Featured recipe

Kanchemba

Fried buckwheat fingers

In the Thakali villages of Thak Khola, kanchemba is what is fried when visitors arrive in the afternoon or when the family gathers on a winter evening, and it has since become a favourite snack in Thakali restaurants in Pokhara and Kathmandu. The buckwheat dough is seasoned with turmeric, chilli and a little onion, rolled into thick fingers, then deep-fried until crunchy outside and soft and nutty in the centre. A punchy dipping achar of tomato, chilli, garlic and roasted timur comes alongside, and the pair is eaten with a bowl of salty butter tea or a glass of hot water. The trouble usually starts when the fingers are too thick, so the middle stays pasty while the outside darkens. Chef's tip: keep the fingers no thicker than your own, and fry at a moderate heat so they cook through before they brown.

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SabichAubergine and egg pita

Sabich came to Israel with Iraqi Jews, who ate fried aubergine and hard-boiled eggs on Saturday mornings when no cooking was allowed. In Ramat Gan in the 1950s someone stuffed it all into a pita, and today it is street food all over Tel Aviv: crisp-edged aubergine, sliced egg, hummus, tahini, chopped salad and a spoonful of tangy amba mango pickle, with zhug for heat. It is messy, rich and best eaten standing up with a paper napkin. Chef's tip: salt the aubergine and dry it well before frying; it soaks up far less oil and comes out creamy instead of greasy.

40 min

Israeli Fast Food

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Sabzi poloGreen herb rice

Sabzi polo is the rice of Nowruz, the Persian New Year on the spring equinox, when families across Iran sit down on the first evening to a mound of rice speckled green with dill, parsley, coriander and chives. Fresh green herbs stand for renewal, and the dish is traditionally paired with fish on the New Year table; a vegetarian house serves it with kuku sabzi, the herb omelette, fried eggs or a bowl of yogurt. The rice tastes bright and grassy, with a gentle garlic note and a golden lavash crust underneath. Chef's tip: chop the herbs the day before and spread them on a tray to dry slightly; damp herbs make the rice heavy and clumpy.

75 min

Persian Rice & Grains

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Sabzi qovurmaLamb with fresh herbs

Sabzi qovurma is a home dish across Azerbaijan, made especially in spring when the markets of Ganja and Baku are full of bundles of green herbs. Pieces of lamb are fried until golden, then cooked with masses of chopped coriander, dill, spinach, spring onion and leek, sharpened by dried black lime or sour plums. It is served with plain plov rice or bread and a bowl of yogurt. The trap is adding wet herbs straight to the pan; they stew rather than fry and the dish goes flat and grassy. Chef's tip: dry the herbs well and fry them on their own until they darken before they join the meat.

125 min

Azerbaijani Meat

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Sadza with beef stewMaize porridge with beef stew

Sadza ne nyama, sadza with meat, is the meal most Zimbabweans would call home: a stiff, smooth porridge of white maize meal shaped into rounds with a wooden spoon, served with a beef stew and a side of greens such as covo or rape. Families in Harare and Bulawayo eat it at lunch or supper, rolling a little sadza into a ball in the right hand and dipping it in the gravy. The mistake is adding all the maize meal at once, which makes lumps; stir in a paste first, then add the rest gradually. Chef's tip: let the porridge "rest and cook" under a lid for a few minutes between additions so the meal tastes cooked, not raw.

130 minSouthern African Meat

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Safed maasMutton in white gravy

Safed maas is the quiet sibling of fiery laal maas, created in the palace kitchens of Rajasthan's princely states such as Jaipur and Udaipur, where cooks prized dishes that looked as refined as they tasted. There is no turmeric, no red chilli and no browning: the mutton is cooked white with yogurt, a paste of cashews and almonds, cream and white pepper, scented with cardamom and kewra. Its heat is gentle and comes from white pepper and a few green chillies. It's served at weddings and festive dinners with soft rotis or saffron pulao. Chef's tip: keep the heat low from start to finish; the moment the meat or the spices brown, the gravy turns beige and loses that ivory look.

125 min

Indian Meat

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SaganakiPan-fried cheese

Saganaki takes its name from the small two-handled pan it's cooked in. A thick slice of hard sheep's-milk cheese, usually kefalograviera or kefalotyri, is dusted with flour and fried until it has a crisp, golden crust and a soft, stretchy middle, then splashed with lemon. In Greek tavernas it arrives sizzling at the start of the meal, to share with bread, salad and a cold drink. Traditional Greek hard cheeses are often made with animal rennet, so use a vegetarian alternative such as a vegetarian graviera or halloumi. We dust it with rice flour so it is gluten free. Chef's tip: chill the cheese and get the pan properly hot before it goes in; a lukewarm pan is the common mistake and the cheese melts into a puddle before it crisps.

10 min

Greek Snacks & Starters

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Sago gula MelakaSago pudding with palm sugar

This cool, wobbly pudding is named after the dark palm sugar made from coconut-flower sap around Melaka, and it's on the menu at Peranakan restaurants there and at many a Malaysian dinner party. Little domes of clear sago pearls are chilled until set, then turned out and drowned in salted coconut milk and smoky gula Melaka syrup. The pearls are soft and bouncy, the sauces rich and caramel-dark, and it can all be made the day before. Chef's tip: pour the sago into the water only once it's at a full rolling boil, and stir straight away; tepid water turns it into a gluey lump.

40 min

Malaysian Desserts

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SahlabWarm milk drink

Sahlab is what Cairo drinks on a cold winter evening: a thick, sweet, steaming glass of milk sold in cafés and from street carts, topped with cinnamon, coconut, chopped nuts and a few raisins, and eaten as much with a spoon as drunk. The original thickener is powdered orchid root, which is now rare and protected, so most Egyptian households and many cafés use cornflour or a ready-made sahlab mix instead, as here. Chef's tip: keep whisking from the moment the thickened milk goes in until it boils; stop for a minute and it catches on the bottom of the pan and tastes scorched.

13 min

Egyptian Drinks

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Sai krok IsanSour pork and rice sausage

Strung in little round links and grilled at night markets from Khon Kaen to Udon Thani, these garlicky sausages are tangy from fermentation, with soft rice grains in a juicy pork filling. Vendors serve them with fresh ginger slices, bird's eye chillies, raw cabbage and roasted peanuts, and every bite is a mix of sour, salty, hot and crunchy. Traditionally they are left at room temperature for two or three days to sour; that is a real food-safety risk at home without controlled cultures and curing salts, so this version cures in the fridge instead. Expect a milder tang than street-stall sai krok; a squeeze of lime at the table makes up the difference. Chef's tip: use day-old cooked rice that went into the fridge quickly; freshly cooked warm rice turns the filling mushy and keeps it in the danger zone.

65 min

Thai Meat

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Sai ouaHerby grilled pork sausage

Walk through Chiang Mai's Warorot market and you will smell sai oua before you see it: long coils of sausage smoking over charcoal, flecked green with lime leaf and orange with chilli paste. The meat is coarse and juicy, the flavour loud with lemongrass, galangal and turmeric, and Northern Thais eat it in thick slices with sticky rice, raw cabbage, nam prik noom and a few slices of fresh ginger. If you have no casings or sausage stuffer, the same mixture makes excellent flat patties. Chef's tip: fry a teaspoon of the mixture before you stuff anything and taste it; this is your only chance to fix the salt and chilli.

90 min

Thai Meat

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Sakkarai pongalSweet rice and moong dal

On the morning of Thai Pongal in mid-January, families across Tamil Nadu cook new-harvest rice in a clay pot in the courtyard and wait for the milk to bubble over: 'pongalo pongal!'. That pot becomes sakkarai pongal, a sticky, golden-brown sweet of rice and moong dal cooked soft, then simmered with melted jaggery and finished with lots of ghee, cardamom, edible camphor and cashews and raisins fried golden. It's also the classic prasadam at Vishnu temples. It's the sweet twin of the peppery ven pongal. Chef's tip: dry-roast the moong dal until it smells nutty before cooking; it adds a toasty depth that plain boiled dal can't give.

50 min

Indian Indian Sweets

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Salad shiraziTomato, cucumber and onion salad

Salad shirazi is named after Shiraz, the city of gardens in Fars province, and it is the salad served with almost every Persian rice and kebab meal. Tomato, cucumber and onion are cut into tiny, even dice and dressed simply with lime juice (or sour grape verjuice, ab-ghooreh, in Shiraz itself), dried mint and a little oil. There are no peppers or herbs to muddy it: it is crunchy, sharp and cold, and is spooned onto rice as a relish. Chef's tip: dice everything as small as a pea; the tiny cubes are what make it taste like Shirazi rather than a chopped salad.

10 min

Persian Salads

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Turkish tea (çay)Strong black tea

Nowhere in Turkey is far from a glass of çay. Tea from the slopes of Rize on the Black Sea coast is brewed in a stacked double teapot, the çaydanlık, and poured into small tulip-shaped glasses all day long: at breakfast with simit and cheese, in shops when you haggle, after every meal. The strong brew sits in the top pot and each glass is diluted to taste with hot water from the bottom, so one person drinks it dark (koyu) and another light (açık). It should be clear, the colour of a ruby or rabbit's blood (tavşan kanı), never cloudy. Serve it with sugar cubes on the side, not milk. Chef's tip: steam the dry leaves in the top pot for a few minutes before adding any water; the warm leaves open up and give a rounder, deeper colour.

17 min

Turkish Drinks

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TuronFried banana spring rolls

Turon is the afternoon snack sold by vendors on every Filipino street corner, school gate and jeepney stop around three o'clock, often next to banana cue on bamboo skewers. A slice of saba banana and a strip of ripe jackfruit are rolled in a thin spring roll wrapper with brown sugar, then fried in oil that has more brown sugar sprinkled in it, so each roll comes out wrapped in a crackly, glassy caramel shell. It is eaten hot with your fingers, when the banana inside has turned soft and sticky. Saba is a short, firm cooking banana; ripe plantain is the closest substitute. Chef's tip: roll them tightly with no air pockets, or the caramel blows holes in the wrapper.

25 min

Filipino Desserts

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Túrós csuszaPasta with curd cheese

Túrós csusza is a simple dish of wide pasta squares tossed with crumbly túró curd cheese and sour cream, loved across Hungary and especially in the Danube villages, where it is served as a filling main after a bowl of fish soup. At home it is a Friday or end-of-the-month supper made from what is in the fridge. Traditionally it is topped with crisp pork crackling; here, fried onions and a little smoked paprika give the same crunch and savouriness. The flavour is mild, tangy and comforting. Chef's tip: toss the cheese into the pasta while it is still steaming so the túró warms through, but serve the sour cream cold on top for contrast.

30 min

Hungarian Pasta & Noodles

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Ube halayaPurple yam jam

Ube halaya is a thick, deep purple jam made from purple yam, slowly stirred with coconut milk, condensed milk and butter until it pulls away from the pan. Bohol, where ube grows in abundance and the province holds a festival for it every January, claims it, and in Baguio jars of it are bought as pasalubong (gifts) to take home. It appears at Christmas and fiestas, spread on bread, eaten by the spoonful, packed into halo-halo or shaped in moulds and topped with latik or grated cheese. Real ube has a gentle, nutty, vanilla-like flavour; purple sweet potato is not the same. Chef's tip: frozen grated ube from Asian grocers works perfectly and saves an hour of peeling and grating.

50 min

Filipino Desserts

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Uganda matokeMashed green bananas

Uganda's national dish: green matoke bananas steamed in banana leaves, mashed and kept warm in the leaves, then topped with a thick, gently spiced tomato and ground peanut sauce. It's soft, savoury and very filling. The book's Handy Hints add that bananas and peanuts are both good for the heart.

65 minAfrican Vegetarian

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RolexOmelette chapati roll

The rolex is Uganda's most famous street food, its name a play on 'rolled eggs': at stalls all over Kampala, and now the whole country, a vendor beats eggs with shredded cabbage, tomato and onion, fries a thin omelette, lays a fresh chapati on top and rolls the two together. It is breakfast, lunch and late-night food. Unlike the Mombasa coast egg chapati, nothing is folded inside raw pastry: the omelette and a soft, ready-cooked chapati are rolled together. Chef's tip: cook the omelette thin and wide, the size of the chapati, so every bite has egg.

20 minEast African Breakfast & Brunch

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Ukadiche modakSteamed coconut and jaggery dumplings

On the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi, kitchens all along the Konkan coast and in Pune and Mumbai fill with steam as families shape ukadiche modak, the pleated dumplings said to be Ganpati's favourite sweet. A soft, translucent shell of rice flour cooked in water (the ukad) wraps a filling of fresh coconut and jaggery scented with cardamom and nutmeg. Twenty-one modak are offered to the deity, and the rest are eaten warm with a spoon of ghee poured into a little hole poked in the top. The pleating takes practice, so make a few extra and don't worry if the first ones are lumpy. Chef's tip: knead the ukad while it is still hot, with your palm oiled and dipped in cold water; a dough left to cool turns crumbly and cracks when you pleat it.

80 min

Indian Indian Sweets

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Umibudo saladSea grapes salad

Umibudo, 'sea grapes', is a seaweed farmed in the warm, clear waters around Okinawa and Miyako island. Its tiny green beads burst in the mouth with a salty, oceanic pop, which is why Okinawans also call it green caviar. It's served as a starter in island izakaya, often next to a cold Orion beer, either plain with a dish of citrus soy or piled on a simple salad. Look for it vacuum-packed in salt at Japanese grocers; it keeps for weeks unopened. Chef's tip: dress the salad, not the sea grapes. Pour the dressing on the greens and dip the sea grapes as you eat, because vinegar and soy make the beads shrivel within minutes.

15 min

Japanese Salads

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UnniyappamBanana and rice fritters

Unniyappam are small, round sweet dumplings that Kerala families make for Vishu and Karthika, and they are a well-known temple offering at Guruvayur and Sabarimala. A batter of ground rice, ripe banana and jaggery, studded with ghee-fried coconut bits and sesame, is fried in the round hollows of an unniyappa chatti until crisp and dark brown outside and soft and spongy in the middle. They keep for a couple of days in a tin and are perfect with tea. Chef's tip: let the batter rest for an hour; it softens and puffs a little, giving lighter unniyappam.

50 min

Indian Indian Sweets

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Uzbek chuchvaraTiny dumplings in dill broth

In Tashkent, chuchvara is the little cousin of manti: dumplings no bigger than a thumbnail, folded around a peppery lamb-and-beef filling and dropped into clear meat broth. Families make them in big batches on a slow weekend, freeze trays of them, and eat bowls through the winter with a spoonful of suzma (strained yogurt) or sour cream and lots of dill. The dough is thin and firm, the filling juicy with grated onion, and the broth light enough to drink. Many home cooks roll the dough too thick, which turns the dumplings stodgy; aim for a sheet you can just see the board through. Chef's tip: freeze the shaped dumplings on a floured tray before bagging them, so they stay separate and cook straight from frozen.

105 min

Uzbek Soups

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