Featured recipe

Dum ka murgh

Slow-cooked chicken in yogurt and cashews

Dum ka murgh is a dish of Hyderabad's Nizami dastarkhwan, still cooked at weddings and Eid lunches: chicken marinated in yogurt, ground cashews, fried onions and whole spices, then sealed in a heavy pot and cooked slowly in its own steam. The gravy is pale, rich and fragrant with cardamom and kewra. The common mistake is opening the lid to check; the steam escapes and the chicken cooks unevenly, so trust the timing and use a heavy pan on a tawa. Food safety: marinate covered in the fridge and cook until the thickest piece reaches 74 °C. Chef's tip: fry the onions slowly to an even deep gold, not brown; burnt birista turns the whole gravy bitter.

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25 min

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195 min

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100 min

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25 min

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15 min

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TorlyBaked mixed vegetables

Torly is a tray of mixed vegetables (potatoes, courgettes, carrots, green beans, peas, peppers) baked in a tomato and garlic sauce until soft and slightly caramelised at the edges. The name is Turkish, a reminder of Ottoman times, but it has long been an everyday Egyptian home dish, usually cooked when the summer markets are full of courgettes and served with white rice or vermicelli rice. Many families add meat; this meat-free version is just as common in fasting seasons. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes and carrots smaller than the courgettes, so everything is tender at the same moment.

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Engadiner NusstorteWalnut caramel pie

The Engadiner Nusstorte comes from the high Engadine valley in Graubünden, where pastry cooks who had emigrated to Italian and French cities brought home their skills in the 1800s, and walnuts arrived from Italy over the passes. It is a shallow, closed tart of rich butter pastry filled with chopped walnuts set in thick, golden cream caramel. Bakeries all over Switzerland sell it, and it keeps for weeks, so families give it as a gift and take it on hikes. Cut it into thin wedges: it is very rich, chewy, crunchy and buttery all at once. Chef's tip: let the caramel reach a deep amber before you pour in the cream; pale caramel tastes only of sugar, dark amber gives the toffee note the tart is known for.

80 min

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Gulai nangkaYoung jackfruit curry

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50 min

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Enduri pithaSteamed rice cakes with coconut

Enduri (or haladi patra pitha) is the sweet of Prathamastami in Odisha, the November festival when Odia mothers pray for their eldest child, who gets the first pitha of the day. Fermented rice-and-urad batter is spread on fresh turmeric leaves, filled with coconut, jaggery, black pepper and cardamom, folded and steamed until the leaves give the cake a green, gingery perfume. The cake is soft and slightly springy. Chef's tip: if you can't find turmeric leaves, use banana leaf with a pinch of grated fresh turmeric in the batter; the flavour is close.

60 min

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Yong tau fooStuffed tofu and vegetables

Hakka miners brought yong tau foo to the tin town of Ampang, on the edge of Kuala Lumpur, and families still drive there on weekends for big bowls of it. You choose your pieces from a counter, tofu, chillies, okra, aubergine and bitter gourd, each stuffed with a savoury paste, and the stall poaches or fries them and serves them in a light broth, with a sweet brown sauce and chilli sauce to dip. The traditional filling is fish and pork; this one is firm tofu, shiitake, water chestnut and carrot. It is a gentle, light meal. Chef's tip: press the stuffing in tightly and smooth it flush with a wet finger, so it stays put while it cooks.

60 min

Malaysian Soups

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Gulai daun singkongCassava leaves in coconut gravy

No Padang restaurant in West Sumatra is complete without a dish of gulai daun singkong: dark cassava leaves simmered until silky in a yellow coconut gravy fragrant with lemongrass, turmeric leaf and galangal. It is the cooling green on a table of rich, fiery plates, ladled over rice with sambal hijau. Restaurants sometimes add dried anchovies; this version doesn't. Frozen cassava leaves from Asian shops work well; kale is the best stand-in. Chef's tip: squeeze the boiled leaves hard before adding them, or the gravy goes thin and grassy.

50 min

Indonesian Curries

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GujeolpanNine-section vegetable platter

Gujeolpan (구절판) takes its name from the octagonal lacquered tray it is served on: eight outer compartments of finely cut, separately seasoned fillings around a stack of paper-thin wheat crêpes in the middle. It was a dish of the Seoul royal court and noble households, and it still appears at weddings, 60th birthdays and Seollal tables, where everyone builds their own little rolls. Classic trays include beef; this one keeps all the colour with shiitake, wood ear, cucumber, carrot, peppers, radish and yellow and white egg. It takes patience rather than skill. Chef's tip: cut every filling into matchsticks the same length as the crêpes are wide, about 5 cm, so each roll closes neatly.

95 min

Korean Snacks & Starters

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Empanadas venezolanasFried corn empanadas

Venezuelan empanadas are big, crisp half-moons made with white precooked corn flour, fried to order at beach kiosks on Margarita Island and at breakfast stands across Caracas. Compared with the small, potato-filled Colombian empanadas, they are larger, paler and often a little sweet in the dough, and the classic vegetarian fillings are simply grated white cheese or black beans with cheese (like an arepa dominó). Eat them hot with guasacaca or a squeeze of lime. Chef's tip: add a spoonful of sugar to the dough; it helps the crust turn golden and blistered in the oil.

50 min

Venezuelan Snacks & Starters

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Guiyang si wa waPancake rolls with shredded vegetables

Guiyang's favourite street snack is a do-it-yourself meal: stalls set out twenty or more small bowls of shredded vegetables, and each person wraps a few strands in a pancake no bigger than a palm, folds it like a swaddled baby and pours in a spoonful of sour, chilli-flecked broth. It's light, crunchy and fun to eat with friends. Use as many fillings as you like; the more colours, the better. Chef's tip: shred everything as fine as you can, so the little parcels stay neat and each mouthful has several flavours.

55 min

Chinese Snacks & Starters

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Yu xiang aubergineSweet and sour garlic aubergine

Yu xiang is a Sichuan flavour named after the way local cooks once seasoned fish, but it contains no fish at all: pickled chilli, garlic, ginger and spring onion balanced with sugar and black vinegar. Aubergine is the dish most Chengdu households make with it, often for a weekday supper, because the soft, creamy flesh drinks up the sauce. Serve it with rice and a plain green vegetable. Chef's tip: salt the aubergine fingers for 15 minutes and squeeze them dry; they then absorb far less oil and turn silky instead of greasy.

30 min

Chinese Vegetarian

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GudegYoung jackfruit stew

Gudeg is the signature of Yogyakarta: whole streets around Wijilan are lined with stalls selling it from dawn, and visitors carry it home in clay pots or woven baskets. Unripe jackfruit is cooked for hours with palm sugar, coconut milk, galangal and salam leaves until it turns reddish-brown, soft as pulled meat, and deeply sweet and savoury. The classic plate adds chicken, egg and spicy cattle-skin stew; this vegan plate pairs it with sticky-sweet tempeh and tofu and a sharp sambal to cut the sweetness. Chef's tip: let the pot cook down slowly until almost all the liquid is gone — drier gudeg keeps for days and tastes better on the second.

240 min

Indonesian Curries

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Torta fritaFried dough discs

In Uruguay, a grey rainy afternoon has one answer: torta frita and mate. These thin discs of dough, pierced with a hole in the middle, are fried until puffed and golden and either sprinkled with sugar or eaten plain, still hot, between sips passed around the circle. In Montevideo you'll smell them from street stalls on wet days; at home they're made with butter or beef fat, here with butter. Chef's tip: the hole in the middle isn't decoration; it lets the centre cook through at the same speed as the edges.

30 min

Paraguayan Snacks & Starters

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Yuca con mojoCassava with garlic sauce

Yuca con mojo is a fixture of the Cuban Nochebuena feast and of everyday family dinners in Matanzas and Miami alike: chunks of cassava boiled until they crack open and turn soft, then drenched in a hot dressing of olive oil, lots of garlic, onion rings and sour orange juice. The yuca soaks up the tangy, garlicky oil like a sponge. Serve it beside moros y cristianos or black beans. Chef's tip: add a splash of cold water to the pot halfway through boiling; Cuban cooks say it 'shocks' the yuca and helps it split open and turn tender.

35 min

Cuban Sides

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Empanadas salteñasBaked beef empanadas

In Salta, in Argentina's far northwest, empanadas are small, sealed with a tight twisted edge (the repulgue) and so juicy that locals eat them leaning forward with their feet apart. The filling is hand-cut beef with potato, spring onion, cumin and paprika, plus chopped hard-boiled egg; they are eaten at Sunday gatherings, at peñas with folk music and on any public holiday. The mistake that ruins them is filling them while the beef is still warm: the fat melts the pastry. Chill the filling until it is firm. Chef's tip: add a few spoonfuls of the cooking juices to the cold filling; they set to a jelly in the fridge and melt in the oven, which is where the famous juiciness comes from.

105 min

Argentinian Snacks & Starters

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YudofuSimmered tofu hot pot

Yudofu is the simplest dish in Kyoto and one of the most loved. The city's soft water makes fine tofu, and the restaurants around Nanzen-ji temple in the Higashiyama hills have served it to pilgrims for centuries as part of Buddhist vegetarian cooking. A block of tofu is warmed in an earthenware pot over a sheet of kombu and lifted out with a little slotted ladle, then dipped in citrusy soy with spring onion and ginger. It's a winter dish, best eaten slowly at the table on a cold evening. Chef's tip: never let the water boil. The tofu is ready when it trembles and starts to rise; boiling makes it spongy and full of holes.

50 min

Japanese Vegetarian

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Tortang talongAubergine omelette

Tortang talong is a weekday lunch in Filipino homes from Luzon to Visayas, the dish a mother makes when the fridge holds only a few eggs and some long aubergines from the market. The aubergines are charred whole over a gas flame until the skin blackens and the flesh goes smoky and soft, then peeled (the stem left on as a handle), flattened into a fan with a fork, dipped in seasoned egg and fried until golden. The result is a thin, smoky omelette shaped like an aubergine. Filipinos eat it with rice and banana ketchup or a dish of vinegar with garlic. Chef's tip: char the aubergines right on the flame, not in the oven; that smoky taste is the whole dish.

25 min

Filipino Vegetarian

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Empanadas colombianasPotato corn empanadas

Colombian empanadas are small, crunchy half-moons made with yellow corn dough rather than wheat, sold hot from street stands across Bogotá, Medellín and Cali and eaten with a squeeze of lime and a spoonful of ají. The classic filling mixes potato with hogao and often meat; this version keeps the potato and hogao, seasoned with cumin and coriander, which many families make on its own anyway. They are crisp outside and soft and savoury inside. Chef's tip: roll the dough thin, about 3 mm; thick corn dough stays heavy and absorbs oil.

75 min

Colombian Snacks & Starters

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EloteMexican street corn

Elote (corn on the cob) is sold all over Mexico from street carts in the evening: grilled or boiled cobs speared on a stick, slathered in mayonnaise and crema, rolled in crumbly cotija cheese and dusted with chilli powder, with a squeeze of lime. Charring the corn adds smokiness to the sweet kernels, and the creamy, salty, sour and hot toppings make it irresistible. Serve it at a barbecue or as a snack; kids can skip the chilli. Cotija is often made with animal rennet, so use a vegetarian-rennet feta or a vegetarian hard cheese if that matters to you. Chef's tip: let the cobs cool for a minute before spreading the mayonnaise, so it clings rather than sliding off.

20 min

Mexican Snacks & Starters

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Empanadas de humitaCreamy corn empanadas

Empanadas de humita are the vegetarian favourite at every Argentine empanada shop, from Tucumán, which claims the best empanadas in the country, to the delivery menus of Buenos Aires. The filling is sweetcorn and onion cooked with red pepper, nutmeg and a little white sauce until creamy, then folded into wheat pastry discs and closed with the twisted edge (repulgue) that tells you what's inside. Unlike the husk-wrapped humita en chala, these are baked and golden. Chef's tip: chill the filling until firm before filling; warm filling melts the pastry and the empanadas open in the oven.

75 min

Argentinian Snacks & Starters

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Tortellini in brodoTortellini in broth

Christmas Day in Bologna and Modena begins at the kitchen table, with whole families folding hundreds of tortellini no bigger than a fingertip around a filling of pork loin, mortadella, prosciutto and parmigiano. They are served in a clear, golden broth made from capon, or from chicken and beef, simmered so gently it barely moves. The pasta should be thin enough to see the filling through, and the little rings bob in the bowl with a spoonful of parmigiano on top. It is a full afternoon's work, so make the broth and tortellini a day ahead and freeze any extras on a floured tray; on a busy weeknight, 500 g of good bought tortellini simmered in the homemade broth is a perfectly respectable shortcut. A common mistake is letting the broth boil: it turns cloudy and greasy instead of clear. Chef's tip: make the filling the day before and keep it in the fridge; it firms up and is much easier to dot onto the tiny squares.

240 min

Italian Soups

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YukjeonEgg-battered fried beef

In Gwangju, yukjeon is a restaurant meal in its own right: the server sits by a hot plate at your table and fries slice after slice of egg-coated beef, handing them over while they're still sizzling. Elsewhere in Korea it's more often a festive pancake, made for Chuseok and Lunar New Year along with other jeon. The beef is cut very thin, so it cooks in the time it takes the egg to set. Gwangju places serve it with a sharp salad of finely shredded spring onion and a little salt and sesame oil for dipping. Chef's tip: half-freeze the beef for 40 minutes before slicing; firm meat is easy to cut into slices 2 to 3 mm thick.

25 min

Korean Meat

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Green fig and saltfishGreen bananas with salt cod

In St Lucia green bananas are called figs, and green fig and saltfish is the national dish: a Saturday lunch in Castries homes and the plate served everywhere on Jounen Kwéyòl, the island's Creole Day in October. The bananas are boiled until tender and mild, a little like potato, and served with salt cod sautéed with onion, sweet pepper, tomato, thyme and hot pepper. Add sliced avocado or cucumber on the side. The most common mistake is not soaking the saltfish long enough, which leaves the whole plate far too salty; taste a flake before you cook it. Chef's tip: rub oil on your hands (or wear gloves) before peeling the green bananas; the sap stains skin black.

60 minCaribbean Fish

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BorhaniSpiced mint yogurt drink

At a Bangladeshi wedding in Dhaka, the moment the kacchi biryani comes out, so do glasses of pale green borhani. It's a thin, salty-spicy yoghurt drink blended with mint, coriander, green chilli, black salt and a whisper of ground mustard, made to cut through a rich meal and settle the stomach. Pour it alongside any spiced rice dish, including a vegetable biryani or bhuna khichuri. Chef's tip: the ground mustard seed is the signature; toast it lightly first and grind it fine, or the drink turns bitter.

10 min

Bangladeshi Drinks

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Green borschtSorrel soup with egg

When the first sorrel comes up in village gardens around Chernihiv and Sumy in May, Ukrainian grandmothers stop making red borshch and switch to green: a light, lemony soup of sorrel, potato and herbs, served with halved boiled eggs. It is the soup of early summer and of Trinity Sunday, eaten hot with sour cream or chilled on a warm day. Sorrel gives it a clean sourness, so no vinegar is needed. This version uses vegetable stock instead of the chicken or pork stock some families use. Chef's tip: add the sorrel only in the last two minutes; it turns olive green the moment it hits the heat, but if it boils longer it collapses into stringy khaki threads.

40 min

Ukrainian Soups

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EggahHerb omelette

Eggah is the omelette Egyptian families make at home for breakfast or a light supper, often on a Friday morning alongside ful, falafel, cheese and baladi bread. It is thick and set rather than folded, packed with spring onion, parsley and dill and warmed with cumin, and it's cooked slowly so it puffs and browns on both sides. Slice it into wedges and eat it hot from the pan or cold in a sandwich. Chef's tip: grate the onion and squeeze it dry; wet onion makes the eggs weep and the eggah falls apart when you flip it.

25 min

Egyptian Breakfast & Brunch

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