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Racuchy z jabłkami
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Racuchy z jabłkami

Apple fritters

Autumn in the orchard villages around Łącko and Nowy Sącz means apples everywhere, and racuchy are how grandmothers use the windfalls on a Sunday afternoon. A thick yeast batter is folded with thin apple slices and spooned into hot oil, where it puffs into golden, airy fritters with soft, tart fruit inside. Shower them with icing sugar and eat them warm, perhaps with a glass of cold milk or kefir. Where most people go wrong is frying too hot: the outside darkens before the thick middle cooks, leaving a raw, gummy centre. Chef's tip: keep the oil at a steady medium, about 170 °C, and flatten each spoonful slightly so it cooks through evenly.

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In the Valais, the vineyard-and-glacier canton along the upper Rhône, raclette began as a herders' meal: half a wheel of cheese propped beside an open fire, the melting face scraped (racler) onto a plate of potatoes. Today Valais families and village festivals still serve it the slow way, one plate at a time, while at home most people use a tabletop grill with small pans. The cheese is soft and pungent from the wheel and turns sweet and nutty as it bubbles, set off by sharp cornichons and little pickled onions. A proper Valais raclette needs nothing else: no charcuterie, just potatoes, pickles, pepper and a glass of Fendant or hot tea. Raclette cheese is usually made with animal rennet; choose a wheel or slices labelled with microbial or vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: keep the potatoes hot in a covered basket wrapped in a cloth, so each scoop of cheese lands on a steaming potato and stays runny.

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Bircher muesli

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Shopska salad

Shopska salata is named after the Shopi people of the Sofia region and has become Bulgaria's national salad, the first thing ordered at any mehana (tavern) with a cold glass of rakia. Ripe tomatoes, cucumber, onion and soft roasted peppers are dressed simply with sunflower oil and vinegar, then buried under finely grated sirene, the Bulgarian white brined cheese, so the top looks like fresh snow. Unlike a Greek village salad, there are no olives and the cheese is grated, not in a slab. Chef's tip: salt and dress the vegetables before the cheese goes on; dressing over the cheese is the common mistake and turns the white snow soggy.

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Tebasaki (Nagoya fried chicken wings)

In Nagoya's izakaya, chicken wings come whole, with the mid-joint and tip still joined in a V, and they arrive in piles beside cold drinks. Tebasaki are fried without batter until the skin turns crisp and thin, then brushed with a sweet soy glaze and dusted heavily with pepper and sesame. The spice is the point: they should taste peppery, salty and sticky at once. Eat them with your hands, twisting the two bones apart to pull the meat off. Chef's tip: brush on the glaze the moment the wings leave the oil; hot, crisp skin soaks it up and stays crunchy, while cooled wings just turn sticky.

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Akashiyaki (Akashi egg and octopus dumplings)

Ask for tamagoyaki in Akashi, a fishing town on the coast of Hyogo, and you will be served these dumplings rather than a rolled omelette: that is what locals call them. Small shops near the Uonotana fish market sell them on tilted wooden boards, with a bowl of warm dashi for dipping. Compared with Osaka takoyaki, the batter is mostly egg and stock, so the balls are soft and trembling inside, and they come without sauce or mayonnaise. Akashi is famous for its octopus, and a piece sits in every ball. Chef's tip: oil the pan generously and fill each hollow right to the brim; the soft batter needs the extra to make a round, puffy ball.

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Wagyu steak, Kobe style

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Onomichi ramen

Onomichi is a hilly port town in Hiroshima prefecture on the Seto Inland Sea, and the start of the Shimanami Kaido cycle route across the islands to Shikoku. Its ramen shops serve a dark soy-seasoned broth made from chicken and small dried fish, with flat, slightly wavy noodles. The signature is a scattering of soft pork back-fat pieces that float on top and melt into each mouthful. Many visitors eat a bowl before or after the bike ride. Chef's tip: pull the heads and dark bellies off the dried sardines before using them; that is where the bitterness lives, and the cleaned fish give a sweet, clean sea flavour.

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Hiroshima oyster nabe (kaki nabe)

Hiroshima Bay is lined with oyster rafts, and from late autumn to early spring the city's restaurants put kaki nabe on the menu. In the version called dote nabe, a thick band of sweetened miso is smeared around the inside of the pot like a riverbank, then melts into the broth bit by bit as you eat. Cabbage, tofu, leek and mushrooms go in first; the oysters only need a few minutes at the end. It is cooked at the table on a portable burner, so everyone eats it as it is ready. Chef's tip: rinse the shucked oysters in a bowl with potato starch and a little salt, then in clean water; the grey starch pulls out grit and slime and leaves them clean-tasting.

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Olivier salad (vegetarian)

Salat Olivier was born in a fashionable Moscow restaurant in the 1860s, but today it belongs to every Russian kitchen on 31 December, when a bowl the size of a washing-up basin is made in the afternoon and eaten until 1 January is well over. Soviet cooks swapped the original's game for boiled sausage; this vegetarian version leaves it out and lets the sweet carrots, peas, sharp pickled cucumbers and creamy egg carry the salad. Chef's tip: cut everything to the size of a pea, the same size as the peas themselves; that is what makes Olivier feel like Olivier rather than potato salad.

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Mushroom stroganoff

Beef stroganoff was named after the aristocratic Stroganov family of St Petersburg in the nineteenth century, and the original is strips of beef in a sauce of smetana and mustard. In Russian homes today the meatless version, made with forest mushrooms in autumn and button mushrooms the rest of the year, is just as common, especially during Orthodox fasts and on weeknights. It differs from Hungarian paprikás: no paprika, a gentle mustard edge, and a sauce that should stay pale and creamy. Serve it on fluffy buckwheat or mashed potatoes. Chef's tip: stir the smetana in off the boil; bubbling it hard makes it split into grainy curds.

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Yangnyeom chicken (Korean fried chicken)

Fried chicken shops are on almost every street corner in Korea, and late-night delivery boxes are shared over sport on TV or by the river in summer. The pairing with beer even has its own word, chimaek, but an ice-cold alcohol-free beer, barley tea or a fizzy drink works just as well. Yangnyeom chicken is the glazed kind, tossed in a sweet, garlicky gochujang sauce, and it always comes with cubes of white pickled radish to cut the richness. Chef's tip: let the chicken rest for 5 minutes between the two fries; the moisture that rises to the surface is what the second fry turns into a shatteringly crisp shell.

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Bun chaGrilled pork with rice noodles

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Banh mi

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Nem ran (Hanoi fried spring rolls)

At Tết, the lunar new year, a plate of nem rán sits on almost every family feast tray in Hanoi and the north, and the same rolls turn up at weddings, death anniversaries and Sunday lunches all year. Northern cooks wrap a filling of minced pork, crab or prawn, glass noodles and wood ear mushroom in thin rice paper, which fries into a pale golden, bubbly shell quite different from wheat-wrapped spring rolls. Southerners call the same idea chả giò. Serve them cut in pieces with rice vermicelli, lettuce, herbs and a warm sweet-sour fish sauce. Chef's tip: fry them twice, first gently to cook the filling through, then briefly in hotter oil to crisp; they stay crunchy far longer.

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Com hen (Hue baby clam rice)

Cơm hến began as a cheap meal of the boat people around Cồn Hến, an islet in the Perfume River in Huế, and it is still sold for breakfast and as an afternoon snack from tiny stalls across the city. Room-temperature rice is topped with stir-fried baby clams, crunchy pork crackling, roasted peanuts, toasted rice cracker and a heap of raw herbs and greens, then splashed with hot clam broth and plenty of chilli. Huế cooks use tiny river clams; at home, choose the smallest clams you can find, such as baby or Manila clams. The mix of cool and hot, crisp and soft, is the whole point. Chef's tip: keep the rice cool and the broth boiling hot right up to the moment you pour it.

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Banh nam (Hue rice cakes in banana leaf)

Market women at Đông Ba in Huế sell bánh nậm by the stack, still warm in their banana-leaf wrappers, as one of the city's many little afternoon cakes. A soft rice-flour paste is spread thin on a leaf, sprinkled with a savoury filling of prawn and pork, folded flat into a neat parcel and steamed. Unwrapped, the cake is silky, almost translucent, and you eat it straight off the leaf with a spoonful of sweet chilli fish sauce. It is often served on the same plate as bánh bột lọc and bánh ít for a mixed snack. Chef's tip: soften the banana leaves in hot water or over a flame first and brush them with oil; dry leaves split and the paste sticks.

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Com ga Hoi An (turmeric chicken rice)

Lunchtime in the old town of Hội An means cơm gà: small eateries near the river pile plates high with yellow rice and shredded chicken from late morning until it runs out. The rice is fried with garlic and chicken fat, coloured with turmeric and cooked in the poaching stock, so every grain tastes of chicken. On top goes chicken pulled into strips and tossed with sliced onion, Vietnamese coriander, lime and pepper, plus a spoon of chilli sauce and a little pickled papaya. A small bowl of the clear broth comes alongside. Chef's tip: plunge the poached chicken into iced water for 5 minutes; it stops the cooking and keeps the meat juicy and the skin firm.

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White rose dumplings (banh bao banh vac)

Restaurants all over Hội An serve 'white rose' dumplings as a starter, and much of the town's supply is said to come from a single family workshop that has made them for decades. The wrapper is a thin, glassy rice-flour dough, pinched up around a pounded prawn filling so that each dumpling looks like an open flower, and the plate is finished with crisp fried shallots and a light, sweet chilli-fish-sauce dip. They are delicate and fiddly, but shaping becomes quick after the first dozen. This home version adds a little pork to the prawn for juiciness. Chef's tip: keep the dough under a damp cloth the whole time; even a few minutes in the air makes it crack when you pinch it.

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