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Wantan mee
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Wantan mee

Egg noodles with dumplings and pork

Kuala Lumpur eats wantan mee for breakfast, lunch and late supper, usually from a stall where a cook flicks springy egg noodles through boiling water and tosses them in a dark, glossy sauce. The KL style is 'dry' (kon loe): noodles coated in soy, oyster sauce and lard or shallot oil, topped with slices of sweet char siu and greens, with the dumplings served in a little bowl of clear soup. Pickled green chillies cut through the richness. Expect chewy noodles, silky wontons and a salty-sweet, slightly smoky sauce. Chef's tip: rinse the cooked noodles under cold water for a few seconds, then dunk them back in the boiling water; the shock gives them their springy bite.

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HutspotCarrot, onion and potato mash

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In Batac and Vigan, in the Ilocos region, empanada is not a baked pastry but a big, crunchy, bright-orange turnover fried to order at night markets and by the plaza. The thin rice-flour crust gets its colour from annatto, and inside goes shredded green papaya, mung bean sprouts, crumbled Vigan longganisa (a garlicky pork sausage) and a whole egg. Vendors fold it in seconds and slide it into hot oil, then hand it over with a little bowl of spiced sugarcane vinegar to pour in with every bite. It is a pork snack for evenings out. Chef's tip: roll the dough very thin on a banana leaf or baking paper; the leaf lets you flip the dough over the filling without tearing it.

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In Imereti, the region around Kutaisi in western Georgia, this flat round cheese bread is everyday food, and it is the one most families make at home: a tender, quick dough leavened with matsoni (Georgian yogurt) and soda, wrapped around a cheese ball and cooked in a dry frying pan. It is cut into wedges like a pizza and set on the table for breakfast, for a feast, or packed for a long car journey. Georgian imeruli and sulguni cheeses are hard to find outside Georgia, so this uses mozzarella with feta for the salty tang. Choose cheeses labelled vegetarian (microbial rennet). Children love it plain, still warm. A common mistake is rolling it out with heavy pressure, which tears the thin dough so the cheese leaks and burns in the pan. Chef's tip: press it out gently with your fingertips from the centre outwards, and if a small hole appears, pinch a scrap of dough over it before it reaches the pan.

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Juane de gallinaChicken and rice parcels

In Iquitos, Tarapoto and the river towns of Peru's Amazon, juanes are steamed by the hundred for the feast of San Juan on 24 June, when families picnic by the rivers to mark the start of the dry season. Each parcel hides a piece of chicken, half a boiled egg and a black olive inside rice seasoned with turmeric, cumin and the herb sacha culantro, all wrapped in broad bijao leaves that perfume the rice. Banana leaves are the easiest swap outside the jungle. Chef's tip: let the rice cool before you wrap it; warm rice is too soft to shape and the parcels lose their round shape.

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