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Gucchi pulao

Morel mushroom pulao

Gucchi, the honeycombed wild morels gathered in spring on the slopes of Kashmir and Himachal, are among the most prized foods in India, and a pulao of them is kept for weddings, Eid and the most honoured guests. The mushrooms are soaked and simmered in their own soaking water, which then flavours the basmati along with ghee, cardamom and fennel, so every grain tastes deeply earthy. Morels must always be cooked thoroughly; never eat them raw or barely warmed. The common mistake is pouring in the soaking water with its grit, so let it settle and leave the last spoonfuls behind. Chef's tip: slit each morel lengthwise and rinse inside; sand hides in the hollow stems.

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PişiFried dough puffs

When a Turkish family has time for a long Sunday breakfast, someone stands at the stove frying pişi while the rest of the table fills with white cheese, olives, tomatoes, honey and endless tea. The yeasted dough is stretched thin with oiled fingers and fried until it balloons, golden and crisp outside and chewy inside. In villages across Anatolia it is also the treat made on bread-baking day from the last of the dough. Common mistake: oil that isn't hot enough; the pişi soaks it up and turns greasy. Chef's tip: poke a hole in the middle of each round before frying so it puffs evenly and cooks through.

35 min

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PithiviersAlmond cream puff pastry

The small town of Pithiviers, between Orléans and Paris, gave its name to this domed puff-pastry pie filled with almond cream, its top scored in curved lines like the petals of a flower. It is close to the galette des rois that French families share at Epiphany in January, but in Pithiviers it is eaten all year as a Sunday dessert. The almond cream is traditionally flavoured with a spoonful of rum; leave it out and add orange zest or vanilla for an alcohol-free version. All-butter shop puff pastry works well. Chef's tip: chill the assembled pie for 30 minutes before scoring and baking; cold pastry rises tall and the pattern stays crisp.

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Pitta 'mpigliataHoney and walnut pastry spiral

High in the Sila mountains, the town of San Giovanni in Fiore bakes pitta 'mpigliata for Christmas and for weddings: ribbons of thin pastry rolled up with walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and cloves into little rosettes, packed side by side in a round tin and soaked in warm honey once baked. The name means something like 'wrapped-up cake', and it looks like a dish of flowers. It keeps for days, growing stickier and more fragrant. The dough is traditionally made with white wine and a splash of anise liqueur; this version uses orange juice and ground anise, with no alcohol. Chef's tip: roll the pastry as thin as you can; thick ribbons bake doughy in the middle.

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Pizza al moldeThick pan pizza

Order "una grande de muzza" at a Corrientes Avenue pizzería and this is what lands on the metal stand: a tall, airy base baked in a round black tin, a thin layer of tomato sauce and so much mozzarella it spills over the edge and fries against the metal. Porteños eat it standing at the counter or at a Formica table, often with a wedge of fainá on top and a cold soda beside it, and at home it is Friday-night food the whole family agrees on. The crumb should be soft and bready like focaccia, the base crisp from the oiled tin. Most home cooks go wrong by loading the cheese on raw dough: by the time the base has baked the mozzarella has split into grease. Here the base is part-baked with its sauce first, the way pizzerías keep pre-pizzas ready, and the cheese only goes in for the last minutes. The mozzarella is usually made with animal rennet, so pick a vegetarian one if that matters to you. Chef's tip: let the dough rise a second time inside the oiled tin; that last proof is what gives the high, open edge.

145 min

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Pizza cancheraCheeseless thick tomato pizza

No cheese at all: that is the whole point of pizza canchera. Vendors walk the terraces at Buenos Aires football grounds with a wicker basket of these thick rectangles wrapped in paper, and the name comes from la cancha, the pitch. Because it is eaten at room temperature, the topping is a heavy, garlicky tomato paste, almost jammy, with dried oregano, a pinch of ají molido (crushed red chilli) and a good slick of olive oil; the base underneath is soft, a little oily and chewy, more focaccia than Neapolitan. Today it also turns up at kids' parties and on Sunday tables as a snack before the asado. Where people slip up is the sauce: a thin, watery sauce soaks the dough and turns it soggy by the time it has cooled, so the tomato has to be cooked down until a spoon leaves a trail. Chef's tip: cut it into squares only once it has cooled for 15 minutes; it will hold its shape like the slices sold in the stands.

145 min

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PlastosWild greens and feta cornmeal pie

Plastos comes from the hill villages of Thesprotia and Ioannina, where women patted (plastó, 'shaped') a pie together from what the garden and hillside gave: wild greens, leeks, herbs and cheese, held between layers of coarse cornmeal instead of filo. It bakes into a crusty, rustic slab, green and savoury inside, eaten warm with yoghurt or as a lunch to carry to the fields. Feta is usually made with animal rennet; a vegetarian feta-style cheese works. Common mistake: leaving the greens wet — squeeze them hard after salting, or the cornmeal turns to paste. Chef's tip: a mix of spinach and chard with plenty of dill and fennel tops comes close to the wild greens of Epirus.

80 min

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Plátanos fritos con cremaFried plantain with cream

Tabasco grows more plantain than almost anywhere in Mexico, and in Villahermosa homes fried ripe plantain arrives with breakfast eggs, alongside rice and black beans at lunch, or on its own as a sweet-savoury supper. The local touch is to finish the hot, caramelised slices with a spoon of tangy crema and a snow of crumbled fresh cheese, so you get sweet, salty and sour in one bite. Chef's tip: wait until the skins are almost black; yellow plantains taste starchy and never caramelise.

17 min

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Pochas are white beans picked in late summer before they dry, when the pods have gone soft and yellowish, and in Navarre September means bowls of them in every village from Sangüesa to the Ribera. Because they are fresh they need no soaking and cook in about 40 minutes into something creamy, sweet and gentle. Many homes add chorizo or quail; this version keeps to the vegetables and is vegan. Pickled guindilla chillies on the side are the usual partner. Chef's tip: if you can't find fresh pochas, frozen ones are sold in Spanish shops and are very good.

60 min

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Tuco is what Argentines call the red sauce of their Italian grandparents, and spooned over a mound of soft polenta it is one of the most ordinary, best-loved cold-weather suppers in Buenos Aires and across the pampas. On Sundays the sauce often gets a piece of beef; this is the everyday meatless version, with onion, red pepper, carrot, bay and a long simmer that turns the tomato sweet and deep. The polenta is enriched with butter and cheese until it falls off the spoon like thick custard. The most common mistake is pouring the cornmeal into the water all at once, which gives you lumps you will never beat out, so rain it in slowly while whisking. Grated hard cheese is usually made with animal rennet; choose a vegetarian one if needed. Chef's tip: make the tuco first and let it rest off the heat while the polenta cooks; even 15 minutes of standing rounds out its flavour.

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Italian immigrants brought polenta to São Paulo, and the city's bars and cantinas turned the leftovers into one of its best snacks: thick sticks of set polenta, deep-fried until the outside is crunchy and bubbled and the inside stays soft and creamy. They arrive in paper-lined baskets in Bixiga cantinas and corner botecos alike, sprinkled with salt, to be eaten with a cold drink; some places dust them with grated cheese, which makes them no longer vegan. Kids love them as a side with tomato sauce. They fall apart in the oil when the polenta is too soft, so cook it until very thick and let it set completely in the fridge. Chef's tip: dry the cut sticks on kitchen paper and fry in small batches, so the oil temperature stays high and the crust forms at once.

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Any chifa in Lima, from the old dining rooms of Barrio Chino on Calle Capón to the corner chifa in every district, will have chi jau kay on the menu: boneless chicken marinated in soy and ginger, fried in a crisp coating and served under a dark, glossy oyster sauce, scattered with sesame seeds and spring onion. The crust stays crunchy where the sauce hasn't reached and goes sticky where it has. It is shared with arroz chaufa or plain rice and a Chinese soup. The usual misstep is tossing the chicken in the sauce in the pan, which makes it soggy; Lima chifas pour the sauce over at the table. Chef's tip: fry the chicken twice, once to cook and once very hot for a minute to crisp, and it will stay crunchy under the sauce.

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Polvo à lagareiroRoast octopus with garlic oil

The name honours the lagareiros, the men who worked the olive presses, and the dish is about as generous with olive oil as you'd expect: octopus first simmered until tender, then roasted hot with garlic and oil until the tentacles crisp at the tips. It is a Christmas Eve favourite in many Lisbon homes and a Friday treat in restaurants, always with batatas a murro, small potatoes roasted in their skins then punched open. A common mistake is a rolling boil, which turns octopus tough and peels the skin; keep the water at a lazy simmer. Chef's tip: buy frozen octopus, or freeze fresh for a day; freezing breaks the fibres and makes it far more tender.

110 min

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On Pico and Terceira, octopus caught among the black volcanic rocks is stewed slowly in red wine with onions, garlic, allspice and a spoonful of pimenta da terra, until the pieces are tender and the sauce is dark and rich. It is a dish for village festas and cold winter Sundays, ladled over potatoes with bread on the side. The recipe uses red wine; for an alcohol-free version, use water with a tablespoon of red wine vinegar. Chef's tip: buy frozen octopus, or freeze fresh octopus for a day; freezing breaks down its fibres and makes it far more tender.

125 min

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PonchaSugarcane spirit with honey and lemon

In the fishing village of Câmara de Lobos, poncha is made to order at the bar counter: sugarcane spirit, honey and freshly squeezed lemon, whipped together with a wooden stick called a mexelote until frothy. Fishermen once drank it to keep warm at sea; now it goes round at every Madeiran festa. The traditional drink contains alcohol and is strong, so it is for adults only; the alcohol-free version swaps the spirit for chilled water, which turns it into a sharp, honeyed lemonade anyone can drink. Chef's tip: dissolve the honey in the lemon juice before adding the spirit or water, or it sinks to the bottom in a sticky lump.

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Porceddu is Sardinia's feast: a whole suckling pig spit-roasted for hours beside an open wood fire at weddings, village saints' days and Ferragosto, then laid on a bed of myrtle branches so the hot meat soaks up their scent. The skin turns glass-crisp and the pork underneath is soft and juicy. Suckling pig and fresh myrtle are hard to find outside Sardinia, so this home-oven version uses a skin-on piece of pork belly or shoulder, with bay leaves and rosemary standing in for myrtle. Serve with bread, roast potatoes and a salad. Chef's tip: salt the dried skin and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight; dry skin is the secret to real crackling.

200 min

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