Featured recipe

Taramosalata

Fish roe dip

Taramosalata is the star of Clean Monday, the first day of Greek Lent, scooped onto torn lagana at picnics while children fly kites, and it stays on taverna meze tables all year. The real thing is beige-pink, not bright pink, made from salted cured carp or cod roe (tarama) beaten with soaked bread, onion, lemon and oil into a salty, briny, mousse-like dip. Because tarama is cured rather than cooked, buy pasteurised roe for a safer version; even so, this dip is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Common mistake: adding the oil too fast, which splits it. Chef's tip: use white tarama if you can find it; it is less salty and lets the lemon shine.

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Vegetable charquicánPumpkin, potato and corn stew

Charquicán is old Chilean country food: a thick mash of pumpkin and potato with corn and peas, once made with charqui, the dried meat of the Andes. In the south and in Santiago homes it's a winter weeknight dinner, served in a deep plate with a fried egg on top and pickled onions or a simple salad. Without the meat it's still rich and smoky with merkén (smoked chilli) and paprika. Chef's tip: mash only roughly at the end; charquicán should have soft chunks, not be a smooth purée.

50 min

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Prawn balchãoSweet-sour prawn pickle curry

Balchão started as a way to keep the catch from the Goan monsoon season: prawns cooked down in a fierce red masala with vinegar and sugar until they keep like a pickle. In Goan homes a jar sits in the fridge to spoon beside rice and dal, and a fresh batch is served as a main curry on Sundays. Its taste is bold: hot, sharp and sweet all at once. Chef's tip: fry the masala slowly until the oil separates and it turns a deep brick colour; undercooked balchão tastes raw and vinegary.

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TequeñosFried cheese sticks

Tequeños are said to come from Los Teques, the town in the hills outside Caracas, and they are the party food of Venezuela: no birthday, wedding or office celebration is without a tray of these crisp pastry fingers wrapped around salty white cheese. The dough is spiralled around the cheese, then fried so the pastry is crunchy and the cheese just starts to melt. Serve with guasacaca (avocado sauce) or a sweet chilli dip. Use a cheese made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: overlap each spiral of dough slightly and seal the ends well, or the cheese escapes into the oil.

45 min

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FrituleRaisin and citrus doughnut drops

On Christmas Eve, in kitchens from Split to Dubrovnik and out on the islands, bowls of fritule are fried by the dozen: small, airy doughnut drops scented with orange and lemon zest and studded with raisins, rolled in sugar while still warm. Many families add a splash of rakija or rum to the batter, but fresh orange juice works just as well and keeps them child-friendly. They are eaten all through Advent and the carnival season, often from paper cones at Christmas markets. Chef's tip: keep the oil at about 170°C; too hot and the fritule brown outside while the middle stays raw and doughy, the most common mistake.

105 minBalkan Desserts

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ThiakryMillet couscous with sweet yogurt

Thiakry, called dégué in Mali and Burkina Faso, is the creamy dessert of Senegalese weddings, naming ceremonies and Tabaski: pellets of steamed millet stirred into sweetened yoghurt and soft fromage frais, scented with vanilla and nutmeg and served cold. Ready-made millet granules (arraw or sankhal) are sold in African grocers, which makes it a 15-minute job. Raisins and a little coconut are common in Dakar. Chef's tip: steam or soak the millet fully before it meets the yoghurt; undercooked grains stay hard and gritty in the cold.

25 min

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PrinsesstårtaMarzipan-covered layer cake

This domed green cake sits in every Swedish konditori window and is the cake for name days, birthdays and the last week of September, which Swedes call Prinsesstårtans vecka. It was first written down in the 1930s by Jenny Åkerström, cookery teacher to three young Swedish princesses, and they adored it. Under the smooth marzipan lie airy sponge layers, raspberry jam, thick vanilla custard and a tall mound of whipped cream. Shop versions often set the cream with gelatine; here the custard is firmed with cornflour and the cream with a little mascarpone, so it is fully vegetarian and still slices cleanly. Chef's tip: assemble the cake the day before you need the custard and sponge, but cover it with marzipan only a few hours before serving; marzipan sweats in the fridge overnight.

90 minScandinavian Desserts

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Frites with aïoliChips with garlic mayonnaise

Frites are a fixture of French brasseries and street stalls, served in paper cones at markets and beside every omelette and salad in Paris cafés. The secret is frying twice: once gently to cook them through, then hot to make them crisp. In Provence, the dip would be aïoli, a thick, garlicky sauce that gave its name to the region's Friday feast. Our aïoli is made the old-fashioned egg-free way, with a little boiled potato to hold the garlic and olive oil together. Children usually prefer it with less garlic. Chef's tip: dry the cut potatoes thoroughly before frying; wet chips are the common mistake that make the oil spit and leave the chips soft.

45 min

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Chaman kaliyaPaneer in turmeric milk gravy

In Kashmir paneer is called chaman, and kaliya is the name for a gravy coloured bright yellow with turmeric rather than red with chilli. Kashmiri Pandit cooks fry thick slabs of paneer, rest them in warm water so they stay spongy, then simmer them in milk with fennel, dry ginger and cardamom. The result is mild, sweet-scented and soothing, a dish that sits beside the fiery ones on a wedding or festival spread and is just as welcome on a weekday with rice. Chef's tip: use a generous spoon of good turmeric; the gravy should glow a deep gold, and the milk mellows any rawness.

40 min

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ProvoletaGrilled provolone with oregano

Provoleta is the first thing off the grill at an Argentine asado: a thick round of provolone-style cheese, invented by Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires, cooked in a small iron pan or straight on the grate until the outside forms a golden crust and the inside turns molten. It comes to the table bubbling, sprinkled with oregano and chilli flakes and drizzled with chimichurri, to scoop up with crusty bread. Many provolones use animal rennet, so check the label and choose one made with vegetarian rennet. Chef's tip: chill the cheese well before cooking; cold cheese forms a crust before the middle melts and runs.

13 min

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Terong baladoFried aubergine in chilli sambal

Balado is the Minangkabau way of smothering fried food in a coarse, shiny red chilli sambal, and in West Sumatra the aubergine version is a daily home dish as much as a restaurant one. The aubergine is fried until soft and creamy inside, then folded into a sambal of red chillies, shallots and tomato cooked down until sweet. Serve it at room temperature with rice and fried tofu. Chef's tip: grind the chillies coarsely rather than to a purée; Padang cooks want flecks of skin and seed in a balado.

40 min

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Ptichye molokoSoufflé cake with chocolate glaze

Ptichye moloko, 'bird's milk', is named for the impossible treat in old fairy tales, and in 1978 Moscow's Praga restaurant turned it into a cake: a cloud of vanilla soufflé on a thin sponge, glazed with dark chocolate. Soviet shoppers queued for hours for the boxed version, and it is still the cake for birthdays and 8 March. The soufflé has always been set with agar, a seaweed jelly, which makes it naturally free of gelatine and gives a clean, springy bite. Chef's tip: boil the agar syrup to exactly 110°C (a thread forms between two fingers); undercooked syrup leaves the soufflé weepy and soft.

80 min

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Ptitim with vegetablesToasted pearl couscous with vegetables

Ptitim was invented in Israel in the 1950s, when rice was scarce and the Osem factory was asked to make a wheat substitute; the little toasted pasta pearls soon became the dish every Israeli child grew up on. In homes from Haifa to Be'er Sheva it is cooked like a pilaf, first toasted in oil until nutty, then simmered in stock until plump and chewy. This version folds in courgette, red pepper and peas for a quick weeknight dinner or lunchbox side. Chef's tip: toast the dry ptitim until it smells like popcorn and turns light gold; it gives a much nuttier flavour than boiling it like pasta.

25 min

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Puerto Rican sofritoHerb and pepper cooking base

Open a freezer anywhere in Puerto Rico, or in the Puerto Rican neighbourhoods of New York and Orlando, and you'll find a tub or ice-cube tray of green sofrito. It is the start of almost everything savoury on the island: beans, rice, stews, soups and sauces. Unlike the slow-cooked Spanish sofrito, this one is raw, blended from culantro (recao), cilantro, little sweet ajíes dulces, cubanelle peppers, onion and lots of garlic. It smells grassy and sharp in the jar and turns mellow and savoury as soon as it hits hot oil. Chef's tip: if you can't find ajíes dulces, use extra red pepper and a tiny piece of seeded scotch bonnet; you want their fruity perfume, not heat.

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95 min

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PulihoraTamarind rice

Pulihora is the rice Andhra families cook for Ugadi, Sankranti and every temple festival in between, and it's also the dish wrapped in banana leaves for long train trips because it keeps all day. The Telugu version is sharper and hotter than Tamil puliyodarai or Karnataka puliyogare: cooked rice is tossed with a thick tamarind paste, turmeric, mustard and a hefty tempering of peanuts, chana dal, green and red chillies and curry leaves, with no sweet spice powder. It's sour, hot, nutty and fragrant with sesame oil. Eat it at room temperature with curd or a crisp papad. Chef's tip: cook the tamarind paste until oil separates at the edges; under-cooked tamarind gives the rice a raw, puckery sourness.

45 min

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Pulpo a la gallegaOctopus with paprika and potatoes

Pulpo a feira is fair-day food in Galicia: at markets and village fiestas, pulpeiras boil whole octopus in big copper pots, snip it with scissors onto round wooden plates and finish it with coarse salt, pimentón and olive oil. The town of O Carballiño in Ourense holds an octopus festival every August, and you'll find the dish in pulperías across the region all year. At home it is simpler than it looks; the secret is that a frozen octopus is a tender one, because freezing breaks down the tough fibres. Chef's tip: use the octopus cooking water to boil the potatoes, which picks up its flavour and pink colour.

60 min

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PumaloiSteamed rice cakes

Pumaloi is the everyday breakfast of the Khasi Hills: coarse powdered rice, lightly moistened, packed into a tall steamer (traditionally a bamboo or metal 'khiew') and steamed into a soft, crumbly cake. In Shillong it is sold warm at morning stalls with a cup of sweet tea, and at home it is served with tungrymbai, a vegetable stew or a chilli chutney. It is plain on purpose, like Kerala's puttu but drier and lighter. Chef's tip: the flour should feel like damp sand, holding a shape when squeezed but crumbling easily; any wetter and the cake goes gluey.

50 min

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Pumpkin kibbehBaked bulgur and pumpkin layers

Kibbet laqteen is the Lenten kibbeh of Lebanon's Christian villages, made in the weeks before Easter when meat is off the table: roasted pumpkin is kneaded with fine bulgur, onion and warm spices into a soft dough, which is pressed in layers around a filling of caramelised onion, chickpeas, spinach and walnuts, then baked in a round tray. It is cut into diamonds and eaten warm or cold, often with a plate of pickles and a bowl of salad. The common slip is a wet pumpkin, which makes the dough too sticky to spread; roast the pumpkin rather than boiling it. Chef's tip: score a deep diamond pattern before baking and pour oil into the cuts, so every piece comes out with crisp edges.

75 min

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Pumpkin samsaPumpkin pastries

In autumn, when piles of orange pumpkins appear in the Chorsu bazaar in Tashkent, bakers switch some of their samsa from meat to oshqovoq somsa: crisp, flaky triangles filled with diced pumpkin, onion, cumin and a little sugar, baked against the tandoor wall. They are a street snack eaten hot from paper with green tea, and a fasting-friendly favourite at home. The pastry here is the quick laminated dough Uzbek home cooks use, rolled thin, buttered and coiled. Chef's tip: dice the pumpkin small (1 cm) and don't pre-cook it; raw pumpkin steams inside the pastry and stays in tender, distinct pieces instead of turning into purée.

80 min

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Punjabi chole samosa chaatSamosas with chickpea curry and yogurt

Samosa chaat is how the street stalls of Punjab and Delhi turn yesterday's samosas into the best snack of the day. Samosas are broken open on a plate, covered with a ladle of hot, tangy chole, then cooled down with sweet whisked yogurt, green and tamarind chutneys, raw onion, crunchy sev and a dusting of chaat masala. Every spoonful is hot and cold, crisp and soft, sweet, sour and spicy at once. Use bought samosas or the site's own samosa recipe. Chef's tip: warm the samosas in the oven until crisp before you crush them; a soggy samosa makes a heavy chaat, a crisp one soaks up the chole and still crunches.

20 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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Punjabi lassiSweet yogurt drink with cream

In Amritsar and on the highways across Punjab, lassi comes in a tall steel or brass glass, churned so thick a spoon nearly stands up in it, with a raft of malai (clotted cream) floating on top. It is a summer drink, but Punjabis drink it all year with a stuffed paratha breakfast or after a heavy lunch. This is the plain sweet kind, with no fruit, so the tang of good full-fat yogurt is the whole point. Chef's tip: chill the yogurt, milk and glasses beforehand; cold lassi stays thicker.

5 min

Indian Drinks

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Punjene paprikeStuffed peppers

When late-summer markets in Novi Sad and Belgrade fill up with pale yellow and light green peppers, Serbian kitchens make big pots of punjene paprike to eat for several days. The peppers are packed with seasoned beef and pork mince and rice, stood upright and simmered slowly in a light tomato sauce until meltingly soft. They are served with a dollop of sour cream and bread to mop up the sauce. This recipe contains pork. The easy mistake is stuffing the peppers too tightly: the rice swells and splits them, so leave the top 2 cm empty. Chef's tip: plug each pepper with a slice of potato or tomato before simmering, so the filling stays inside.

105 minBalkan Meat

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PunuguluDosa batter fritters

Punugulu are the bite-sized, golden fritters sold by the paper-cone along the streets of Vijayawada and Guntur on wet evenings, and made at home whenever the idli or dosa batter has gone a little too sour. A spoonful of thick batter with onion, green chilli and cumin is dropped into hot oil, where it puffs into a round ball with a crackly shell and a soft, spongy middle. Serve them hot with peanut chutney, ginger chutney or plain ketchup and a cup of chai. Chef's tip: add a spoonful of rice flour to the batter; it gives punugulu their crunch and stops them soaking up oil.

30 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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Pupusas de queso y frijolCheese and bean stuffed corn cakes

In El Salvador pupusas are a Sunday-night ritual: families queue at the pupusería, where cooks pat the dough between wet palms with a soft clapping sound, and the second Sunday of November is National Pupusa Day. These thick masa cakes are stuffed with stringy cheese and smooth refried black beans, griddled until speckled, and eaten with your hands, topped with curtido and a thin tomato salsa. Chef's tip: keep a bowl of water with a splash of oil beside you and wet your hands before every pupusa, so the dough stays supple and the seams don't crack.

65 minCentral American Snacks & Starters

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Wiener SchnitzelBreaded veal cutlet

In Vienna's old Beisl taverns the Schnitzel arrives so large it hangs over the plate: a veal escalope beaten thin, coated in flour, egg and fine breadcrumbs and fried in plenty of hot fat while the pan is swirled, so the crumb lifts away from the meat in golden waves. Austrian law keeps the name 'Wiener Schnitzel' for veal; the pork version, very common in German homes, is called Schnitzel Wiener Art and is cooked exactly the same way. Serve it with a lemon wedge, lingonberry jam and potato salad. The most common mistake is pressing the crumbs firmly onto the meat, which stops the coating from puffing. Chef's tip: shake off the crumbs and lay the cutlet in only when the fat is hot enough that a crumb sizzles at once.

32 min

German Meat

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PutoSteamed rice cakes

Puto are small steamed rice cakes found at every Filipino party and merienda table, with countless town styles from Biñan's flat rounds to Calasiao's tiny bites in Pangasinan. Traditionally the batter is fermented ground rice; this home version uses rice flour and baking powder for a quick, reliable rise and a fine, cottony crumb. A strip of cheese on top melts into the cake as it steams. They go with dinuguan in Luzon, but a cup of coffee or hot chocolate is just as good. Chef's tip: wrap the steamer lid in a tea towel so condensation doesn't drip onto the cakes and leave pockmarks.

40 min

Filipino Desserts

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FrappéShaken iced coffee

The frappé was invented by accident at the Thessaloniki International Fair in 1957, when a coffee rep shook instant coffee with cold water because there was no hot water to hand. Within a few years it was the drink of every Greek café and beach bar, sipped slowly through a straw for an hour or more. Instant coffee, sugar and a little water are shaken or frothed into a thick, light-brown foam, then topped up with cold water, ice and, if you like, milk. Order it sketos (no sugar), metrios (medium) or glykos (sweet). Chef's tip: use only a splash of water for the first shake; adding all the water at once is the common mistake and you get thin coffee with no foam.

5 min

Greek Drinks

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Puttu and kadala currySteamed rice cylinders with chickpea curry

Puttu and kadala is Kerala's most loved breakfast: tall cylinders of steamed rice flour layered with fresh coconut, served with a dark, earthy curry of black chickpeas (kadala) cooked in a masala of coconut roasted until deep brown. Puttu itself is plain and crumbly, so you break it up with your fingers and mash it into the curry, often with a ripe banana and pappadam on the side. The chickpeas make it filling and protein-rich. Chef's tip: the puttu flour should feel like damp sand that holds when squeezed and crumbles when poked; too wet and the puttu turns dense and gluey.

70 min

Indian Breakfast & Brunch

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ThalipeethMultigrain flatbread

Thalipeeth is a rustic Maharashtrian flatbread made from bhajani, a flour of roasted grains and lentils. The dough is soft and sticky with onion, green chilli and coriander, and is patted out by hand straight onto the pan, with holes poked in it so the oil can crisp it from both sides. It comes off the tawa crunchy at the edges and soft in the middle, smoky with cumin and coriander seed. Eat it hot for breakfast with thick yogurt, white butter or a garlic and peanut chutney, or with lemon pickle. Chef's tip: pat the dough out on a damp cloth or wet baking paper and flip it straight onto the pan; it's too soft to roll, and wet hands keep it from sticking.

35 min

Indian Breads & Parathas

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Pyaaz kachoriOnion-filled fried pastries

Pyaaz kachori is the pride of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, where sweet shops fry them from early morning and sell them by the hundred with tamarind chutney. The crust is khasta: short, layered and crackly, made by rubbing plenty of oil into the flour and frying slowly. Inside is a soft, jammy filling of onions cooked with fennel, coriander seed and nigella, bound with a little gram flour and potato and lifted with dried mango powder. Eat them warm for breakfast or with afternoon chai. Chef's tip: fry them in oil that is only just warm and let them take their time; the slow fry is what puffs the crust into crisp, hollow layers instead of a hard, oily shell.

80 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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ChakhwiJackfruit seed and papaya stew

Chakhwi is a Tripuri festive stew cooked at weddings and family feasts around Agartala, where the defining ingredient is 'khar' or soda, made by filtering water through banana-plant ash. It softens vegetables and gives a smooth, gently alkaline taste. Pork chakhwi is the best known; the vegetarian version is cooked with raw papaya, jackfruit seeds, bamboo shoot and long beans, with ginger and green chilli. It is soupier than Assamese khar and has no lentils. Chef's tip: use bicarbonate of soda if you have no ash water, but only a pinch; you should be able to taste it, not feel it.

50 min

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Thayir sadamCurd rice

No Tamil meal is really finished without thayir sadam. It's the last course on a banana-leaf lunch, the comfort food packed for train journeys and school tiffins, and the prasadam handed out in some Tamil Nadu temples. Soft, mashed rice is mixed with cool yogurt and a splash of milk, seasoned with ginger, green chilli and curry leaves popped in hot oil, then dotted with pomegranate, grated carrot or green grapes. It's eaten slightly cool with a spoonful of pickle or a fried vathal on the side. Chef's tip: mix a little milk in with the yogurt; it keeps the rice creamy and stops it turning sour if you pack it for lunch several hours ahead.

25 min

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Qalb el louzSemolina and almond cake

Qalb el louz ('heart of almond') is the Ramadan sweet of Algiers: a dense, sandy semolina cake with a ribbon of almond filling, cut into diamonds with an almond on top and soaked in syrup while hot. Pastry shops in the Casbah sell it by the tray after iftar, to eat with mint tea or coffee late into the night. The semolina is soaked overnight in butter and water, which gives it its moist, grainy crumb. Chef's tip: pour cold syrup over the hot cake; hot syrup on a hot cake makes it soggy instead of moist.

90 min

Algerian Baking

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QatayefStuffed Ramadan pancakes

Qatayef only really appear in Egypt during Ramadan: in the weeks of the fast, street vendors in Cairo and Alexandria set up big griddles and pour rows of small pancakes that are cooked on one side only, then sold by the kilo for families to fill at home. The pale, bubbly side is folded around chopped nuts and raisins (or a creamy ashta filling), sealed into half-moons, baked or fried until crisp and dipped in syrup. They are eaten after iftar with tea. Chef's tip: cook the pancakes on one side only and don't flip them; the uncooked top stays sticky and is what glues the edges shut.

60 min

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ThekuaWheat and jaggery cookies

During Chhath Puja, when families across Bihar stand in rivers and ponds to make offerings to the setting and rising sun, thekua fill the bamboo baskets carried to the ghats. Women make them at home in the days before, pressing jaggery-sweetened wheat dough into carved wooden moulds (sancha) and frying them in ghee until dark and crunchy. Outside the festival they are the snack Bihari students take back to hostels in the city, because they keep for weeks. Chef's tip: the dough must be stiff, and the frying slow; soft dough loses the pattern and hot oil leaves them pale and soft inside.

50 min

Indian Indian Sweets

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ThethriGram flour twists

No Teeja in Chhattisgarh passes without a tin of thethri: knotted and twisted pieces of gram-flour dough, seasoned with ajwain and chilli and fried slowly until they shatter when you bite. Married daughters coming home for the festival are sent back with them, alongside the sweet khurmi, and they keep for weeks. Each family has its favourite shape, from simple knots to little spirals and braided rings. Chef's tip: fry on a medium-low flame and be patient; thethri fried hot puff up and brown outside but stay soft and chewy inside.

55 min

Indian Snacks & Starters

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FosoliaGreen beans and carrots

Fosolia takes its name from the Italian fagioli, a reminder of the Italian occupation of the 1930s, but it is now completely Ethiopian and a regular on fasting platters in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. Green beans and carrot batons are cooked with lots of onion, garlic and ginger until tender but still bright, then served warm with injera or rice. It is quick, mild and colourful. Chef's tip: cut the beans and carrots to the same length and thickness so they cook evenly.

25 min

Ethiopian Sides

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Qishan saozi mianSour-hot noodles with pork

Weddings, birthdays and harvest feasts in Qishan county, west of Xi'an, all call for these little bowls of noodles, and guests may eat ten or twenty small portions in a row. The key is the saozi, diced pork slowly cooked in aged vinegar and chilli until it turns red, tangy and fragrant; the broth is sour, spicy and bright with diced tofu, carrot, wood ear, egg and garlic shoots. The noodles are thin and springy and the bowls deliberately small. Serve it to a crowd as a lively lunch, with a plate of pickled vegetables. Chef's tip: make the saozi a day ahead; it keeps for a week in the fridge and tastes better after a rest.

60 min

Chinese Soups

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ChakalakaSpicy vegetable and bean relish

Chakalaka is said to have started in the townships and mines around Johannesburg, where workers cooked tinned beans and vegetables with chilli and curry powder over open fires. Today no South African braai (barbecue) is complete without a pot of it, and it goes on the table at Sunday lunch, at funerals and weddings, served warm or cold alongside pap. It is spicy, a little sweet from the carrots and peppers, and tangy from the tomato and beans. Chef's tip: grate the carrots rather than chopping them; they melt into the relish and give it its characteristic soft, spoonable texture.

30 min

South African Sides

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ThieboudienneFish and rice in tomato broth

Ceebu jën, "rice and fish" in Wolof, is the dish Saint-Louis claims as its own and the whole of Senegal cooks for the big Friday or Sunday lunch, served on one wide platter that the family eats from together. Thick fish steaks are stuffed with a green paste of parsley, garlic and chilli, browned, then simmered in a deep tomato broth with whole cassava, carrot, cabbage and aubergine; the broken rice then soaks up that same broth until it turns orange and fragrant. The prized part is the xoon, the crust that forms at the bottom of the pot, which is shared out at the end. The usual mistake is leaving the fish in the pot while the rice cooks, so it falls apart; lift it out with the vegetables and keep it warm. Chef's tip: rinse the broken rice three times and steam it briefly before it goes into the broth, so the grains stay separate instead of turning to porridge.

135 min

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Qorma-e sabziLamb with spinach and herbs

Qorma-e sabzi is the green qorma of Kabul: lamb slowly braised with a large amount of spinach, dill, coriander and spring onion until the greens collapse into a dark, silky sauce. Afghan cooks fry the onions slowly until deep brown first, so the stew tastes sweet and savoury against the slightly bitter greens, and a spoon of dried fenugreek leaves adds the typical bitter-sweet scent. It is served on Fridays and for guests with chalaw, plain white rice, or with naan. The common mistake is adding the greens raw and wet in one go, which stews them grey and watery; wilt and squeeze them first. Chef's tip: let the stew simmer uncovered for the last 15 minutes until the oil rises to the top; that is the sign of a well-cooked qorma.

135 min

Afghan Curries

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XawaashSomali spice blend

Xawaash (pronounced 'ha-wash') is the spice mix every Somali kitchen keeps in a jar, used in rice, soups, stews, sambuusa fillings and even tea. Families toast and grind their own, often in quantity before Ramadan, and the balance of warm cumin, earthy coriander and sweet cardamom and cinnamon varies from house to house. It is different from Yemeni hawaij and Ethiopian berbere: there is no chilli in it. Chef's tip: toast each spice only until it darkens a shade and smells warm; burnt cumin turns the whole jar bitter.

11 min

Somali Basics

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Fondue moitié-moitiéGruyère and Vacherin fondue

Moitié-moitié means half and half, and in Fribourg it names the canton's own fondue: equal weights of nutty Gruyère and soft, buttery Vacherin fribourgeois melted with dry white wine in a glazed earthenware caquelon. Families light the burner in the middle of the table on cold evenings from October to March, and ski huts above Gruyères serve it after a day on the slopes. The Vacherin makes it silkier and milder than a Gruyère-only fondue, so it clings to the bread in a thick, glossy coat. Serve with day-old bread, a plate of cornichons and small boiled potatoes, and drink white wine or warm black tea with it; locals say cold water sits badly with all that cheese. Traditional Gruyère and Vacherin are made with animal rennet, so for a vegetarian table look for wheels labelled with microbial or vegetarian rennet, or ask a cheesemonger for a similar Alpine cheese that uses it. Chef's tip: grate the cheese rather than cubing it and let it come to room temperature for 30 minutes; it melts evenly and the fondue stays smooth.

40 min

Swiss Vegetarian

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Qubani ka meethaStewed apricots with cream

No Hyderabadi wedding feast, or dawat, ends without qubani ka meetha: dried Afghan apricots soaked overnight, then simmered slowly with sugar until they break down into a glossy, deep amber compote, served cold with thick cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. In Hyderabad the kernels from inside the apricot stones are scattered on top; at home, blanched almonds give the same look and taste, and are safer, as some apricot kernels are bitter and shouldn't be eaten in quantity. It is sweet, tart and jammy, and very easy to make for a crowd days ahead. Chef's tip: keep the soaking water and cook the apricots in it; it holds much of their flavour and natural sugar.

60 min

Indian Indian Sweets

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Focaccia di ReccoThin cheese-filled flatbread

Focaccia di Recco has nothing to do with the thick, bubbly focaccia most people know: it is two sheets of unleavened dough stretched almost transparent, with blobs of soft, tangy cheese in between, baked in a blisteringly hot oven for a few minutes. It comes from the seaside town of Recco, east of Genoa, where bakeries sell it in the morning and families eat it as a first course. At home, use stracchino or crescenza, the creamy fresh cheeses closest to Ligurian prescinseua. Chef's tip: stretch the dough over the backs of your hands like a pizzaiolo; rolling alone never gets it thin enough.

37 min

Italian Baking

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