Featured recipe

Sayur lodeh

Sayur lodeh is everyday cooking in Central Java, made in big pots in Solo and Semarang kitchens and ladled over rice, with lontong rice cakes at Lebaran, or alongside opor and sambal goreng on festive tables. It's soupy rather than thick: a fragrant broth of coconut milk, galangal, lemongrass and lime leaf that carries chunks of aubergine, long beans, chayote and sweetcorn, plus tempeh and tofu to make it a meal. The flavour is mellow and slightly sweet, so the heat comes from sambal on the side. Chef's tip: keep the pot at a gentle simmer once the coconut milk goes in and stir now and then — a rolling boil splits the coconut milk into oily curds.

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Citronnade

Café terraces in Tunis serve citronnade in tall glasses on hot afternoons and through Ramadan evenings, and it is nothing like clear lemonade: whole lemons, peel and all, are blended with sugar and water, then strained, giving a cloudy, pale-yellow drink that tastes of the zest as much as the juice. A drop of orange-flower water rounds it off. It should be sharp, sweet and very cold. Use unwaxed lemons with thin skins. Chef's tip: let the cut lemons sit with the sugar for 10 minutes before blending; the sugar draws out the fragrant oils from the peel.

15 min

Tunisian Drinks

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Zrir

When a baby arrives in a Tunis family, visitors who come to see mother and child are offered zrir, a dense, glossy paste of toasted sesame, hazelnuts and almonds bound with butter and honey, believed to give strength to the new mother. It is served in tiny bowls or shaped into a mound and studded with nuts, and a spoonful is plenty. The taste is like a very rich halva with honey and toasted nuts. It keeps for a couple of weeks in a jar. Chef's tip: grind the sesame while it is still slightly warm; the oils release more easily and the paste turns smooth rather than sandy.

45 min

Tunisian Desserts

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Kaak warka

The hill town of Zaghouan, south of Tunis, is famous for two things: its Roman water temple and kaak warka, delicate rings of very thin, crumbly pastry wrapped around almond paste perfumed with rose geranium or rose water. They are a celebration sweet, bought in boxes for weddings, circumcisions and Eid, and should stay white when baked, with a fine sugary crumb and a soft, fragrant centre. Making them takes patience: the dough is rolled thin, wrapped around ropes of almond paste and shaped into rings. Chef's tip: bake low and short; the moment the bases colour, they are done, as any browning on top ruins their famous pale look.

105 min

Tunisian Baking

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Bouza

On the morning of Mawlid, the Prophet's birthday, Tunis families make large bowls of creamy pudding and send small ones to neighbours, and bouza made from sorghum flour with roasted hazelnut paste is one of the best loved. The sorghum gives a fine, slightly earthy cream; the hazelnuts make it taste almost like praline. It is poured into glasses, left to set and decorated with a thick layer of chopped nuts, pistachios and sometimes sugared almonds. Make it the day before so it chills firm. Chef's tip: whisk the sorghum flour into cold liquid before it goes near the heat, or it seizes into lumps you cannot whisk out.

60 min

Tunisian Desserts

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Omek houria

Nobody quite agrees why this salad is called mother of Houria, but every Tunis household knows it as one of the small dishes that open a meal, set out with bread, olives and brik during Ramadan or at a Sunday lunch. Carrots are boiled soft, crushed with a fork rather than puréed, and seasoned boldly with garlic, ground caraway, harissa, vinegar and good olive oil, so the sweetness of the carrot sits under a garlicky, warm heat. It is finished with black olives and wedges of hard-boiled egg and eaten at room temperature, scooped up with crusty bread. This version is vegetarian; some cooks add tuna on top. Chef's tip: dress the carrots while still warm; they soak up the oil and vinegar far better than cold ones.

30 min

Tunisian Salads

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Tunisian samsa

Tunisian pastry shops in the old medina stack samsa in neat pyramids at Eid and weddings, and families make trays of them at home before the feast. The triangles are folded from malsouka, a paper-thin pastry also used for brik, around a filling of ground almonds and toasted sesame scented with orange zest and orange-flower water, then baked or fried and dropped into a lemony syrup. They are shatteringly crisp at the corners, sticky and nutty in the middle, and go with a glass of mint or pine-nut tea. Spring roll pastry, brick pastry or filo can stand in for malsouka. Chef's tip: dip hot pastries into cool syrup, never hot into hot; that contrast keeps them crisp instead of soggy.

75 min

Tunisian Desserts

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Bsissa

A tin of bsissa sits in many Tunisian kitchen cupboards, from Tunis flats to farmhouses in the south: a finely ground flour of roasted barley, roasted chickpeas and spices such as coriander, fennel and aniseed. In the morning a few spoonfuls are worked with olive oil and something sweet into a nutty, crumbly paste, or stirred with water into a thick drink, and it keeps you going until lunch. Travellers and pilgrims once carried it for the road. Roasting your own flour takes 15 minutes and makes a jar that lasts weeks. Sugar and dates keep it vegan; some families use honey. Chef's tip: roast the flours separately over a low heat and stir constantly; the moment they smell like toasted biscuits and turn light tan, tip them out of the pan.

25 min

Tunisian Breakfast & Brunch

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Pine nut tea

Order tea in a Tunis café, especially in the cafés of Sidi Bou Said overlooking the bay, and it often arrives with a spoonful of pale pine nuts bobbing on top. The tea itself is brewed strong and very sweet, green with mint or dark black tea boiled until syrupy, and poured from a height into small glasses so it froths. The nuts soften slightly in the heat and you eat them at the bottom of the glass, buttery against the bitter-sweet tea. It is drunk after meals and through the evening. Chef's tip: toast the pine nuts lightly in a dry pan; just a hint of colour brings out their butteriness without making them sink.

12 min

Tunisian Drinks

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Eggs with khlii

Old Fassi households keep a jar of khlii in the cold for exactly this: a spoonful of its spiced fat warmed in a small pan, a few strands of the dried beef crisped in it, then eggs cracked straight on top. The whites set lacy and savoury from the cumin and coriander in the fat, the yolks stay soft, and the beef shards turn chewy-crisp like the best bacon bits. It is eaten on a weekend morning or on a cold day with warm khobz or msemen torn into the pan, alongside mint tea. Use khlii made by our safer oven-dried, fridge-stored method, and if you cook for anyone pregnant, very young or vulnerable, fry the eggs until the yolks are firm. Chef's tip: warm the khlii fat gently before the eggs go in; too hot and the meat burns bitter before the whites have set.

13 min

Moroccan Breakfast & Brunch

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Qodban

Smoke rising off long braziers marks the qodban sellers of Marrakech, who thread lamb cubes with little pieces of fat so the meat bastes itself over the coals. Cumin, paprika, grated onion and parsley go on before grilling; more cumin and salt go on after. The result is charred and juicy, fragrant rather than fiery, and eaten straight off the skewer, wrapped in khobz with a little harissa and tomato. Leg or shoulder of lamb both work. Chef's tip: alternate every two pieces of lean meat with one small piece of fat; it melts as the skewer turns and keeps the lean pieces moist.

28 min

Moroccan Meat

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Babbouche

After dark in Marrakech's great square, the babbouche stalls are recognisable by their steaming cauldrons and the toothpicks laid out by every bowl. Small land snails simmer in a dark broth of liquorice root, aniseed, thyme, caraway, bitter orange peel, chilli and a bundle of herbs that sellers say has fifteen ingredients, believed to soothe the stomach and warm you on a cold night. You pick the snails out with a toothpick, then drink the peppery, herbal, faintly sweet broth. At home, buy live snails sold for cooking, already purged by a reputable seller, discard any with broken shells or that do not move or retract when touched, and cook them through for at least 45 minutes. Chef's tip: keep the spices in a muslin bag; the broth stays clear and you avoid crunching on seeds.

90 min

Moroccan Soups

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Dafina

Dafina, meaning buried or covered, is what Moroccan Jewish families from Casablanca to Meknes set to cook before sundown on Friday, so a hot lunch is waiting after synagogue on Saturday without lighting a fire on the Sabbath. Beef, a marrow bone, chickpeas, potatoes, sweet potatoes and dates go into one big pot with whole eggs in their shells and a cloth bag of wheat berries, all seasoned with paprika, turmeric, cinnamon and a little honey. Overnight the eggs turn creamy and brown, the wheat becomes sticky, and the broth is sweet-savoury and deep. There is no pork in it, and kosher cooks use kosher beef. Chef's tip: wrap the wheat berries loosely in a cloth bag or a roasting bag with holes; packed too tight, the grain cannot swell and stays hard.

760 min

Moroccan Meat

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Khlii

Once made in late summer from the Eid al-Adha meat, khlii was marinated, hung on rooftop lines in the Fez medina sun, then simmered in beef fat and olive oil and packed into earthenware jars for the year. It is deeply savoury and chewy, scented with coriander seed, cumin and garlic, and the fat it sits in is as prized as the meat, for frying eggs, enriching lentils or folding into couscous. This home version swaps the rooftop for the fridge and a low oven: the meat marinates for 24 hours in the fridge, dries for about 6 hours at a temperature that takes it well above 71 °C, then confits for about 90 minutes and goes back into the fridge, where it keeps for up to a month under its fat. Because it is a home-preserved meat, it is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Chef's tip: slice the beef with the grain into long strips no thicker than your little finger; thicker strips stay wet inside and spoil.

520 min

Moroccan Meat

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Tanjia marrakchia

Marrakech men's dish par excellence, tanjia is packed into a tall clay urn on a Friday morning, sealed with paper and string, and carried to the furnace man of the local hammam, who buries it in the warm ashes all day. Nothing is browned and almost no water goes in: the beef shin collapses in its own juices with preserved lemon, a whole head of garlic, cumin, saffron and smen into soft, sticky strands with a sharp, salty, lemony sauce. It comes to the table in the evening with bread and nothing else. At home, a lidded casserole in a low oven gives the same result. Chef's tip: wrap the lid of the pot in foil before closing it; a tight seal keeps in the steam that braises the meat without adding water.

375 min

Moroccan Meat

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Seafood pastilla

The sweet pigeon pastilla belongs to Fez; along the northern coast, from Tetouan to Tangier and down to the Atlantic towns, the savoury seafood version is what turns up at weddings and Ramadan dinners. Thin warqa pastry wraps a filling of prawns, white fish and squid, rice vermicelli and plenty of chermoula, the lemony herb, garlic, cumin and paprika marinade, and the pie is baked until it shatters at the touch. Inside it is juicy, tangy and a little spicy. Serve it hot, cut into wedges, with a green salad. Filo works if you cannot find warqa or brick pastry. Chef's tip: drain the cooked filling in a sieve for 10 minutes before you fill the pie; wet filling is what makes a soggy base.

120 min

Moroccan Fish

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Boulfaf

On the first day of Eid al-Adha, while the rest of the sheep hangs to rest, Moroccan families light the brazier on the roof or in the courtyard and make boulfaf from the fresh liver. The liver is seared whole, cut into cubes, rolled in cumin, paprika and salt, wrapped in lacy caul fat and grilled until the fat crisps and melts into it. Each bite is rich, smoky and soft, and the skewers go round with mint tea. Liver from your butcher works just as well on any day, and caul fat can be ordered. Chef's tip: wrap each cube snugly, not in a loose sheet; tight wrapping melts into a thin crisp shell instead of flaring up.

40 min

Moroccan Meat

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Mrouzia

Families make a big pot of mrouzia in the days after Eid al-Adha, partly as a treat and partly as a way to keep meat: cooked down with honey, smen and spices until almost confit-like, it keeps for days, and in the past for weeks. The lamb is very tender and dark, coated in a thick, sweet-spiced sauce heavy with ras el hanout, cinnamon and saffron, with plump raisins and fried almonds on top. Serve small portions with bread and a sharp salad to balance the richness. The usual mistake is adding the honey too early, so it catches and turns bitter before the lamb is tender. Chef's tip: add the honey only once the meat is tender; added early, it scorches on the base during the long cook.

150 min

Moroccan Meat

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Djaj mhammer

Mhammer means reddened or browned, and that final colour is what sets this Rabat and Fez favourite apart from a tagine. The bird is first poached in a little water with butter, garlic, saffron, cumin and paprika, so the meat soaks up the spices and stays juicy, then it goes into a hot oven to crisp and turn burnished while the cooking liquid reduces into a rich, buttery sauce. Moroccan families serve it at weddings and on Eid with olives, preserved lemon, fried or roasted potatoes and bread. Chef's tip: keep the poaching liquid at a gentle shiver, not a boil; boiling tightens the meat and the skin splits before it ever browns.

100 min

Moroccan Chicken

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Couscous with gueddid

Gueddid is the strips of salted, spiced lamb that Moroccan households dry after Eid al-Adha, and on Ashura, a month later, many families bring out the last of it for a couscous. A few pieces go a long way: they give the broth a deep, almost smoky savour, turn tender as they simmer, and sit on the mound of grain with chickpeas, turnip, carrots, courgette and pumpkin. This version makes a small batch of gueddid the safer way, marinated for 24 hours in the fridge, then dried for about 4 hours in a low oven that takes the meat above 71 °C; it keeps 2 weeks in the fridge or 3 months frozen. Because it is a home-cured meat, any gueddid eaten without cooking in the broth is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Chef's tip: rinse the gueddid and soak it for 30 minutes before cooking, or the broth will be far too salty.

435 min

Moroccan Rice & Grains

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Hergma

Sticky with gelatine and warmed by cumin and ginger, hergma is the winter comfort food of Rabat's working kitchens and the dish families make from the trotters after Eid al-Adha. The feet cook for hours with chickpeas, whole wheat berries, garlic and a warm mix of paprika, cumin and ginger, until the gelatine melts into a sauce so sticky it glues your fingers together. Some cooks add raisins for a sweet edge. Eat it hot with bread, picking the tender meat and soft cartilage from the bones. A butcher who sells halal or Mediterranean cuts will clean, singe and split the trotters for you; ask for that. Chef's tip: blanch the trotters and throw away the first water; it carries off the scum and gives a clean-tasting sauce.

260 min

Moroccan Meat

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Chraime

Friday night in Moroccan and Libyan Jewish homes, from Casablanca to Tripoli and now Paris and Tel Aviv, often begins with a plate of chraime before the main course. Thick fish steaks simmer in a brick-red sauce built from a frightening amount of garlic, sweet and hot paprika, chilli, caraway and cumin, loosened with oil and a squeeze of lemon. It is spicy, garlicky and very savoury, and the oily sauce begs to be mopped up with challah or other good bread. It is also eaten cold the next day. Chef's tip: cook the spices in the oil over a low heat until they smell toasty but not dark; burnt paprika tastes acrid and you cannot rescue it.

40 min

Moroccan Fish

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Trid

Before pastilla became the showpiece, Fez and Marrakech made trid, a dish so old it is sometimes called the grandmother of rfissa. Sheets of dough are stretched until you can read through them, cooked briefly on an upturned pot, then layered on a platter and soaked with the cooking juices of chicken simmered with onions, lentils, saffron and a whisper of fenugreek. The pastry softens into silky, almost noodle-like folds, the sauce is golden and peppery, and the chicken sits on top in big pieces to be shared by hand. It is served at family lunches, for guests, and to women after childbirth. Chef's tip: oil your hands and the work surface generously when stretching the dough; it is the oil, not flour, that lets it go paper-thin without tearing.

150 min

Moroccan Chicken

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Sardines stuffed with chermoula

Walk past the fish stalls by Essaouira's harbour and you smell this before you see it: sardines opened flat, smeared with a green-red paste of herbs, garlic, cumin and paprika, pressed together in pairs, dusted with flour and fried until the edges crunch. The fish stays moist and rich inside, sharpened by lemon and a little chilli. In Safi and Agadir homes they appear at lunch with a tomato and onion salad and bread, or tucked into sandwiches from street carts. Chef's tip: ask the fishmonger to butterfly the sardines and remove the backbone; it saves a fiddly 20 minutes and they lie flat.

45 min

Moroccan Fish

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Chicken kdra with almonds

Kdra takes its name from the tall copper pot it was cooked in, and in Fez it is a festive dish for weddings and family gatherings rather than an everyday tagine. The sauce is the point: kilos of onion melted down with smen, saffron, white pepper and cinnamon until it turns pale gold and creamy, with no tomato or paprika at all. Soft chickpeas and almonds simmered until tender go into it, and the whole thing is scooped up with bread. Expect a mellow, perfumed, buttery richness rather than heat. Chef's tip: soak and simmer the blanched almonds with the chicken; they lose their crunch and become creamy like the chickpeas, which is how Fassi cooks like them.

95 min

Moroccan Chicken

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Mechoui

Under the arcades by the Marrakech spice square, mechoui sellers lift whole lambs out of clay pits sunk in the ground, where they have roasted since dawn, and sell it by weight with a twist of paper holding cumin and salt. A home oven cannot quite reproduce the pit, but a bone-in shoulder rubbed with garlic, paprika and cumin and roasted low and slow gets you close: crackling-crisp outside, tender enough to pull apart with fingers inside. It is festival and wedding food, and also a Sunday treat, eaten with bread and nothing more than the salt-cumin dip. Many cooks baste with butter; olive oil keeps this version dairy free. Chef's tip: leave the lamb uncovered for the last 30 minutes at a higher heat; that short blast is what gives the bark-like crust.

290 min

Moroccan Meat

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Rfissa

Ask anyone in Rabat or Salé when they last ate rfissa and the answer is often a birth, a naming day or a big family Friday: it is the dish brought to new mothers, because fenugreek and lentils are believed to restore strength. Torn strips of msemen, the flaky square pancake, are steamed until soft and piled high, then drenched in a broth of chicken, onion, ras el hanout and fenugreek that is warming, earthy and a little bitter-sweet. The chicken crowns the mound and everyone eats from the shared platter. Use homemade or bought msemen; day-old is best. Chef's tip: steam the shredded msemen over the simmering broth before saucing it, so it swells and softens instead of turning claggy.

120 min

Moroccan Chicken

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Raib (set yogurt with orange-flower water)

Every Moroccan town has a mahlaba, a dairy café, with a fridge full of little glass pots of raib: soft, wobbly set yogurt, lightly sweetened and often scented with orange-flower water or flavoured with strawberry. It is eaten with a spoon as a snack, as a dessert after dinner, or with msemen at breakfast. The texture is delicate and spoonable rather than thick like strained yogurt. The oldest versions were set with rennet; this home version uses live yogurt as a starter (if you try rennet tablets, choose a vegetarian one). It needs 6–8 hours to set and a few hours to chill. Chef's tip: let the milk cool to 43 °C before adding the starter; too hot and the cultures die, so the raib never sets, which is the most common mistake.

30 min

Moroccan Desserts

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Lemon verbena tea (louiza)

After a big dinner or before bed, many Moroccan households swap green mint tea for a pot of louiza, lemon verbena, whose long, narrow leaves give a pale golden infusion that smells of lemon sherbet and has no caffeine. The fresh herb is sold in bunches alongside mint and absinthe at market herb stalls, and dried leaves keep all year. Drink it plain, lightly sweetened, or brewed with a few mint sprigs. It is soothing, clean-tasting and fragrant. Chef's tip: pour boiling water over the leaves and let them steep off the heat for 5 minutes; boiling the leaves in the pot, a common mistake, turns the tea grassy and bitter.

10 min

Moroccan Drinks

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Chorizo a la sidra

No sidrería in Oviedo's Calle Gascona is without a clay dish of chorizo bubbling in cider, served with bread to mop up the paprika-red juices. It takes minutes, is cheap, and is the first thing ordered while the waiter pours cider from shoulder height. This contains pork (chorizo) and uses dry Asturian cider, which is alcoholic; for an alcohol-free version use cloudy apple juice with a splash of cider vinegar, as noted below. Chef's tip: prick the chorizo all over first so it releases fat into the cider and drinks the cider back in.

25 min

Spanish Snacks & Starters

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Palets bretons

Palets are the thick cousin of the thin Breton galette biscuit: chunky rounds as wide as a small cookie and nearly a centimetre high, crisp on the outside and crumbly within, tasting strongly of salted butter. Bakeries in Pont-Aven and all along the Finistère coast sell them in tins, and Breton families serve them with coffee, with a bowl of cider-poached apples or crumbled over ice cream. Baking them in muffin tins or metal rings keeps their shape and straight edges. Chef's tip: use proper salted butter rather than adding salt to unsalted; the flavour is rounder and the dough handles better.

38 min

French Baking

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Farçon savoyard

In the Savoyard valleys, especially around Albertville and the Val d'Arly, farçon was the Sunday dish left to cook slowly while the family was at Mass: grated potatoes mixed with eggs, cream, prunes and raisins, set in a tall mould and cooked for hours in a water bath. The result is a sliceable, sweet-and-savoury cake, soft and golden, served with a green salad or as a side at a winter feast. Traditionally the mould is lined with bacon; this version uses a buttered mould instead, so it is vegetarian. Chef's tip: let it rest for 15 minutes in the mould before turning it out; it firms up and slices cleanly.

145 min

French Sides

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Selkirk bannock

The Selkirk bannock is a round, glossy fruit bread from the Border town of Selkirk, first baked in the 1850s and famously eaten by Queen Victoria at Abbotsford. Unlike a plain oat bannock it is a rich yeast dough that is mostly sultanas, sliced and buttered with afternoon tea. Chef's tip: work the sultanas in only after the dough has risen once, or they tear the gluten and the loaf won't lift.

70 min

British Breads & Parathas

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Espinacs a la catalana

This dish carries the sweet-and-savoury taste of medieval Catalan cooking: spinach wilted with plump raisins and toasted pine nuts, sometimes with a little pork fat or anchovy, though olive oil is just as traditional. Families cook it in spring and autumn as a side for fish or chicken, or as a light first course before the main. It takes ten minutes. Chef's tip: soak the raisins in warm water first so they swell and burst sweetly, instead of turning hard in the hot pan.

20 min

Spanish Sides

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Matafan

The name is said to come from 'mate faim', 'kills hunger', and that is what this thick pancake did for farmers in the Savoie and Bauges mountains, who ate it for breakfast before a day in the fields or the high pastures. Every valley makes it differently; this version is a golden cake of grated potato, egg and a little milk, cooked slowly in butter and finished with Beaufort, served cut into wedges with a green salad or a fried egg. Beaufort is made with animal rennet; a vegetarian mountain-style cheese works too, or leave it out and serve the matafan with jam for a sweet version. Chef's tip: squeeze the grated potato really hard in a tea towel; the drier it is, the crisper the crust.

40 min

French Breakfast & Brunch

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Şalgam

Order an Adana kebab in its home city and a tall glass of şalgam arrives with it, deep purple, salty, sour and often fiery. It is made by fermenting black carrots with a little bulgur and salt for a week or more, and the sharpness clears the palate between bites of lamb and grilled onion. Street carts in Adana sell it by the glass in summer. This home version skips the separate bulgur-sour-dough stage the big producers use. Use non-iodised salt: iodised salt can stall the ferment. Chef's tip: taste from day 5; when it is sour enough to make you blink, strain and chill it, because it keeps fermenting at room temperature.

20 min

Turkish Drinks

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Gachas dulces

On the night of 31 October and on All Saints' Day, families across La Mancha make sweet gachas: flour toasted in olive oil with aniseed, loosened with milk and sugar into a soft cream, and topped with crisp cubes of fried bread. Each person dips a spoon into the communal dish while the season's first cold nights settle in. Chef's tip: toast the flour in the oil until it smells nutty before adding any milk; raw flour tastes pasty.

35 min

Spanish Desserts

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Black Country faggots

Faggots are the thrifty meatballs of the Black Country, the industrial towns west of Birmingham, sold by butchers and served at chip shops with mushy peas and gravy. They are made from pork liver, pork belly and onion with breadcrumbs, sage and mace, and baked in a deep onion gravy. This is a pork dish. Chef's tip: wrap each faggot in caul fat if your butcher has it; it bastes them and holds them together.

75 min

British Meat

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Bica de Trives

Pobra de Trives, a mountain town in Ourense, holds a festival every August in honour of its bica, a rich, close-textured cake made with fresh cream and butter from local dairies. It is baked in a rectangular tin, sold in paper and eaten in thick slices with coffee or a glass of milk. The sugar scattered on top bakes into a thin, crackly crust. A common mistake is overmixing once the flour goes in, which makes it tough; fold just until no streaks remain. Chef's tip: whip the egg whites separately and fold them in last for a lighter crumb.

65 min

Spanish Baking

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Fariñes

Fariñes, or farrapes in some valleys, fed Asturian farming families through the winter: a pot of maize meal stirred over the fire, eaten for breakfast or as a light supper with cold milk poured over the hot porridge. Today it is comfort food again, offered at rural guesthouses in the Oriente and made at home when the weather turns. The contrast of warm, soft porridge and cold milk is the whole point. Chef's tip: whisk the cornmeal into cold water before it heats so it never forms lumps.

30 min

Spanish Breakfast & Brunch

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Rhode Island clam cakes

At beach shacks along Narragansett Bay and in Galilee, clam cakes are bought by the paper bag, half a dozen at a time, to dunk in a cup of clear clam chowder. They are not patties but craggy, golden fritters, crisp outside and soft inside, studded with chopped quahog clams. Chef's tip: use the clam juice as part of the liquid; it puts the sea flavour into every bite of batter.

40 min

American Fish

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Piperade

Red, white and green, the colours of the Basque flag, sit in one pan in piperade, the summer dish of Bayonne, Espelette and the villages of the French Basque Country. Green peppers, onions and ripe tomatoes are stewed in olive oil until soft and sweet, then warmed with the region's mild, fruity Espelette pepper. Basque families eat it at lunch with crusty bread, spooned beside rice, or with eggs softly scrambled into it; restaurants often add a slice of Bayonne ham, which this version leaves out. Chef's tip: cook it slowly and let the liquid reduce; a good piperade is jammy, not watery.

55 min

French Vegetarian

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Şöbiyet

Gaziantep's baklava shops lay out trays of şöbiyet beside the classic squares: buttery filo triangles hiding a soft semolina cream and a thick seam of pistachio, soaked in cool syrup. Families buy them by the kilo for bayram visits and engagement days, and they are best eaten the day they are made, while the top layers still crackle. Home versions use shop filo and a quick milk cream instead of the clotted cream the masters fold in. Pour cold syrup over hot pastry, never hot over hot, or the layers turn soggy. Chef's tip: chill the cream until it is firm enough to slice; a soft filling oozes out as you fold the triangles.

90 min

Turkish Desserts

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Patlıcan kebabı

Late summer in southeastern Turkey, from Urfa to Gaziantep, means patlıcan kebabı: thick rounds of unpeeled aubergine threaded between small patties of spiced lamb, so the fat from the meat bastes the aubergine as it chars. Served on lavaş, the aubergine is pressed with a spoon into the bread and the whole thing is eaten with onions and green chillies. Use small, firm aubergines that won't split on the skewer. Common mistake: cutting the aubergine thinner than the meat; it burns before the köfte is cooked. Chef's tip: peel the charred aubergine skin off on the plate, but leave it on while grilling.

50 min

Turkish Meat

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Kougelhopf

Walk into any bakery in Colmar, Ribeauvillé or Strasbourg on a Sunday morning and the kougelhopf sits in the window, tall and fluted, wearing a snowfall of icing sugar and a crown of whole almonds. Alsatian families buy or bake one for weekend breakfast with coffee, and slices that go stale are toasted the next day. The crumb sits halfway between brioche and cake: soft, buttery and only lightly sweet, studded with plump raisins. Many bakers soak the raisins in kirsch (cherry brandy); this recipe uses warm black tea, which plumps them just as well without alcohol. You need a kougelhopf or bundt tin of about 22 cm. Chef's tip: chill the buttered tin for 10 minutes and press the almonds into the grooves before the dough goes in, so they stay put and toast as the cake bakes.

85 min

French Baking

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Orkney clapshot

Clapshot is the Orkney way with neeps and tatties: equal amounts of swede and potato mashed together with butter, chives and plenty of pepper, rather than served side by side. Islanders eat it with oatcakes and cheese, with mince, or alongside haggis on Burns Night. It is sweet, earthy and soft-orange. Chef's tip: dry the boiled vegetables in the hot pan before mashing, or the swede makes it watery.

40 min

British Sides

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Broas de batata-doce

Every December, kitchens across the Beiras fill with the smell of these broas: soft, cakey cookies made with mashed sweet potato, flour, olive oil and honey, spiced with cinnamon and fennel seed and glazed with egg yolk. Families bake big batches to share with neighbours and keep in tins over the holidays. They are only lightly sweet, with a tender crumb and a shiny top. Chef's tip: dry the cooked sweet potato in the pan for a minute before mashing, as watery mash makes a sticky dough that spreads.

55 min

Portuguese Baking

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Tlatlapas

In the villages of Tlaxcala, tlatlapas is the Lenten and rainy-season soup: dried beans, fava and peas are toasted on a comal, ground to a coarse flour and simmered into a thick, earthy purée seasoned with dried chilli, epazote and strips of cactus. It is a peasant dish with pre-Hispanic roots, cheap, filling and full of protein, eaten with corn tortillas and a squeeze of lime. Using split beans keeps the cooking under an hour. Chef's tip: toast the pulses until golden and nutty, not dark; burnt ones turn the whole pot bitter.

55 min

Mexican Soups

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Charamuscas

Around Day of the Dead in Guanajuato city, sweet sellers display charamuscas pulled and shaped into skulls, mummies (a nod to the town's famous museum) and simple twists, glossy amber and wrapped in cellophane. The everyday ones are rope-like spirals of pulled piloncillo, chewy then brittle, with a deep molasses taste. Pulling the hot sugar is a two-person job and great fun with older children; younger ones should watch. Chef's tip: wear clean rubber kitchen gloves rubbed with oil; you can handle the sugar sooner and much more comfortably.

40 min

Mexican Desserts

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Southern fried catfish

Fried catfish is the Friday night fish-fry and Delta church supper of Mississippi and Arkansas, where much of America's catfish is farmed. Fillets are soaked in seasoned milk or buttermilk, rolled in cornmeal and fried until the crust crackles and the mild, sweet fish inside flakes apart. Serve with hushpuppies, slaw and lemon. Chef's tip: cut thick fillets in half lengthways so they cook in the same time as the crust browns.

30 min

American Fish

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Cabrito assado à minhota

Easter Sunday in the Minho means cabrito: young goat rubbed with garlic, paprika and lard, soaked overnight in white wine and roasted until the meat falls from the bone. Families in Arcos de Valdevez and Monção serve it with roast potatoes and a tray of rice baked in the meat juices. This contains pork (lard and smoked bacon) and uses wine; an alcohol-free option is in the ingredient note. Chef's tip: baste every 20 minutes, as kid is lean and dries out quickly without it.

180 min

Portuguese Meat

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Pasta con 'nduja

Spilinga, a small hill town above the Calabrian coast, celebrates 'nduja with its own summer festival. This soft, spreadable salumi of pork fat and meat with huge amounts of Calabrian chilli melts straight into a pan, turning a simple tomato sauce brick-red, rich and properly hot. It's a quick weeknight pasta in Calabria, often made with fileja or short pasta, and finished with a little pecorino or a dollop of ricotta to soften the heat. Chef's tip: add the 'nduja off the heat at first and let it melt gently, then simmer; frying it hard burns the chilli and makes it bitter.

25 min

Italian Pasta & Noodles

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Agua de fresa cremosa

In Hidalgo, the pulque country north of Mexico City, the pulquerías serve curados: pulque blended with fruit, and the strawberry one is pink, thick and creamy. Home cooks and taquerías make this alcohol-free cousin for the whole family, a strawberry agua fresca blended with evaporated milk, so it is like a light milkshake that you drink with tacos on a hot afternoon. It contains no pulque or alcohol. Chef's tip: use the ripest, darkest strawberries you can find; pale ones give a thin, sour drink.

10 min

Mexican Drinks

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Rosquillas de San Isidro

Every 15 May, crowds head to the Pradera de San Isidro on Madrid's southern edge for the patron saint's festival, and stalls sell rosquillas by the dozen: plain "tontas" (silly ones) and iced "listas" (clever ones). Many families now bake them at home that week. Old recipes ice the listas with raw egg white; this one uses a lemon and icing-sugar glaze, which is safer and sets just as white. Chef's tip: oil your hands to shape the rings; the dough is soft and sticky by design.

50 min

Spanish Baking

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Peperoni cruschi

In late summer the villages around Senise, in southern Basilicata, hang long garlands of thin red peppers from balconies to dry in the sun. Once dried, a few seconds in hot oil turns them into peperoni cruschi: glassy, brittle and sweet with a faint smoky note, eaten like crisps or crumbled over pasta, beans, fried eggs and mashed potatoes. Lucanians call them their red gold and keep a jar of them on the table all winter. Chef's tip: get the oil hot but not smoking and count to five; the colour should stay bright red.

10 min

Italian Snacks & Starters

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