Skip to content
Powidła śliwkowe
Featured recipe

Powidła śliwkowe

Plum butter

In the villages around Szydłów in the Świętokrzyskie hills, late-season Hungarian plums were once stirred in copper cauldrons over a fire for a day or more, until they became powidła, so thick a spoon stands up in it. The sugar in very ripe plums caramelises, turning the purée nearly black, glossy and intensely fruity with a slight bitterness. It fills pączki, drożdżówki and pierogi, and is spread on bread with butter. Traditional cooks spread the cooking over three days, letting the pot cool between sessions; an oven gets you there in an afternoon. The usual slip is cooking on the hob on high heat, which burns the bottom long before the plums thicken. Chef's tip: use the latest, ripest, wrinkly-skinned plums you can find; they need no sugar at all.

Read more 0 views

What to eat today?

Around the world

Today's trip: Paraguayan

A new country every day, from every cuisine on the site.

Paraguayan

Payaguá mascada

Cassava and beef patties 55 minMore from Paraguayan (27) →

This week's collection

Kid-friendly dinners
537 recipes · a new collection every Monday

Latest recipes

Tutu de feijãoBean purée with toasted manioc meal

Tutu de feijão is everyday comfort food from Minas Gerais, made from yesterday's beans: they're blended smooth, fried with onion and garlic, then thickened with manioc meal into a soft, spoonable mash. In Minas it comes with pork crackling and sausage; here smoked paprika and a crisp onion topping bring the savoury, smoky edge. Serve with rice, couve à mineira and a fried egg if you eat them. Chef's tip: rain in the manioc meal slowly while stirring, as you would polenta, and stop while it's still a little looser than you want. Tutu firms up as it stands, and too much farinha makes it stodgy.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Vegetable pattiesSpiced vegetable pastry pockets

The patty is Jamaica's favourite grab-and-go food, sold hot from glass cases in patty shops and school canteens across the island, from Half Way Tree in Kingston to Montego Bay. Its signature is the pastry: short, flaky and bright yellow from turmeric, wrapped around a spicy filling and crimped with a fork. This vegetarian version is filled with callaloo, potato, carrot and peas seasoned with curry, thyme and scotch bonnet. Eat them warm, on their own or squeezed inside soft coco bread. Chef's tip: use half butter and half solid vegetable shortening in the pastry, and keep everything cold. The shortening gives the patty its crumbly, flaky snap and the butter gives the flavour.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Couve à mineiraShredded garlic collard greens

Couve à mineira, from Minas Gerais, is the bright green side dish that goes with feijoada, tutu and plain rice and beans all over Brazil. Collard greens are rolled up like a cigar, sliced into fine ribbons and cooked for barely two minutes with garlic, so they stay vivid, tender and slightly crunchy. Chef's tip: the knife work is the whole recipe. Slice the rolled leaves as thinly as you possibly can (Brazilian cooks aim for threads 1–2 mm wide), then cook them fast over high heat with the lid off. Thick strips or a covered pan give you dull, soggy greens.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Buss-up-shutTorn paratha roti

Buss-up-shut is the paratha roti of Trinidad, so called because the torn, flaky pieces look like a 'burst-up shirt'. A soft dough is spread with butter and oil, rolled into a coil to build layers, cooked on a hot tawa, then clapped and beaten with wooden paddles until it breaks into soft, buttery, flaky shreds. It's served in roti shops across Trinidad for scooping up curries, and is always at Hindu weddings and Divali feasts. Chef's tip: beat the roti while it's still scalding hot. The steam inside is what separates the layers, so the moment it leaves the tawa, clap it between your hands (in clean oven gloves) or bash it with two wooden spatulas until it shreds.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

VinagreteTomato and onion salsa

Vinagrete, also called molho à campanha in the South, is the fresh, tangy salsa that goes on every Brazilian barbecue table and next to feijoada, acarajé and grilled cheese. Finely diced tomato, onion and green pepper are bathed in vinegar, olive oil and a little water, so it's halfway between a salad and a sauce. Chef's tip: soak the chopped onion in cold water for 5 minutes and drain. It takes away the harsh bite while keeping the crunch, so the salsa tastes clean and bright instead of raw.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Cheese and heart of palm pastelFried cheese and palm heart pastries

Pastel is the taste of the São Paulo street market: big rectangles of thin dough fried to order until they blister and puff, eaten hot from paper with a glass of caldo de cana (sugar-cane juice). Cheese and palmito (heart of palm) are two of the most popular meat-free fillings. Chef's tip: add a spoon of cachaça (or vodka) to the dough and fry in properly hot oil. The alcohol evaporates fast and makes the crust puff into the light, bubbly blisters that market pastel is famous for.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Sorrel drinkHibiscus drink

Sorrel is the drink of a Jamaican Christmas: in December the markets fill with the red flowers (the calyces of a hibiscus), and every home brews a big batch to share. They're steeped with lots of fresh ginger, pimento and cloves, then sweetened, giving a deep ruby drink that's tart, spicy and refreshing over ice. Many families add a splash of white or dark rum for the adults. Chef's tip: be generous with the ginger and let it steep overnight. A long, cool steep pulls out the colour and a fiery ginger bite without the bitterness of over-boiling.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Palm heart and plantain moquecaPalm heart and plantain coconut stew

Moqueca is the great stew of Bahia, cooked in a clay pot with coconut milk, tomatoes, peppers and dendê, the red palm oil that gives Salvador's food its colour and flavour. Fish is usual on the coast, but moqueca de palmito e banana-da-terra, with heart of palm and ripe plantain, is a much-loved vegetarian version: sweet, tangy and fragrant with coriander and lime. Serve with white rice and farofa. Chef's tip: layer the vegetables rather than frying them, and add half the dendê at the start and half at the very end. The final splash keeps its fruity, nutty aroma, which is the real taste of Bahia.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Coconut bakeCoconut bread

Coconut bake is a breakfast bread from Trinidad and especially Tobago, where it's baked on Sunday mornings in homes and village bakeries. It's a quick, unyeasted bread, rich with grated coconut and coconut milk and rubbed with butter, shaped into a round and baked until golden. It's split and buttered, and usually eaten with saltfish buljol; for a vegetarian breakfast, fill it with tomato choka, fried ripe plantain, sautéed bodi (long beans) or cheese. Chef's tip: rub the butter well into the flour and knead only briefly until the dough comes together. Overworking makes bake heavy and tight instead of soft and crumbly.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

BrigadeiroChocolate condensed milk truffles

Brigadeiro is Brazil's favourite sweet: no birthday party anywhere in the country is complete without trays of them in little paper cases. Condensed milk, cocoa and butter are stirred in a pan until thick, then rolled into soft, fudgy balls and coated in chocolate sprinkles. It's said to be named after Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes, an air force officer who ran for president in 1945. Chef's tip: learn the ponto (the doneness point). Tilt the pan and drag your spatula through the mixture: when it slides as one mass and you can see the pan base for 2–3 seconds before it closes up, it's ready. Undercooked brigadeiros won't hold a shape; overcooked ones turn chewy.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

BammyCassava flatbread

Bammy is one of Jamaica's oldest foods, a flatbread of grated cassava handed down from the Taíno people and still made by family producers in St Elizabeth, especially around Treasure Beach and the south coast. The cassava is grated, squeezed dry and pressed into firm rounds that keep for days. Before eating, they're soaked in coconut milk and fried, so they turn crisp outside and soft and chewy within, with a gentle nutty flavour. Serve with steamed callaloo, Ital stew or escovitch vegetables. Chef's tip: squeeze the grated cassava really, truly dry in a cloth, wringing it hard. Wet cassava steams into a gummy cake instead of setting into a firm bammy.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Arroz e feijãoRice and beans

Arroz e feijão is the heart of the Brazilian table, eaten at lunch nearly every day from Porto Alegre to Manaus. Each half is simple but made with care: the rice is fried with garlic before simmering so the grains stay loose (soltinho), and the beans are finished with a refogado of onion and garlic that thickens their broth. In the South and Rio black beans are the norm; elsewhere it's the beige carioca bean. Chef's tip: when the beans are tender, fry the garlic and onion, add a ladle of beans and mash them in the pan, then stir it all back into the pot. This tempero is the step that makes Brazilian beans taste like home.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

PajeonSpring onion pancake

Pajeon (파전) is a savoury pancake packed with whole spring onions held together by a thin batter. Dongnae, a district of Busan, is famous for its version, made with rice flour in the batter and finished with beaten egg poured over the top; Dongnae pajeon is usually loaded with seafood, which is left out here. Korean families often make it on rainy days and eat it with a soy and vinegar dip. Keep the batter ice cold and the pan hot for the crispest edges. Chef's tip: use just enough batter to glue the spring onions together. Dongnae cooks want you to taste spring onion first and batter second, so it should look lacy, not cakey.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

BindaetteokMung bean pancakes

Bindaetteok (빈대떡) are thick, crunchy pancakes made from soaked and ground mung beans mixed with kimchi, bean sprouts and spring onions, then fried in plenty of oil. They are the signature dish of Gwangjang market in Seoul, where stalls grind the beans in stone mills and fry the pancakes in front of you. Market versions often include pork; this one keeps the classic vegetables and is naturally gluten free and rich in protein. The outside turns deep golden and crisp while the inside stays soft. Serve hot with a soy and onion dip. Chef's tip: grind the beans coarse, not silky, and fry in more oil than feels right. The slight grit is what makes Gwangjang-style bindaetteok so crunchy outside and fluffy inside.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Takikomi gohanRice cooked with mushrooms and carrot

Takikomi gohan (炊き込みご飯) is mixed rice cooked in one pot with seasonal vegetables and a savoury broth, made in homes across Japan, especially in autumn when mushrooms and chestnuts are in season. Every grain soaks up the soy, mirin and mushroom flavour, and the bottom forms a prized toasty crust (okoge). This vegetarian version uses a kombu and shiitake dashi. Serve it with miso soup and pickles, or pack it into onigiri the next day. Chef's tip: never stir once the vegetables are on top, and don't lift the lid while it cooks. The heavy vegetables would sink and the rice cook unevenly; leaving it alone also gives you the toasty okoge crust at the bottom.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Yaki udonStir-fried udon noodles

Yaki udon (焼うどん) was first made in Kitakyushu, in northern Kyushu, just after the war, when a café owner ran out of soba for yakisoba and fried udon instead. The thick, chewy noodles are tossed in a hot pan with cabbage, onion, mushrooms and carrot, then glazed with soy, mirin and a little vegetarian Worcestershire-style sauce. Meat is usual in Japan; this vegetarian version gets its richness from shiitake and a fried egg on top. A fast, filling weeknight supper. Chef's tip: get the pan really hot and leave the noodles alone for 30 seconds at a time, so they pick up slightly charred edges; that smoky 'koge' is what makes yaki udon taste like the street-stall version.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Baechu kimchiNapa cabbage kimchi

Baechu kimchi (배추김치) is the napa cabbage kimchi served at almost every Korean meal, from Seoul to Jeju. Salted cabbage quarters are rubbed leaf by leaf with a red paste of chilli flakes, garlic, ginger, radish and spring onion, then left to ferment until sour, fizzy and deeply savoury. Most recipes use fish sauce and salted shrimp; this one gets its depth from kelp stock and tamari, so it is vegetarian and gluten free. Eat it fresh after a day or two, or let it sour for a few weeks for kimchi fried rice, stews and pancakes. Salting takes about 2 hours, then allow 1–2 days for fermenting. Chef's tip: the salting is everything. Under-salted cabbage goes mushy and spoils; over-salted kimchi is harsh. Test a thick white stem: when it bends without snapping, rinse.

150 minKoreanBasicsVeganGluten freeSpicy
by KrazyBadal 0 views

BibimbapRice bowl with seasoned vegetables

Bibimbap (비빔밥) means 'mixed rice': a bowl of warm rice topped with small heaps of separately seasoned vegetables, a fried egg and a spoonful of gochujang sauce, all stirred together at the table. The city of Jeonju in North Jeolla province is famous for it and serves it with a dozen or more toppings; this home version keeps five that are easy to find. Each vegetable is cooked on its own so it keeps its colour and texture, and the sauce brings sweetness, heat and a nutty sesame finish. Serve with kimchi and a light soup. Chef's tip: season every vegetable on its own, lightly, and taste each one. If each heap is good alone, the mixed bowl will be balanced; if they are all dressed alike, the bowl tastes flat.

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Showing 18 of 7,762 recipes

Show more recipes

Page 793 of 863