Featured recipe

Laksam

Rice noodles in coconut fish gravy

Kota Bharu's morning market has its own noodle: laksam, thick sheets of steamed rice batter rolled up like little carpets and sliced into wheels. They are drowned in a pale, creamy gravy of pounded fish and coconut milk, then heaped with raw herbs and vegetables (ulam): cucumber, long beans, bean sprouts, daun kesum and torch ginger flower, with a spoonful of fiery chilli and budu, the region's fermented anchovy sauce. The result is soft and slippery, rich and cool at the same time. Locals eat it for breakfast or as a mid-morning snack. Chef's tip: pound the cooked fish with the shallots instead of blending it smooth; the gravy should feel faintly textured, like a thin porridge.

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Ask anyone who grew up in the Netherlands what they ate before school and the answer is usually a boterham met hagelslag: a slice of soft bread, well buttered, and covered edge to edge in chocolate sprinkles. It is not a treat for special days but an ordinary Dutch breakfast and lunchbox filler, and the country gets through millions of kilos of hagelslag every year. There are milk and dark chocolate versions, plus vruchtenhagel (fruity pastel sprinkles) and anijshagel (aniseed sprinkles). Chef's tip: the butter is the glue, so spread it right to the crusts and press the sprinkles down gently with the flat of a knife before you lift the slice.

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120 min

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QingbuliangIced coconut milk dessert soup

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80 min

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105 min

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Halawet el jibnCheese and semolina rolls

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60 min

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HareesWheat and chicken porridge

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225 minGulf Arabian Rice & Grains

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Haryanvi bajra khichdiPearl millet and moong dal porridge

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75 min

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HawawshiSpiced beef stuffed bread

Walk through downtown Cairo in the evening and you will smell hawawshi before you see it: round baladi breads split open, packed with minced beef, onion, green chilli and warm spices, then baked until the bread turns crisp and the fat from the meat soaks into the crumb. Street stalls sell it wrapped in paper with pickles and tahini; at home it is a quick Friday supper. Pitta works well if you can't find baladi bread. The mistake most people make is packing in too thick a layer of meat, so the bread burns before the middle is cooked; keep it about 1 cm thick. Chef's tip: squeeze the grated onion in a sieve before mixing it in, or the filling turns wet and the bread goes soggy.

40 min

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HaydariStrained yogurt and feta dip

Order meze in an Istanbul meyhane and haydari is usually among the first small plates to land: very thick strained yogurt beaten with crumbled white cheese, garlic, dill and mint, then crowned with a drizzle of oil warmed with dried mint and chilli flakes. It is eaten with bread, beside roasted vegetables or with crisp börek, and it takes minutes once you have the yogurt. The mistake to avoid is using thin pouring yogurt, which gives you a runny sauce rather than a dip that holds its shape. Chef's tip: use Greek-style strained yogurt, or hang plain yogurt in a cloth for an hour, and check the beyaz peynir or feta is made with vegetarian rennet.

10 min

Turkish Chutneys & Dips

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Healthy tawaMixed vegetables on the tawa

A big sizzling griddle of boiled fresh beans and vegetables (peas, pigeon peas, black-eyed beans, soya beans, kidney beans, corn, cassava, sweet potato, baby potatoes and roasted plantain) tossed with sesame seeds, onions and a green chilli, ginger and garlic paste. It's filling, colourful and feeds a crowd at a barbecue. Serve sizzling hot straight from the tawa.

75 min

Indian Vegetarian

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Hideg meggylevesChilled sour cherry soup

Hideg meggyleves is a chilled sour cherry soup served as a starter in Hungary at the height of summer, from family lunches in the cherry-growing villages around Pest county to the terraces of Balaton restaurants. Sour cherries simmer briefly with sugar, cinnamon and cloves, then the soup is thickened with sour cream and served icy cold, pink and gently tangy. Some cooks add a splash of red wine for grown-ups. It is eaten before the main course, not as dessert, though no one complains if you have it after. Chef's tip: chill it for at least 3 hours; the flavour rounds out and the spices soften as it cools. A common mistake is boiling it after the cream goes in, which curdles it.

25 min

Hungarian Soups

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Hodu gwajaWalnut-shaped red bean cakes

Hodu gwaja (호두과자) were first sold at Cheonan station in South Chungcheong in the 1930s, and the town's walnut orchards still supply the pieces of nut hidden in every one. Today you find them in paper bags at every motorway service station in Korea: bite-sized, walnut-shaped cakes with a soft, eggy shell around sweet red bean paste and a chunk of walnut. They are made in a hinged cast-iron mould; a madeleine or Japanese takoyaki pan works too, though the shape will differ. Eat them warm, on the day. Chef's tip: heat the mould properly before the first batch; the first cakes are always the palest, so judge doneness by the colour of the later ones.

50 min

Korean Baking

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HogaoTomato and spring onion sauce

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20 min

Colombian Chutneys & Dips

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Hokey pokey ice creamHoneycomb toffee ice cream

Hokey pokey is what New Zealanders call honeycomb toffee, and vanilla ice cream full of crunchy little nuggets of it has been the country's best-loved flavour since the mid-twentieth century; it's scooped into cones at dairies and beaches from Auckland to Invercargill. The honeycomb is a bubbling golden syrup toffee that foams up when bicarbonate of soda goes in and sets glassy and light. Folded through a rich no-churn vanilla base, it stays crunchy at first and slowly turns chewy and toffee-like. Chef's tip: don't stir the sugar once it starts to melt; swirl the pan instead, or it will crystallise and turn grainy.

30 min

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Hokkaido butter cornButtered sweetcorn

Hokkaido grows most of Japan's sweetcorn, and in late summer roadside stands around Sapporo and Furano sell cobs so sweet people eat them raw. Butter corn is how the island turns that harvest into a side dish: kernels hissing in a hot pan with Hokkaido's other pride, butter, and finished with soy sauce until the edges catch. You'll find it as a ramen topping, a beer snack in izakaya and a bento filler. Serve it hot beside grilled vegetables or rice. Chef's tip: let the kernels sit in the pan without stirring for a minute at a time. A few browned, almost toasted kernels give the dish its nutty, popcorn-like smell.

10 min

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HolubtsiCabbage rolls with pork and rice

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135 min

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35 min

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Homemade fresh yubaFresh tofu skin

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45 min

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Horchata de arrozRice and cinnamon drink

Mexican horchata is a sweet, milky-looking agua fresca made from rice soaked overnight with cinnamon, then blended and strained. It is quite different from the Valencian horchata de chufa made from tiger nuts. Sold everywhere from Mexico City street stalls to taquerías in Oaxaca, it cools the mouth after a spicy taco and tastes of cinnamon, vanilla and toasted grain. We blend in almonds for extra creaminess and keep it dairy free, so it is vegan. Chef's tip: strain twice, the second time through a fine cloth; a gritty horchata is the most common mistake, and that silky texture is what you're after.

15 min

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Houskové knedlíkyBread dumpling loaf

Houskové knedlíky are the sliced bread dumplings that sit beside almost every sauce in a Prague pub, from mushroom svíčková-style cream sauces to sweet-sour dill gravy. Unlike the round German Semmelknödel, these are a soft yeast dough rolled into a log with crisp cubes of stale roll inside, simmered whole, then cut into thick, spongy slices that drink up gravy. Czech grandmothers still slice them with a length of thread rather than a knife, which keeps the crumb open instead of squashing it. Chef's tip: cut the cooked loaf with a piece of cotton thread wrapped around it and pulled tight; a knife presses the slices into dense, gluey discs.

55 min

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Huevos a la mexicanaScrambled eggs with tomato and chilli

Huevos a la mexicana is the everyday scrambled egg breakfast cooked in homes and fondas all over Mexico, named because its red tomato, white onion and green chilli match the colours of the Mexican flag. The vegetables are cooked just long enough to soften and release their juices, then the eggs are stirred through gently into soft, juicy curds with a fresh chilli kick. Serve with warm corn tortillas and refried beans, and make tacos at the table. Chef's tip: take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look a little wet; they keep cooking on the plate.

15 min

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Huevos rancherosFried eggs on tortillas

Huevos rancheros, 'ranch-style eggs', is the big country breakfast eaten all over Mexico: corn tortillas briefly fried in oil, topped with fried eggs and drowned in salsa ranchera, a warm, chunky sauce of charred tomatoes and serrano chillies, with refried beans on the side. The runny yolks mix with the spicy tomato sauce and the soft tortilla soaks it all up. Serve with avocado and coffee. Choose queso fresco made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: fry the tortillas only for a few seconds a side; you want them pliable with crisp edges, not hard like tostadas, so you can cut them with a fork.

20 min

Mexican Breakfast & Brunch

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Humita en chalaSteamed corn and squash parcels

In Salta, Jujuy and Tucumán in Argentina's Andean northwest, humitas are made in late summer when the corn is young and milky. Fresh kernels are grated off the cob and cooked with onion, red pepper, squash and a little sweet paprika, then bound with cheese, wrapped in the fresh green husks (chala), tied with strips of husk and simmered. They come out soft, sweet and savoury, like a delicate corn pudding. Chef's tip: grate the corn on a box grater; it releases the milky juice that sets the humita, which cut kernels never will.

75 min

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Hunan tiger-skin peppersBlistered green chillies in sweet-sour glaze

Hu pi jian jiao, 'tiger-skin peppers', is everyday home cooking in Hunan, the province famous for loving chilli even more than Sichuan does. Long green peppers are pressed into a hot, dry wok until their skins blacken in stripes like a tiger's coat, then glazed with soy, black vinegar and a touch of sugar. In Changsha it's eaten with plenty of rice, which tames the heat. Chef's tip: press the peppers flat with a spatula as they cook so the whole skin touches the iron and blisters evenly.

15 min

Chinese Sides

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Hünkar beğendiLamb on smoked aubergine purée

Hünkar beğendi is a dish from the Ottoman palace kitchens of Istanbul; its name means 'the sultan was pleased', and a well-known story links it to a royal banquet of the 1860s. Today it is a special Sunday or guest dish in Istanbul homes and old-style lokanta restaurants. Tender chunks of lamb are braised slowly with tomato and peppers, then spooned over beğendi, a silky purée of fire-charred aubergine whisked into a light cheese sauce. The smoky, creamy base against the rich stew is the whole point. Chef's tip: char the aubergines directly over a gas flame until the skins are black and collapsing; the oven alone won't give that smoky flavour.

150 min

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HutspotCarrot, onion and potato mash

Every year on 3 October the city of Leiden celebrates Leidens Ontzet, the end of the Spanish siege of 1574, and the whole town eats hutspot. The story goes that a hungry boy found a pot of stewed root vegetables left behind in the abandoned Spanish camp. Today it is a rough, orange mash of winter carrots, onions and potatoes boiled together in one pot, then stamped coarsely with butter. In the rest of the Netherlands it turns up all autumn and winter as a weekday supper. It is traditionally served with slow-braised beef (klapstuk); here it goes with a fried egg or a spoon of piccalilli, which suits it just as well. Chef's tip: layer the vegetables with the potatoes on top and the carrots at the bottom, in just enough water to reach the potatoes; the potatoes steam, the carrots soak up the flavour of the onions, and nothing turns watery.

45 min

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IkameshiRice-stuffed squid

At Mori, a small fishing town on the railway north of Hakodate, ikameshi has been sold as a station lunchbox since the war years, when rice was scarce and squid was plentiful. It is still one of Japan's best-known station bentos and a star of the regional food fairs that department stores hold all over the country. Small squid are stuffed with soaked glutinous rice, pinned shut and simmered in a sweet soy sauce until the rice swells into a sticky, savoury filling. Slice them into rounds to serve warm or at room temperature. Chef's tip: use small squid with bodies about 15 cm long, as larger ones need longer cooking and turn rubbery before they soften again.

60 min

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Ikan bakarGrilled fish with sambal

Night markets and seaside stalls from Port Dickson to Kuantan announce ikan bakar by smell long before you see the charcoal: whole fish or stingray wings smeared with red sambal, laid on banana leaf and grilled until the leaf blackens and the paste caramelises onto the flesh. The leaf keeps the fish moist and lends a faint tea-like smokiness, while the sambal brings shrimp-paste depth, tamarind sourness and steady heat. It is eaten with the fingers, with plain rice, cucumber and a sharp dip called air asam made from tamarind, chillies and shallots. Chef's tip: score the fish right down to the bone so the sambal seeps into the cuts and the thickest part cooks at the same pace as the tail.

45 min

Malaysian Fish

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Ilocos empanadaCrisp rice-flour turnovers

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.

75 min

Filipino Snacks & Starters

by KrazyBadal 0 views

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