

German Fish

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Hamsi tavaFried anchovies

When the first winter storms push shoals of anchovy along the coast, fish markets from Samsun to Hopa are heaped with silver hamsi and the whole region seems to smell of frying. Hamsi tava is the simplest way to eat them: heads off, butterflied, dusted in cornmeal and laid in a hot pan in a neat circle, then flipped like a cake. They come out crisp outside and soft and sweet within, with red onion, rocket, lemon and cornbread alongside. Common mistake: crowding the pan, which steams the fish and leaves the coating soggy. Cook until the flesh is opaque and flakes from the backbone. Chef's tip: shake off every bit of loose cornmeal; a thin coat is what stays crunchy.

30 min

Turkish Fish

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Hamsili pilavAnchovy-wrapped rice bake

Hamsili pilav is the showpiece of a Trabzon or Rize winter table: a dome of rice cooked with currants, pine nuts, allspice and dill, packed into a tin lined with butterflied anchovies, more fish laid over the top, and baked until the skins turn crisp. Turned out and cut like a cake, it shows silver fish outside and fragrant rice within, and families make it for guests and New Year gatherings. Serve with a sharp salad and lemon. Common mistake: fully cooking the rice before baking, which turns it mushy; it should still have a bite when it goes into the tin. Bake until the fish is opaque and flakes. Chef's tip: lay the anchovies skin side down against the tin, overlapping like roof tiles, so no rice escapes.

100 min

Turkish Fish

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Handkäs mit MusikMarinated sour-milk cheese

Handkäs mit Musik is the bar snack of Frankfurt's Sachsenhausen cider taverns, where it is served on a small plate beside a glass of apple wine; apple juice or a sour apple spritzer is the alcohol-free match. Handkäse is a small, firm, low-fat sour-milk cheese, ripened until it turns glassy and translucent at the edge, and the 'music' is the marinade of onion, vinegar, oil and caraway it soaks in. It is eaten with a knife and fork on buttered rye bread. Most Handkäse is made without rennet, using acid alone, but check the label if you are strict. A common mistake is serving it straight away: the cheese needs at least an hour in the marinade. Chef's tip: choose a cheese that is still chalky white in the very middle, which gives a mix of creamy and fresh textures.

15 min

German Snacks & Starters

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HaneenehWarm dates with breadcrumbs and ghee

Haneeneh is desert comfort food from the Bedouin tents of the Jordanian Badia: soft dates mashed into hot samneh with crumbs of yesterday's flatbread, scented with cardamom and pressed into a rich, fudgy sweet. It is made for guests, for new mothers and for cold mornings before herding, eaten by hand with black tea or Arabic coffee. It takes ten minutes and uses only store-cupboard things. The mistake to avoid is cooking the dates too long once they meet the ghee; they turn stiff and chewy instead of jammy. Chef's tip: toast the crumbs in the ghee first until nutty, then add the dates off the heat so the mixture stays soft.

20 min

Jordanian Desserts

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Hangtown fryOyster and bacon omelette

The Hangtown fry is said to have been ordered by a miner who struck gold near Placerville, then nicknamed Hangtown, in 1849, asking for the dearest dish in the house: oysters shipped up from San Francisco Bay, bacon (pork) and eggs, which were rare and costly in the gold fields. Today it is brunch at old San Francisco grills. Crisp crumbed oysters and bacon are set in a soft omelette. Chef's tip: fry the oysters before they meet the egg so their coating stays crisp.

30 min

American Breakfast & Brunch

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Harput köftesiBulgur meatballs in tomato broth

Harput is the old hilltop town above Elazığ, and its köfte are a soup and a main course at once: firm balls of fine bulgur kneaded with lean beef mince and spices, simmered in a tomato and pepper broth with chickpeas. They're eaten at home on winter evenings, the broth mopped up with bread. Common mistake: not kneading long enough; the bulgur and meat need to become a smooth, stretchy paste or the köfte fall apart in the broth. Simmer until the köfte are firm and cooked through to 71 °C. Chef's tip: add a few ice cubes while kneading; cold keeps the meat binding the bulgur together.

70 min

Turkish Meat

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Harrak osbaoLentils with pasta and tamarind

The name means 'he burnt his finger', and the Damascene story goes that it is so good people can't wait for it to cool. Brown lentils and fresh pasta are cooked together in a sour sauce of tamarind and pomegranate molasses, then topped with coriander, garlic, crisp fried onions and fried bread so every bite is soft, tangy and crunchy at once. It is a Lenten and summer favourite in Damascus, served at room temperature with flatbread. Common mistake: frying the croutons and onions too early; they go soft on top of the lentils, so add them just before serving. Chef's tip: use a mix of pomegranate molasses and tamarind for a rounder sourness than either alone.

80 min

Syrian Vegetarian

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Biberli ekmekPepper paste flatbread

Antakya's neighbourhood bakeries take trays of topping from customers each morning and bake biberli ekmek in the wood oven to order: soft flatbreads smeared with a spiced paste of red pepper, onion, parsley, cumin and sesame. It is breakfast, a school snack and a picnic bread all in one, often eaten with a glass of tea and a few olives. Some families add a little crumbled cheese, but the classic is meat-free and dairy-free. Spread the topping thin; a thick layer stays raw and wet in the middle. Chef's tip: bake on the hottest preheated tray you have so the base blisters before the topping dries out.

50 min

Turkish Breads & Parathas

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Tepsi kebabıBaked spiced lamb tray

In Antakya people still carry their tepsi kebabı to the neighbourhood bakery: a round copper tray of spiced lamb mince spread thin, scored into wedges and covered with sliced tomatoes, peppers and onions. The bread oven turns it juicy and crusty, and it comes home with a stack of hot flatbread. It is weekend lunch for the family, eaten with a parsley and onion salad and a bowl of yoghurt. Common mistake: pressing the meat more than 2 cm thick; it stews instead of roasting. Chef's tip: add a ladle of tomato water halfway through baking so the juices around the edges turn into a glossy sauce for dipping bread.

65 min

Turkish Meat

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Hatay zeytin salatasıGreen olive and walnut salad

Hatay grows olives on every hillside towards the Syrian border, and its meyhanes and breakfast tables always have a bowl of this salad: green olives tossed with walnuts, spring onion, tomato, parsley, pepper paste and pomegranate molasses. It is salty, sour and sweet at once, and sits happily next to cheese, eggs and flatbread in the morning or as a meze in the evening. Pit and chop the olives yourself; jarred sliced olives are too soft. Rinse very salty olives first, or the salad is overwhelming. Chef's tip: dress it an hour ahead so the olives soak up the molasses, but add the tomatoes and herbs just before serving.

20 min

Turkish Salads

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LaulauSteamed pork and fish bundles

Laulau is one of the oldest dishes of Native Hawaiian cooking: fatty pork and salted butterfish are wrapped in young taro (lūʻau) leaves, tied in a ti-leaf parcel and steamed for hours until the leaves turn soft as cooked spinach and the pork is meltingly tender. It is the centrepiece of a plate with poi, lomi lomi salmon and haupia at lūʻau and family celebrations. Taro leaves must be cooked a long time, as they irritate the throat when undercooked; if you can't find them, use large spinach leaves and wrap in banana leaves or foil. Chef's tip: steam the bundles for the full four hours; shortcutting leaves the taro leaves scratchy.

280 minPacific Islander Meat

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Heiße MaronenRoasted chestnuts

From late October the Maronibrater set up their black drum ovens on street corners in Vienna, Salzburg and every German Christmas market, and the smoky smell of roasting chestnuts means winter has properly begun. Hot chestnuts in a paper cone warm your hands first and your stomach second. At home a hot oven and a bowl of water give the same soft, sweet, slightly charred result. The commonest mistake is not scoring the shells deeply enough: steam builds up inside and the chestnuts can burst in the oven. Chef's tip: wrap the roasted chestnuts in a tea towel for 5 minutes before peeling; the steam loosens the bitter inner skin so it comes away with the shell.

40 min

German Snacks & Starters

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Helado de lúcumaLúcuma ice cream

Ask anyone in Lima, Cusco or Trujillo for the national ice-cream flavour and they will say lúcuma, the green-skinned Andean fruit with dry, golden-orange flesh that tastes of butterscotch, maple and sweet potato. Every ice-cream parlour, supermarket freezer and street cart sells it, and it's also folded into cakes and milkshakes. This no-churn version needs no machine: frozen lúcuma pulp (or lúcuma powder, both in Latin shops and health-food stores) is whisked into condensed milk, then folded into whipped cream and frozen. It comes out smooth, rich and naturally caramel-coloured. The mistake is over-whipping the cream to stiff peaks, which makes the ice cream grainy and buttery; stop at soft peaks. It needs at least 6 hours in the freezer, so make it the day before. Serve with a slice of chocolate cake or on its own. Chef's tip: a pinch of salt and a few drops of lime sharpen lúcuma's mellow flavour so it doesn't taste flat when frozen.

20 min

Peruvian Desserts

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Helado de pailaHand-spun blackberry sorbet

Watching helado de paila being made is half the pleasure. In Pasto and Ipiales, and over the border in Ecuador, a wide copper or steel pan (the paila) spins on a bed of ice and salt in a straw-lined barrel, while the maker scrapes the fruit juice from the sides with a wooden paddle until it turns into a light, intensely fruity sorbet. Mora, lulo and naranjilla are the favourite flavours. At home a wide steel bowl sitting in a larger bowl of salted ice does the same job, and the hand-churning takes about 30 minutes, so get everyone to take turns. The base must be cold before it goes into the bowl; a warm base never freezes properly and turns into slush. Andean blackberries are tart and bright; ordinary blackberries with extra lime work. Chef's tip: keep scraping the frozen layer off the sides and folding it in, every 20–30 seconds; that motion is what makes the texture smooth.

60 min

Colombian Desserts

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HilbehFenugreek semolina cake

Hilbeh is the tray cake Jordanian grandmothers bake in winter and for visits after childbirth, when fenugreek is believed to warm and strengthen. Soaked fenugreek seeds swell into soft, jelly-coated beads that dot a dense semolina crumb, giving a gently bitter, maple-like scent that the hot syrup softens. Cut into diamonds, each topped with an almond, it sits on the coffee table beside Arabic coffee from Irbid to Aqaba. The mistake people make is using the seeds dry: they stay hard and bitter, so boil and soak them first. Chef's tip: pour cold syrup over the cake the moment it leaves the oven; hot-on-cold soaks in evenly and keeps the top from going soggy.

75 min

Jordanian Baking

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HilopitesEgg pasta with butter and cheese

In late summer, when sheep's milk and eggs are plentiful, the women of Epirus and Thessaly gather to make hilopites: a stiff egg-and-milk dough rolled thin, dried on cloths and cut into tiny squares, then stored in sacks for winter. They're cooked like any pasta, in stock with chicken or simply tossed with sizzling butter and grated cheese, which is how children in Ioannina eat them. This recipe makes a fresh batch and serves it the simple way. Kefalotyri and myzithra are often made with animal rennet; choose a vegetarian hard cheese if needed. Common mistake: cutting the sheets while still soft, so the squares stick — dry them until leathery first. Chef's tip: dried fully, they keep for months in a jar.

70 min

Greek Pasta & Noodles

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Himmel un ÄädApple potato mash with black pudding

Himmel un Ääd is Cologne dialect for "heaven and earth": apples from the trees above and potatoes from the ground below, mashed together and topped with slices of fried Flönz, the soft Rhineland black pudding, and crisp onions. It is a classic in Cologne's brewery taverns, especially around Carnival and in autumn when the apples are new. For a vegetarian plate, skip the blood sausage and add extra fried onions and a fried egg. Chef's tip: use a sharp apple like Boskop or Bramley, which balances the rich sausage much better than a sweet one.

45 min

German Meat

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HindbehDandelion greens with fried onions

Each spring, people in the Lebanese hills go out with a knife and a bag to gather wild chicory and dandelion for hindbeh, a Lenten favourite in Christian homes and a regular on mezze tables all year. The bitter greens are blanched, squeezed and fried with garlic in olive oil, then piled with a tangle of deeply browned, crisp onions and served with lemon wedges. The bitterness, the sweetness of the onions and the sharp lemon balance each other, and it is eaten at room temperature with bread. Cultivated dandelion or curly endive from a greengrocer works well. Common mistake: not squeezing the greens dry; water stops them frying and dilutes the oil. Chef's tip: fry the onions slowly and pull them out a shade lighter than you want — they keep darkening on the paper.

50 min

Lebanese Vegetarian

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HingelPotato dumplings with browned butter

Hingel is the comfort food of Kars and Ardahan, on Turkey's high north-eastern border, where long winters made potatoes and butter everyday staples. Half-moon dumplings are filled with mashed potato and onion, boiled, then smothered in caramelised onions, garlic yoghurt and plenty of browned butter, much like manti but larger and softer. Common mistake: a wet potato filling that leaks through the seams; dry the boiled potatoes in the pan for a minute before mashing. Chef's tip: fry the onions slowly in the same butter you pour over at the end; it picks up their sweetness.

90 min

Turkish Pasta & Noodles

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Hongos de pino en escabechePickled pine mushrooms

After the autumn rains in the pine plantations of Neuquén and Río Negro, slippery jacks (Suillus luteus) pop up by the thousand, and around San Martín de los Andes and Villa La Angostura they are sold fresh by the roadside, dried in bags, or bottled like this. The mushrooms are blanched in vinegar, then kept in oil with garlic, bay and peppercorns, ending up tender, tangy and slightly silky, a classic part of a picada with cheese and bread or beside grilled vegetables. Wild mushrooms must only be eaten if identified by an expert or bought from a trusted seller; if in doubt, use cultivated mushrooms such as chestnut or king oyster. The common mistake is skipping the peeling: the slimy skin on the cap turns the pickle gluey, so pull it off first. Garlic in oil can carry botulism, so the jar must live in the fridge and be eaten within two weeks. Chef's tip: let the jar rest for two days before opening; the vinegar mellows and the flavours come together.

40 min

Argentinian Chutneys & Dips

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Hornazo de SalamancaPork, chorizo and egg pie

Salamanca's students and families picnic by the river Tormes on Lunes de Aguas, the Monday after Easter Monday, and the hornazo is what they unwrap: a golden pie with a bread-like crust, packed with layers of marinated pork loin, chorizo, cured ham and hard-boiled egg. It is eaten cold, in thick slices, and bakeries sell it all through spring. This contains pork (loin, chorizo and ham). The dough traditionally includes white wine; use water with a little lemon juice to keep it alcohol-free. Chef's tip: fry the loin slices first so they are cooked through before they go into the pie.

100 min

Spanish Meat

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Horta vrastaBoiled greens with lemon and oil

In Greek villages women still go out with a knife and a bag after the first autumn rains to gather horta: dandelion, wild chicory, amaranth, mustard greens. Boiled and dressed with the best olive oil and lemon, they are served warm or cool with almost every meal, from fried fish in a seaside taverna to a fasting-day plate of beans. The taste is pleasantly bitter and grassy. Common mistake: boiling them to khaki; cook only until the stems are tender and the leaves still deep green. Chef's tip: salt the cooking water generously like pasta water and dress the greens while warm, so they drink up the oil and lemon.

25 min

Greek Sides

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HöşmerimCheese and semolina halva

Höşmerim is a winter dessert of the Erzurum plateau and the Bolu highlands, made from unsalted fresh cheese melted with butter and semolina until it turns golden and gives off its own butter, then soaked with syrup. It's eaten warm in small bowls, chewy and rich, topped with crushed walnuts or pistachios, often after a long cold day. Common mistake: using salty or aged cheese, which turns oily and bitter; you need a soft, unsalted fresh cheese such as lor or ricotta. Chef's tip: keep cooking until the fat starts seeping out at the edges and the mixture is the colour of light toffee; that's where the flavour comes from.

30 min

Turkish Desserts

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Htapodi me kofto makaronakiOctopus and pasta in tomato

During Lent and on fasting days, coastal families in Crete and the islands turn to octopus, which the church counts as fasting food. In this one-pot dish it is first stewed in its own juices until tender, then simmered in tomato with cinnamon and allspice, and finally the little cut pasta tubes cook right in the sauce, soaking up the deep red, faintly sweet liquid. It is served hot with a squeeze of lemon and a green salad. Common mistake: salting the octopus at the start, which tightens it; season only once it is tender. Chef's tip: buy frozen octopus or freeze fresh for a day; freezing breaks down the tough fibres and saves you the traditional beating on the rocks.

110 min

Greek Fish

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Htapodi sti skaraCharcoal-grilled octopus

Octopus tentacles hanging to dry on a line outside a harbour taverna are a summer sight across the Greek islands, and they end up on the grill as one of the great ouzo mezedes, though they are just as good with a cold lemonade. Simmering first makes the octopus tender; the grill adds smoky, crisp tips. It is also a favourite Lenten dish, since shellfish and octopus are allowed on fasting days. Common mistake: grilling raw octopus straight away, which leaves it rubbery. Chef's tip: cook it in its own juices without added water; it gives off plenty of liquid and stays more flavourful.

90 min

Greek Fish

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Huachinango a la veracruzanaRed snapper in tomato sauce

In the port of Veracruz, fish a la veracruzana shows the city's centuries of trade with Spain: red snapper baked in a sauce of tomato, onion and garlic with green olives, capers, bay and herbs, sharpened with pickled yellow chillies. It is served at seafront restaurants on Sundays and is a favourite on Christmas Eve, when many families eat fish. The sauce is tangy, briny and gently hot, and the fish stays moist under it. Serve it with plain white rice to soak up the sauce. Chef's tip: cook the sauce down until thick before the fish goes in; the fish releases juices as it bakes and will thin it out.

65 min

Mexican Fish

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HuatiaEarth-baked potatoes

After the potato harvest in May and June, families in Puno, Cusco and across the highlands build a huatia in the field: a little dome of dry earth clods heated with dried brush until the clods glow, then knocked down over freshly dug potatoes and oca so they bake slowly underground. Opened an hour later, the potatoes are smoky, floury and so soft their skins split, and the oca turns sweet and tangy. Everyone eats them with their hands, with salt, chilli sauce and fresh cheese. This recipe gives an oven method for home cooks: a lidded pot bedded with coarse salt and herbs, which traps heat and steam much like the earth. If you do try a real huatia outdoors, use a clear patch of ground away from anything that can catch fire and keep water nearby. Don't uncover the pot early to check: the steam escapes and the potatoes turn leathery. Fresh oca is sold in some markets as New Zealand yam; small sweet potatoes will do. Chef's tip: choose potatoes of a similar size so they all finish together, and serve with uchucuta.

80 min

Peruvian Sides

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Huevos a la flamencaBaked eggs with chorizo and peas

This contains pork (chorizo and serrano ham). Seville has served huevos a la flamenca since at least the nineteenth century, and its old taverns still bring it to the table in individual clay dishes: eggs baked on a tomato sofrito, ringed with peas, asparagus tips, slices of chorizo and ham and strips of red pepper, as colourful as a flamenco dress. It makes a fine lunch with crusty bread. Chef's tip: warm the dishes with the sofrito before adding the eggs, so the whites set quickly from below while the yolks stay soft.

45 min

Spanish Breakfast & Brunch

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