Sharbats, lassi, kulfi, aam ras, raita, cold salads and soups to keep you cool in the heat. (269 recipes)
Orzata was first made from barley (orzo), but in Liguria, Sardinia and Sicily it has long been made from almonds: a milky, sweet almond syrup, diluted with ice-cold water and drunk on hot summer afternoons in seaside bars and at home. Its gentle almond and orange-blossom flavour makes it a children's favourite. Contains nuts. Chef's tip: soak the blanched almonds in water for an hour before blending; they release more milk and the syrup is richer.
Crema is the yellow, custard-flavoured gelato that Italian grandparents always order, made with egg yolks like a crème anglaise and perfumed with lemon zest rather than vanilla, as was the old way in Florence and Sicily. It is rich and smooth and is the base for many classic flavours, and many gelaterie still call it "crema della nonna". Chef's tip: cook the custard until it reaches 82 °C and coats the back of a spoon; this makes the yolks safe and gives a silky texture without scrambling.
In late June and July the black mulberry trees of Sicily, especially around Messina and Acireale, drop their dark, juicy fruit, and the bars turn them into a granita the colour of ink, sweet and tangy, served in a glass with a warm brioche. Mulberries stain everything, so locals eat it carefully. If you can't find black mulberries, blackberries make a very similar granita. Chef's tip: add a squeeze of lemon; it brightens the berry flavour and keeps the colour vivid.
In Sicily, and in Rome at the famous Tazza d'Oro café near the Pantheon, coffee granita is served in a glass layered with unsweetened whipped cream: cream at the bottom, coffee ice in the middle and more cream on top. It is a summer breakfast or afternoon pick-me-up, eaten with a long spoon or a brioche. It contains caffeine, so it isn't for children. Chef's tip: make the coffee strong and sweet; flavours fade when frozen, so it should taste almost too sweet before it goes in the freezer.
Stracciatella was invented in 1961 at the Gelateria La Marianna in Bergamo's upper town, inspired by stracciatella soup, where egg is stirred into broth in little rags (stracci). The gelato maker drizzled melted dark chocolate into churning fior di latte, where it froze instantly into thin, crisp shards. It became one of the best-loved flavours in Italy, a favourite with children. Chef's tip: drizzle the chocolate in a thin stream right at the end of churning; it must hit the cold gelato and set at once, or it forms hard lumps.
In every gelateria from Turin to Palermo, fior di latte ("flower of milk") is the plainest flavour in the case and the one gelato makers judge each other by: just fresh milk, cream and sugar, with no eggs and no vanilla, so it tastes clean and milky. It is the base for stracciatella and the perfect partner for fruit sorbets in a cone. Italian children often choose it on summer evenings during the passeggiata. Chef's tip: chill the base overnight before churning; a fully cold base freezes faster into smaller ice crystals, which makes it smoother.
Gelo di mellone is the summer dessert of Palermo, eaten above all on 15 July for the feast of Santa Rosalia, the city's patron saint. Fresh watermelon juice is set with starch into a soft, wobbly pink pudding, scented with cinnamon and sometimes jasmine flowers, and topped with chocolate chips and chopped pistachios that look like watermelon seeds. It is served chilled in small bowls or as a tart filling. Contains nuts in the topping. Chef's tip: strain the watermelon juice through a fine sieve; any pulp clouds the jelly and stops it from setting smoothly.
Piedmont's Langhe hills grow the Tonda Gentile hazelnut, prized for its sweet, toasty flavour, and the region's gelaterie turn it into a deep, nutty, caramel-coloured gelato that many Italians consider the king of flavours. Turin is also where hazelnut and chocolate were first combined, in gianduja. In winter the same paste goes into cakes and biscuits. Contains nuts. Chef's tip: toast the hazelnuts until dark golden right through; under-toasted nuts give a flat, green flavour.
Kakigori is Japan's great summer cooler, sold under a flag printed with the character 氷 (ice) at festival stalls and seaside huts and turned into an art in Tokyo dessert cafés, where queues form in July and August. Ice is shaved into soft, snow-like flakes that melt on the tongue, then soaked in fruit syrup, matcha syrup or sweetened condensed milk. Contains dairy if you use condensed milk. The common mistake is using ice straight from the freezer: very cold ice shatters into crunchy shards, so let the block soften for 10 minutes first. Chef's tip: build it in two layers, pouring syrup over the half-full bowl and then again on top, so it is flavoured all the way through.
Real Sicilian pistachio gelato is not bright green; it is a dull, olive-brown colour and tastes intensely of roasted nuts, especially when made with pistachios from Bronte on the slopes of Mount Etna. In Palermo and Catania it is eaten in a brioche for breakfast or as a cone after dinner. The secret is pure pistachio paste, with no added colour or flavourings. Contains nuts. Chef's tip: if you can't find pistachio paste, blend roasted pistachios with a spoon of oil for 5 minutes until it runs smooth; any graininess shows up in the gelato.
Anmitsu became a craze in Tokyo's Ginza and Asakusa tea rooms in the 1930s and is still the classic summer order in kanmidokoro, the sweet cafés of old Tokyo. Clear, firm cubes of agar jelly are piled into a bowl with seasonal fruit, a scoop of sweet bean paste and boiled red peas, then drenched in dark, smoky kuromitsu syrup. The common mistake is using gelatin, which melts; agar jelly stays firm and refreshing at room temperature. Chef's tip: make the kuromitsu with Okinawan kokuto black sugar if you can; it gives a deep, almost liquorice-like flavour that muscovado only gets close to.
On summer mornings in Catania, Messina and the towns around Mount Etna, Sicilians have granita for breakfast: a glass of soft, flaky ice made from almond milk and sugar, eaten with a warm brioche col tuppo (with a little bun on top) for dunking. The almond granita is the most traditional flavour, white, sweet and fragrant. It is made without a machine, just scraped with a fork as it freezes. Contains nuts. Chef's tip: stir the granita every 30 minutes without fail; that's what gives it the soft, creamy flakes instead of a solid block.
All over Taiwan, from Tainan's old markets to Taipei's night-market stalls, winter melon tea is sold in plastic cups packed with ice through the steaming summer. Despite the name there is no tea in it: chunks of winter melon are cooked down for hours with brown and white sugar until the melon disappears into a thick, dark, toffee-scented paste, which is set into blocks and later dissolved in hot water and chilled. The drink tastes of caramel and light molasses with a gentle, grassy melon note, and it is often mixed half and half with lemon juice or fresh milk. The common mistake is stopping too early, when the mixture is still runny: it will not set and it tastes boiled rather than caramelised. Keep stirring until a drop on a cold plate sets firm and the paste pulls away from the pan. Ready blocks keep 2 months in the fridge, or 6 months frozen; make the drink whenever you want it. If you cannot find winter melon (ash gourd, available frozen in Asian shops), there is no good substitute. Chef's tip: a final 10 minutes on low heat with constant stirring gives the deep, smoky colour that market versions have.
On hot afternoons along the Lungomare and in Piazza Sannazaro, the old acquafrescai kiosks squeeze half a lemon into a glass of sparkling water, then add a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. The drink foams up and over the rim, so you have to lean forward with your legs apart to drink it without soaking your shoes, which is where the cheeky name comes from. It tastes sharp, salty-fresh and very fizzy, and Neapolitans swear by it after a heavy lunch. Chef's tip: have the glass at your lips before you stir in the bicarbonate; the foam rises in seconds.
In the villages of Haryana and the Rajasthan border, raabdi is drunk at midday in May and June to keep cool in the fields. Pearl-millet flour is stirred into buttermilk and left to ferment for a few hours, then cooked slowly until thick, cooled in a clay pot and thinned with more buttermilk and salt. It tastes tangy and earthy, a little like a savoury porridge you can drink. Ferment at warm room temperature (25–32 °C) for 4–6 hours: it should smell pleasantly sour with a few bubbles. Throw it away if you see pink, black or furry mould or it smells rotten or of nail varnish. The common mistake is cooking on high heat, which scorches the millet and leaves raw lumps. Chef's tip: keep the cooked raabdi in the fridge and drink it within 2 days, thinning each glass to taste.
Around the clock tower and old city of Jodhpur, lassi shops churn this rich drink all day in summer: chilled set curd whisked with sugar, saffron and cardamom, poured into tall glasses and crowned with a spoon of fresh white butter (makhan) and a layer of malai. You drink the cool lassi and eat the butter and cream with a spoon. It is a meal in itself. The common mistake is thinning it with too much water or ice, which loses the thick, almost spoonable texture that makes it Jodhpuri. Chef's tip: use curd set from full-fat milk the night before and whisk it by hand or with a few pulses only.
Long after dinner, the lanes around Surat's Chowk Bazaar and Athwa Lines fill with families queueing for cold cocoa, a thick, almost milkshake-like chocolate milk poured from big steel cans into tall glasses. The secret is cooking cocoa and a spoon of cornflour into rich milk first, then chilling it for hours so it thickens and the cocoa flavour deepens, before whisking it frothy to order. The common mistake is stirring cocoa powder straight into cold milk, which leaves bitter, dusty lumps floating on top. Chef's tip: make it the night before and whisk with a hand blender for 30 seconds just before pouring for the classic foamy head.
In Asunción the hottest part of the day stops for tereré: a horn or cup packed with yerba mate, topped up again and again with ice water infused with crushed herbs, and passed round the group through a metal straw. It was recognised by UNESCO as part of Paraguay's cultural heritage, and the herbs (yuyos) change with the season and the drinker's mood. Yerba mate contains caffeine, so it isn't one for small children. The common mistake is pouring water straight into loose yerba, which then clogs the straw; tilt the yerba to one side first. Chef's tip: for tereré ruso, swap the water for cold orange or grapefruit juice.
In Beijing and across the north, a pot of lüdou zhou is what families cook on hot summer mornings: plain rice and mung beans simmered until the beans split and the rice turns creamy, believed to cool the body. It is eaten with salty pickled vegetables, a fried dough stick or a spoon of sugar for children. The mistake is putting the rice and beans in together; mung beans need a head start or you get mushy rice with hard beans. Chef's tip: once it is cooked, leave it to stand off the heat with the lid on for 10 minutes; it thickens into a silky congee without extra stirring.
'Otai is the drink of the Tongan summer, ladled from big bowls at church feasts, weddings and beach picnics around Tongatapu. Watermelon is grated or mashed into chunky pulp and mixed with coconut milk, a little sugar and lots of ice; some families add grated mango or pineapple. It is drunk and eaten at the same time, with pieces of fruit in every glass. A common mistake is blending it smooth; it should be pulpy. Chef's tip: grate the melon on the coarse side of a box grater straight into the bowl to catch all the juice.
From April to June, when Chennai and Madurai bake at forty degrees, temples, shops and political parties set up 'thaneer pandhal' sheds by the roadside, offering free neer mor to every passer-by from great clay pots. At home it comes after a rice meal of sambar and rasam, or in the middle of the afternoon. The curd is churned and thinned with water until barely white, then seasoned with green chilli, ginger, curry leaves, coriander and a pinch of asafoetida, sometimes finished with a tempering of mustard seeds. It should be very thin, salty, tangy and herby, with a little chilli heat and a lingering savoury scent. The common mistake is using too little water: it then drinks like a heavy lassi rather than a thirst-quencher. Aim for about one part curd to four parts water. It is ready when the buttermilk is smooth, cold and pale green-flecked, and smells of curry leaf. It keeps a day in the fridge. Chef's tip: crush the ginger, chilli and curry leaves rather than chopping them; bruising releases far more flavour into the thin liquid.
Liangban sansi, 'cold-tossed three shreds', is one of the most common cold dishes on Chinese family tables, made in summer and at Lunar New Year as a fresh plate among the richer dishes. Fine strips of carrot, cucumber and kelp (or tofu skin) are blanched where needed and dressed with garlic, rice vinegar, soy and sesame oil, giving a crunchy, bright, gently sour salad. Serve it beside steamed fish or tofu. It is suitable as part of a balanced diet. About 70 kcal and 7 g carbohydrate per portion. The usual mistake is cutting the shreds thick and uneven, which makes the salad clumsy and the dressing slides off. A pinch of sugar in the dressing is optional; a sweetener works too. Chef's tip: soak dried kelp strips until soft and blanch them for one minute with a splash of vinegar so they lose their sliminess.
When Hanoi's tamarind-like sấu trees drop their small green fruit in May and June, street vendors start selling glasses of nước sấu: a few candied fruits, a ladle of ginger syrup, cold water and crushed ice. Families make big jars to last until the season ends in August. It is sipped with a spoon so you can bite into the crunchy-soft fruit at the bottom. It tastes sour and sweet at once, with a clean ginger warmth and a flavour a little like green mango and plum. Traditional cooks soak the peeled fruit in limewater to keep it crisp; a salt soak works well at home. The common mistake is skipping the blanch and slow syrup: raw fruit stays acrid and the syrup clouds. Blanch the fruit briefly, then cook it gently in sugar until it turns translucent yellow-green and the syrup is clear and glossy. Store it in a sterilised jar in the fridge for up to 2 months with a clean spoon; discard if it fizzes, smells fermented or shows mould. Fresh sấu is rare abroad; look for frozen sấu in Vietnamese shops, or use firm green ambarella. Chef's tip: slash each fruit a few times so the syrup soaks all the way in.
Across rural Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, farm workers drink a big glass of ragi ambali in the early morning before the summer heat, and clay pots of it are sold at roadside stalls in April and May. Finger-millet flour is cooked into a thick paste, left overnight to ferment lightly, then thinned with buttermilk and stirred with raw onion, green chilli and curry leaves into a cool, tangy, savoury drink. It is suitable as part of a balanced diet. About 140 kcal and 22 g carbohydrate per portion. The usual mistake is pouring the ragi flour straight into boiling water, which makes lumps; mix it with cold water first. Chef's tip: cook the paste until it turns glossy and darker, about 8 minutes; undercooked ragi tastes raw and floury.
From the rainy season in June until the cicadas fall quiet in September, almost every Japanese household keeps a tall jug of mugicha in the fridge. It is poured for children coming in from summer club practice, for grandparents after an afternoon nap, and alongside cold sōmen at lunch, because it carries no caffeine and can be drunk all day. Whole barley grains roasted until deep brown give a cup that tastes of toast, a little of coffee and a little of popcorn, with a clean, dry finish and no sweetness at all. Supermarkets sell it in tea bags, but loose roasted grains simmered in a pan make a rounder, darker brew. The usual mistake is leaving the grains in the jug or letting the hot tea sit out on the counter for hours: it turns bitter and, being a grain infusion, it sours quickly in summer heat. Strain it, cool it fast in a sink of cold water, and drink it within two days. It is ready when the liquid is a clear amber-brown and smells like freshly toasted bread. Chef's tip: dry-toast the grains for two minutes before brewing to wake up a bag that has been open a while.
Bunches of red shiso fill Japanese greengrocers for a few weeks in June and July, mostly bought to colour umeboshi. Gardeners from Kyoto's Ohara valley to Kantō boil the surplus into this cordial and keep it in the fridge for hot afternoons. Simmering pulls a murky purple-brown liquid from the leaves; the magic is the moment the vinegar goes in and the whole pan flushes a brilliant clear magenta. Diluted with ice water or soda water it tastes sweet-sour and herbal, like a cross between blackcurrant, mint and cinnamon. The most common mistake is simmering the leaves too long or with the stems: it turns grassy and bitter. Strip the leaves, boil them for five minutes only, until they have turned green and limp, then lift them out. The cordial is ready when it is jewel-bright and clear. Bottle it in a clean, sterilised bottle and keep it in the fridge for up to three weeks; discard if it fizzes, clouds or grows mould. No fresh red shiso nearby? Japanese and Korean shops sometimes sell it in summer, and it grows easily from seed. Chef's tip: freeze some as ice cubes to drop into sparkling water.
In Guadalajara and markets across central Mexico, tepacheros sell this drink from big clay jars, ladled over ice into bags with a straw on hot afternoons. It is the thrifty drink of the house: the peel and core left after eating a pineapple are fermented for two or three days with piloncillo, cinnamon and cloves until the liquid turns golden, faintly fizzy and pleasantly sour, like a spiced pineapple cider. Wild yeasts from the peel do the work, so it makes a trace of alcohol, well under 1% when drunk young; the longer it sits, the sourer and more alcoholic it gets. The common mistake is leaving it too long in a warm kitchen, when it turns vinegary and cloudy; in hot weather check after 36 hours. It is ready when it has a layer of fine bubbles, smells sweet-sour and fruity, and tastes tart rather than syrupy. White, flat foam can be skimmed; fuzzy, coloured mould, a slimy texture or a rotten smell mean throw it away. Keep it in the fridge 3–5 days, and if you bottle it for fizz, burp the bottles daily so pressure cannot build. Chef's tip: use an organic pineapple and do not scrub the peel, as the yeasts live on its skin.
On a hot Sunday at Flic en Flac or Mon Choisy, families queue at the glaçon râpé man, who shaves a block of ice into a cup, then pours over bright red and green syrups and, if you ask, a thick ribbon of sweetened condensed milk. The ice should be fluffy and dry like fresh snow, so the syrup sinks in and streaks the colours together, and the condensed milk turns the bottom of the cup into a sweet, milky slush. A home blender makes a fine version if the ice is very cold; the common mistake is using ice straight from a bag that has half-thawed, which turns to watery slush. Chef's tip: put the cups and the blender jug in the freezer for 20 minutes first, then pulse in short bursts rather than running the motor.
In Podlasie and the lake country of north-east Poland, chłodnik is the soup of hot June and July days, when young beets are pulled with their leaves still tender. The beet greens and baby beets are cooked briefly, chilled, then stirred into kefir with cucumber, radish, spring onion and lots of dill, so the soup turns shocking pink, tangy and cold. It is served as a starter or a light lunch with half a hard-boiled egg in each bowl. Suitable as part of a balanced diet. About 170 kcal and 13 g carbohydrate per portion. The usual mistake is mixing the kefir into warm beets, which makes it split and dulls the colour, so chill them completely first. Chef's tip: add a squeeze of lemon to the cooking beets; the acid keeps the colour a vivid pink instead of brownish.
Walk along the beach barracas of Salvador or into any lanchonete in Recife and the juice board will list cajá near the top. The small yellow fruit, from tall trees that grow wild across Bahia and the Northeast, is too sour to eat out of hand but makes a juice with a scent that people there treat as a taste of home: floral, sharp and tropical, a little like passion fruit and mango crossed with lime. It is drunk ice-cold with lunch, with a plate of moqueca, or after an afternoon in the sun. Most Brazilians use frozen pulp, which keeps the fragrance well. The common mistake is drowning it in sugar or blending it with too much water so the perfume disappears; cajá should taste lively and tart, so sweeten lightly and taste as you go. It is ready when it is a bright golden-yellow, lightly frothy, and smells floral as soon as you lift the jug. Outside Brazil, look for frozen cajá pulp in Latin American shops; the same fruit is sold as jobo or yellow mombin, or ciruela in Mexico. Chef's tip: blend with half ice and half water instead of all water for a frothier, colder juice.
When the big, mottled chilacayote squashes ripen at the end of the rains, cooks in Oaxaca's valleys and the Mixteca of Puebla turn them into a drink you eat with a spoon. The flesh is cooked with dark piloncillo and cinnamon until it falls into translucent threads, then cooled and loosened with water; in Oaxaca it is ladled out of clay jars at fairs, weddings and the Day of the Dead, often with a little pineapple. It tastes like cinnamon-scented panela, with soft, slightly crunchy strands that slide up the straw. The usual mistake is boiling it to mush; overcooked flesh goes cloudy and the strands disappear. Simmer gently and stop when the threads separate easily with a fork but still have a little bite. It is ready when the syrup is amber and the strands look glassy. Chilacayote is hard to find outside Mexico; spaghetti squash is the best substitute and gives the same threads. Keeps 3 days in the fridge. Chef's tip: grate a little orange zest into the pot in the last minute to brighten the piloncillo.
Order 'limau ais asam boi' at a kopitiam in Penang or a hawker centre in Kuala Lumpur at the hottest part of the afternoon and it arrives in a tall, sweating glass: freshly squeezed calamansi or small green limes, a little syrup, ice and one wrinkled, salted dried plum. The plum slowly leaches salt and fruity sourness into the drink, so every sip changes, starting bright and sweet and ending salty and tangy; you squash the plum with your straw halfway through for a stronger hit. It goes with char kway teow, nasi lemak or anything fried. The usual mistake is using bottled lime juice, which tastes flat and bitter against the plum. Squeeze fresh limes, and add the syrup gradually because asam boi is already salty-sweet. It is ready when the glass is frosted and the plum has started to plump up. Asam boi is sold in jars in Chinese and Southeast Asian groceries; Japanese umeboshi is saltier but works if you halve the amount. Chef's tip: make the lime-syrup base ahead and keep it cold, then pour over fresh ice only when you serve.
Hiyashi tomato is the simplest thing on any Japanese izakaya menu in July and August: ripe tomatoes, chilled until icy, cut into wedges and served on a small plate, sometimes on crushed ice, to cool down a hot evening in Tokyo or Osaka. Many bars sprinkle salt; this home version leaves it out and offers a few drops of rice vinegar and toasted sesame oil instead, so the tomato's own sweetness and acidity do the work. About 0.0 g added salt; roughly 0.03 g per portion occurs naturally in the tomato. The usual mistake is using hard, pale supermarket tomatoes: this dish is only as good as the fruit, so buy deep red ones that smell of tomato at the stalk. Chef's tip: chill the plate as well as the tomatoes, so the wedges stay cold to the last bite.
Late summer is tuna season across the central highlands, from Hidalgo and the Estado de México down to Puebla's Teotihuacán valley, and that is when the big vitroleros in markets and taquerías turn shocking pink. Agua de tuna is just the cactus fruit blended with water, lime and a little sugar, strained, and poured over ice with lunch. Red tunas give a vivid colour and a taste between watermelon and pear; green ones make a paler, more herbal drink. It should be light and thirst-quenching, never syrupy. The commonest mistake is blending too long: the hard seeds crack and the agua turns gritty and slightly bitter. Pulse briefly, just enough to free the pulp, then strain well. It is ready when the liquid runs smooth through the sieve and tastes clearly of fruit with only a lift of lime. Handle unpeeled tunas with tongs or gloves: even 'cleaned' ones keep tiny glochids. Chef's tip: chill the peeled fruit before blending; cold pulp keeps its colour bright and needs less ice to dilute it.
On May afternoons in Ahmedabad and Surat, when the loo wind blows and nobody wants a hot drink, Gujarati homes keep a bottle of variyali sharbat concentrate in the fridge. Fennel seeds are soaked, ground with rock sugar, strained and mixed with lemon and a little black pepper, then diluted with iced water for guests, after lunch, or to break a fast, since nothing in it is off-limits on upvas days if you use rock salt. It is pale green and cloudy, with a sweet aniseed taste, a sharp lemon finish and a faint peppery tingle. The common mistake is grinding dry fennel straight away: it stays gritty and the flavour is harsh. Soak the seeds for at least two hours so they swell and grind into a smooth paste. It is ready when the strained concentrate is silky, smells clearly of fennel and tastes very sweet, as it will be diluted three or four times. The concentrate keeps 5 days in the fridge in a clean bottle. Chef's tip: add a few mint leaves or a pinch of cardamom when grinding for a more rounded cooler.
In Kolkata the gondhoraj lime arrives with the monsoon heat, a knobbly green fruit whose peel smells of flowers and pine more than of sour citrus. Bengali households use it to lift dal and fish, but in the sticky months from Boishakh into Srabon it goes into ghol: dahi churned with cold water until frothy, sweetened lightly and scented with the zest, a squeeze of juice and a torn leaf. Cafés along Gariahat and old sweet shops serve it in clay bhaar cups after lunch, and it is just as good mid-afternoon with a plate of muri. It drinks thin, cool and silky, with a soft tang and a perfume that hits the nose before the first sip. The usual mistake is grating too deep or leaving the zest to sit for an hour: the white pith and the oils turn bitter. Take only the green outer layer, add it just before serving, and stop when the ghol smells floral rather than sharp. It is ready when the top is covered in fine foam and a spoon comes out lightly coated. Chef's tip: for the salted version, swap the sugar for black salt and a pinch of roasted cumin, as many Kolkata homes do on the hottest days.
Every Tamil town once had a soda shop with crates of Codd-neck bottles sealed by a glass marble, and the pop of the marble being pushed down was the sound of a hot afternoon. Paneer here means rose water, not cheese, and paneer soda is rose syrup topped with that sharp local fizz, sold in Madurai, Tiruchi and Coimbatore by the bus stand and at temple festival stalls in Chithirai and Vaikasi, the hottest months. It is sweet and floral at first, then the bubbles and a touch of lime cut through and leave the mouth clean. The mistake most people make is boiling the rose water with the sugar: the scent cooks away and you are left with plain syrup. Make the syrup first, let it cool, and only then stir in the rose water. The syrup is ready when it is clear and slightly thickened, like thin honey, and the finished drink should be rosy pink and still foaming as you hand it over. Chef's tip: chill the syrup, the soda and the glasses well; warm soda loses its fizz the moment it meets the syrup.
Old Beijing sold suanmeitang from brass bowls at street corners in summer, chilled with blocks of river ice, and the Qing court drank a version as a cooler. Today it comes in big jugs at copper-pot hotpot restaurants, where its sourness cuts through mutton and sesame sauce; families brew a pot every few days all summer. Smoked wumei plums give a deep, almost bacon-like smokiness, hawthorn adds fruity acid, licorice softens the edges and rock sugar rounds everything off, with dried osmanthus on top for a honeyed scent. It should be dark ruby, clear and refreshing, tart first and sweet after. The common mistake is boiling it hard for hours: the plum stones and hawthorn seeds release bitterness and the brew turns muddy. Simmer gently, strain early and chill fast. It is ready when the plums have collapsed and the liquid tastes clearly sour-sweet with a smoky finish. Licorice root is traditionally used in small amounts; people with high blood pressure, heart or kidney problems, or who are pregnant should keep the licorice out or check with a doctor. Chef's tip: add the osmanthus only after the heat is off, or its perfume vanishes.
When July heat settles over Italian piazzas, bar regulars from Rome to Bologna switch their morning or after-lunch espresso for a shakerato. The barista pulls a fresh shot, tips it into a cocktail shaker with ice and sugar, shakes hard for fifteen seconds and strains it into a chilled martini or wine glass, where it settles into a dark body under a thick, beige, mousse-like crema. It tastes intense and bittersweet, colder and smoother than iced coffee, with a texture almost like a light cream. The common mistake is using too little ice or shaking half-heartedly: the coffee stays warm and the foam collapses within seconds. Fill the shaker at least half full with ice and shake until the metal is too cold to hold comfortably. It is ready when you hear the ice rattle softly and the shaker frosts over, and the pour has a thick foam on top. One shaker holds one double espresso, so it is fairly strong in caffeine. Chef's tip: dissolve the sugar in the hot espresso before adding ice; granulated sugar barely melts once the coffee is cold.
Order a citron pressé on a Paris terrace in July, or at a café in Nice after the beach, and the waiter brings a tall glass with an inch of freshly squeezed lemon juice, a carafe of iced water, a sugar bowl or a little jug of syrup and a long spoon. You build the drink yourself, as sharp or as sweet as you like, which is half the pleasure; French children learn to drink it with plenty of sugar, grown-ups often with almost none. It is bright, sour and cleansing, nothing like bottled lemonade, and best in the late afternoon heat. The common mistake is stirring granulated sugar straight into cold lemon water: it sinks and never dissolves, so the first sips are sour and the last a sludge. Dissolve the sugar in the juice first, or use a quick syrup. It is ready when the sugar has vanished, the drink tastes balanced to you and the glass is beaded with cold. Unwaxed lemons matter if you add a twist of peel. Chef's tip: pour the water over ice slowly and taste after half the carafe; most people find they need less water than they expect.
Ask anyone who grew up in France about diabolo menthe and they will remember sitting on a café terrace after school, or on holiday in Brittany or the Vendée, with a tall glass of startling green fizz and a straw. It is simply sirop de menthe, the sweet mint syrup sold in every French supermarket, topped up with limonade, which in France means a clear, lightly sweet, lemony fizzy drink. Grenadine makes a diabolo grenadine, lemon syrup a diabolo citron. It tastes cool, minty and sweet, like a liquid mint sweet, with a sharp sparkle. The common mistake is pouring the syrup on top of the lemonade: it sinks in a dense layer and you drink plain fizz followed by pure syrup. Put the syrup in the glass first and pour the lemonade down the side so it mixes as it rises. It is ready when the glass is an even mint-green from bottom to top and still fizzing hard. Café ratio is about one part syrup to seven parts lemonade. Chef's tip: for a homemade syrup, steep a big handful of fresh mint in hot sugar syrup for 30 minutes and strain; it will be pale gold-green rather than emerald, and tastes fresher.
All along Sri Lanka's roads, from Galle Road in Colombo to the highways into Kandy and the beaches of the south coast, vendors stack bright orange king coconuts in pyramids under umbrellas. The thambili is a variety grown on the island for drinking: smaller than a green coconut and sweeter, with a faint saltiness that makes it more refreshing than any bottled drink. It is drunk any time of day in the heat, after a long bus ride, after a cricket match, and given to people recovering from a fever because it is gentle on the stomach. The water is clear, lightly sweet and nutty, and the soft jelly inside is eaten with a spoon made from a slice of the husk. The common mistake is hacking at the side of the nut; the blade glances off and the water spills. Trim the pointed top with downward strokes until a pale circle shows, then pierce it. It is ready to drink when a small hole opens straight into the water without husk fibres. Outside Sri Lanka, young green or Thai coconuts are the nearest substitute. Chef's tip: chill the coconuts for a few hours before opening; the water tastes sweeter cold, and use a heavy knife and a towel, keeping fingers well clear.
Every Filipino household seems to have a calamansi bush or a bag of the little green fruit in the fridge, from Manila condos to farmhouses in Mindoro, the island that grows most of them. At lunch in the dry season the juice comes out iced in a big pitcher; in the rainy months, when everyone has a cough, a lola stirs the same juice into hot water with a little sugar or honey and hands it over at bedtime. It tastes like a lime crossed with a mandarin: sharp, floral and slightly bitter at the edges, with a pale green-gold colour. The usual mistake is squeezing the fruit hard and letting the seeds and pith fall in, which turns the juice bitter within minutes; halve each fruit across, squeeze gently over a small strainer and stop before the peel folds. It is ready when the sugar has fully dissolved, the juice tastes bright rather than harsh and a cold glass fogs on the outside. Chef's tip: dissolve the sugar in a little warm water first, as it never melts properly in iced juice.
Afternoon merienda across the Philippines means something cold from a plastic cooler at the school gate, a jeepney stop or a carinderia: sago't gulaman, buko juice or this melon drink, with ribbons of orange cantaloupe suspended in sweet water. Vendors scrape the melon with a special spiral shredder, a kayod ng melon, so you get thin strands to chew through a fat straw. It tastes fresh, sweet and gently musky, more refreshing than a smoothie because the water stays clear and light; some stalls add evaporated milk, but the plain version is the classic. The common mistake is using a melon that is not fully ripe, which gives pale, crunchy strands and a flat drink; choose one that smells sweet at the stem end and gives slightly when pressed there. Shred straight into the jug so the juice from the melon is not lost. It is ready when the strands are soft and floating, the water has turned faintly orange and it tastes of melon rather than plain syrup. Chef's tip: a box grater's coarse side or a fork scraped along the flesh both work if you don't own a melon shredder.
Kashan and the villages of Qamsar and Niasar are famous for distilling flowers in spring: rose water in May, and before that araq-e bidmeshk, the distillate of the fuzzy catkins of the musk willow. In summer, when the desert heat settles over the old houses, the same bottles go into sharbat-e bidmeshk, a pale syrup diluted with icy water and served to guests in tall glasses, sometimes with swollen basil seeds. It is traditionally drunk to calm the nerves and cool the body. The taste is delicate, sweet and haunting, somewhere between honeysuckle, musk and fresh hay. The common mistake is adding the distillate to hot syrup; the heat drives the scent away within minutes, so cool the syrup completely first. The syrup is ready when it is clear and pours like thin honey, and the finished sherbet should smell floral the moment you lift the glass. Look for the distillate in Iranian shops; there is no true substitute, though rose water with a few drops of orange-blossom water makes a pleasant but different drink. Chef's tip: a squeeze of lemon in the syrup stops it crystallising in the fridge, where it keeps for a month.
Big steel urns of golden saffron sherbet are poured for guests at Iranian weddings and engagement parties, and the same drink is handed out on the street as nazri during Muharram and at memorial gatherings, when families offer something sweet and cool in the name of the departed. Saffron from Khorasan is ground with a sugar cube, bloomed in a little water and stirred into syrup with rose water and lemon. The result is honey-sweet and floral, with saffron's faint bitterness and hay-like perfume at the end, and a colour that should be a clear, sunny orange-gold. The usual mistake is dropping whole threads straight into cold water, which gives a pale, patchy drink and wastes expensive saffron; grind it first and let it bloom for at least 10 minutes. You know the bloom is ready when the water is a deep red-orange and smells strongly of saffron. Taste before serving: it should be sweet but finish clean, with the lemon just noticeable. Chef's tip: an ice cube placed on the ground saffron and left to melt slowly gives the deepest colour of all, an old Iranian trick.
For a few weeks in spring, after Nowruz, sellers come down from the Alborz foothills, the mountains of Khorasan and Kurdistan with bundles of rivas, the thick-stalked wild rhubarb. People peel and eat the stalks raw with salt, cook them into khoresh, and boil the rest into syrup to keep the taste of the season into summer. Sharbat-e rivas is pink, sharp and refreshing, like sour cherry and green apple together, softened by sugar and lifted by mint. The common mistake is boiling the rhubarb hard and pressing it through the sieve, which makes the syrup cloudy, brownish and stringy; simmer gently and let it drip on its own. Use only the stalks, never the leaves, which are poisonous. The syrup is ready when it is clear, rose-coloured and coats a spoon in a thin film; it keeps for two weeks in a clean bottle in the fridge, and should be thrown away if it fizzes, smells of alcohol or grows mould. Garden rhubarb is a good substitute for rivas; the reddest stalks give the prettiest colour. Chef's tip: a strip of lemon peel in the pot brightens the colour and stops the syrup tasting flat.
In the hot streets of Centro Habana, durofríos are sold straight from the front windows of family homes: a few pesos buys a frozen cup of fruit juice or fruit and milk, popped out and eaten on a stick or straight from its paper cup. Children queue for them after school in the long summer afternoons, when the sea breeze has dropped. This version blends ripe mango with milk and lime into a creamy, fruity ice that is firm, as the name says ("hard-cold"), rather than soft like ice cream. Swap the milk for water or guava juice for a dairy-free fruit ice. It contains milk. Chef's tip: make the mix taste a little too sweet before freezing; cold dulls sweetness.
In Colombia a sorbete is not an ice but a fruit milkshake, and around Bogotá and the cold highlands of Boyacá and Cundinamarca the classic is made with curuba, the long, soft-skinned banana passionfruit that grows on vines at 2,500 metres. Bakeries and corrientazo lunch spots serve it with almuerzo or with a slice of cake at onces, the late-afternoon snack. It is pale salmon-pink, creamy and sweet-tart, more delicate than passionfruit, with a fragrance like guava and lemon. The common mistake is blending the pulp with its black seeds on high speed: the seeds break up and the sorbete turns bitter and grey-flecked. Pulse just enough to loosen the pulp from the seeds, strain, and only then blend with milk. Serve it at once, because the acid in curuba thickens the milk the longer it stands. It is ready when it is smooth, frothy and pink with no gritty specks. Outside Colombia look for frozen curuba pulp in Latin shops; passionfruit pulp works too, but use about two thirds of the amount as it is stronger. Chef's tip: dissolve the sugar in the strained juice before the milk goes in, so you can blend for less time.
On Sunday afternoons in Caracas, juice stands along the boulevards of Sabana Grande and the Plaza Altamira, and street carts outside beaches and parks, sell tizana in tall plastic cups with a straw and a long spoon. It is half drink, half fruit salad: papaya, pineapple, melon, watermelon, apple, mango and banana cut into tiny dice and soaked in orange juice tinted ruby with grenadine. At home it is made by the jug for birthday parties and hot holidays. It tastes juicy, sweet and bright, and every sip brings a different fruit up the straw. The common mistake is adding the banana and apple with everything else an hour early: they turn brown and mushy and cloud the juice. Cut them last and stir them in just before serving. The tizana is ready when the fruit has soaked for about 30 minutes in the fridge, the juice has turned a clear coral-pink and the pieces are cold right through. Make the dice no bigger than 1 cm so they pass up a wide straw. Grenadine here means pomegranate syrup; a red fruit syrup works too. Chef's tip: squeeze a little lime over the cut apple and banana to keep them pale and add a tang that lifts the whole jug.
On a hot July afternoon in any German or Austrian Eiscafé, from a Hamburg promenade to a Viennese Gastgarten, the tall glass with the long spoon is Eiskaffee. It is not iced coffee in the American sense: strong coffee, chilled, is poured over two scoops of vanilla ice cream and crowned with sweetened whipped cream, sometimes a wafer and a dusting of cocoa or grated chocolate. You drink the cold coffee through a straw while the ice cream slowly melts into it, then spoon up the creamy, half-frozen rest, so it is part drink, part dessert, eaten at the café in the afternoon rather than with a meal. The usual mistake is pouring hot or even warm coffee straight onto the ice cream: it melts at once into a thin, lukewarm, milky soup. Brew it earlier and chill it properly. It is ready when the coffee is fridge-cold, the scoops sit just proud of the surface and the cream holds soft peaks on top. It is moderately caffeinated, so keep it for adults and older teens. Chef's tip: freeze leftover coffee in ice-cube trays and add a couple to the glass so nothing gets diluted with water.
Swank is the simplest drink in Guyana and the one everybody's grandmother made: fresh limes from the yard squeezed into cold water and sweetened with brown Demerara sugar from the cane fields along the coast; nobody agrees where the odd name comes from. It turns up beside Sunday cook-up rice, at village cricket matches, at Mashramani in February and on any hot afternoon in Georgetown, New Amsterdam or the Essequibo coast, poured from an enamel jug full of ice. It is sharp, refreshing and gently caramel-sweet from the brown sugar, with a warm hint of nutmeg on top. The common mistake is squeezing the limes so hard, or leaving the lime shells in the jug, that bitter peel oil takes over; squeeze firmly but not to the last drop, and take the shells out. It is ready when the sugar has completely dissolved, it tastes bright, tart and sweet in balance, and the nutmeg smells warm on top. Make it fresh: lime juice turns bitter if it sits for more than a few hours. Chef's tip: dissolve the Demerara in a little warm water first; the large crystals take forever to melt in cold water.
Ask a Hong Kong family what they drink at the first hint of a sore throat in autumn, or when the city's spring humidity sets in, and many will say jook je mao gun soi. Lengths of thin green bamboo sugarcane, split open, are simmered with dried cogon grass root and carrots, sometimes with water chestnuts and a few dried corn silks, into a pale amber broth that tastes of sugarcane, sweet carrot and a faint grassiness. It is drunk warm after dinner or chilled from the fridge during the day, and herbal tea shops sell it by the bottle for children who refuse the bitter stuff. The common mistake is skipping the splitting of the cane: whole sticks barely release any sweetness, and you end up adding sugar. Bash each piece with the back of a cleaver until it cracks lengthwise. The drink is ready when the carrots are soft, the liquid is clear and light amber, and it tastes naturally sweet. Bamboo cane and cogon root are sold as soup packs in Chinese grocers; ordinary purple or green sugarcane works too. It is traditionally drunk to 'clear heat', but it is a refreshment, not a cure. Chef's tip: add a few peeled water chestnuts for extra crunch-sweetness.
In late May and early June, when elder bushes bloom white along every Romanian village lane and riverbank, grandmothers fill big glass jars with water, sugar, lemon slices and elderflower heads and set them on a sunny windowsill or balcony. Three or four days later the jar is fizzing gently and socată, the most beloved summer drink of rural Romania, is bottled and chilled for haymaking days, family lunches and long evenings in the courtyard. It is sweet and floral, like honeyed lemonade with the scent of muscat grapes, with a light natural sparkle. Like all young ferments it makes a trace of alcohol, well under 1% if drunk within a week. The common mistake is washing the flowers or picking them after rain: the pollen and wild yeast that start the fermentation are rinsed away and nothing happens. Pick dry, fully open heads on a sunny morning and just shake off insects. It is ready to strain when fine bubbles rise steadily and it smells floral and slightly tangy. Use only the flowers: elder stems, leaves and unripe berries are toxic. Chef's tip: a few raisins in the jar give the yeast a boost if your flowers are slow.
On hot Lahore nights, families stroll to Gawalmandi food street and the old shops near Anarkali for kulfa: a whole cone of dense, cardamom-scented kulfi is sliced into fat discs, laid over soft falooda noodles and spooned over with rabri, the thick sweetened milk. It is cold, chewy and creamy in every mouthful. Contains milk and tree nuts (pistachio and almond); the falooda noodles may contain wheat. Chef's tip: scrape the bottom and sides of the pan constantly as the milk reduces; one scorched patch flavours the whole batch.
Red bean ice is a cha chaan teng drink and dessert in one: tall glasses of sweet stewed adzuki beans, sugar syrup and crushed ice, topped with a layer of evaporated milk, served all summer at the old-school cafés of Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok and at the dai pai dong on Stanley Street. You stir with a long spoon, sip the cold milky liquid through a straw and spoon up the soft beans. The beans can be cooked a day ahead. Contains milk. Chef's tip: add the sugar only once the beans are completely soft; sugar added early keeps the skins tough.
In Denmark the elder hedges flower from late May to the end of June, and picking the creamy umbels on a dry, sunny morning is one of the first rituals of summer. The flowers steep for a few days with sliced lemon, sugar syrup and citric acid, then are strained into bottles of hyldeblomstsaft, a non-alcoholic cordial that is diluted with cold still or sparkling water and poured at garden lunches, children's birthday parties and around the bonfire on Sankt Hans aften, 23 June. It tastes floral and honeyed, a little like muscat grapes, with a fresh lemony edge that keeps it from cloying. The mistake most people make is picking flowers that are already browning, damp or growing by a busy road; they give a musty, catty smell. Choose freshly opened heads that smell sweet, and shake out the insects instead of washing them, which rinses away the pollen and the flavour. The cordial is ready when it tastes clearly of elderflower and the lemon slices have softened. Chef's tip: snip the florets off with scissors right under the flowers, as green stalk makes it bitter.
Sorbetes is the Filipino street ice cream that vendors push through Manila in brightly painted wooden carts, ringing a bell outside churches after Sunday Mass, in Luneta Park and at school gates. Fondly called 'dirty ice cream' because it is sold on the street, it is lighter than dairy ice cream, made with milk, coconut milk and a little cornflour, and comes in flavours like ube, mango, chocolate and cheese, scooped into small cones or stuffed into a soft pandesal roll. This is the ube version. Chef's tip: whisk the mixture hard every 45 minutes during freezing; it keeps the ice crystals small without an ice-cream machine.
From January to March, when Lima's coast swelters, queues form at the cremolada counters of Barranco and along the Jirón de la Unión downtown for cups of this thick fruit ice. It sits between a granita and a sorbet: frozen fruit pulp scraped again and again until it is slushy and spoonable, with real bits of fruit through it. Passion fruit (maracuyá) gives a sharp, bright flavour; creamy lúcuma, with its maple and sweet potato taste, is the other favourite. Chef's tip: use a shallow metal tray; it freezes faster and evenly, so you get fine crystals rather than chunks.
On warm evenings the pavement beside St Joseph's Cathedral in Hanoi fills with rows of tiny plastic stools, and nearly everyone is holding a tall glass of trà chanh, cheap green tea poured over ice with a squeeze of lime and plenty of sugar, sipped with a saucer of sunflower seeds while the city's scooters roar past. It is sharp, sweet and very refreshing. Chef's tip: brew the tea in water just off the boil, around 80 °C; boiling water makes green tea bitter.
Harvest time in the Punjab is thirsty work: when the wheat is being cut in the April heat, a steel jug of kachi lassi is carried out to the workers: fresh milk thinned with cold water, stirred with sugar and poured over chunks of ice. Unlike yogurt lassi there is no tang, just a light, clean, milky sweetness that quenches thirst better than plain water, and in many villages it is the drink offered to any guest who arrives on a hot afternoon. Some people add a pinch of salt instead of sugar, or a few drops of rose water. The traditional kind uses raw milk straight from the buffalo; use pasteurised milk instead to be safe. The usual mistake is making it with too little water, which turns it heavy instead of refreshing. Chef's tip: whisk it hard or shake it in a jar so it turns frothy, which makes it feel even cooler.
It sounds odd until you are standing in a crowd at a Lahore milk shop on a 45 °C June night, when a tall glass of doodh soda, foamy and sweet with a sharp citrus fizz, is the most refreshing thing in the city. The doodh-walas of Gawalmandi and Mozang chill milk in steel drums over ice, then pour it from a height into a glass with lemon-lime soda so that it froths like a milkshake, and people drink it straight after dinner or after a late plate of fried fish or chana. It tastes like a lighter, bubbly lassi, and children love it. What usually goes wrong is warm milk or flat soda, which makes it taste curdled rather than crisp. Chef's tip: chill both the milk and the soda until very cold, pour the milk first and add the soda in one go, then serve at once while the foam is high.
Nothing says summer evening at Clifton beach or Burns Road quite like the clatter of a gola ganda cart, where a block of ice is shaved on a hand plane, packed round a stick into a fist-sized ball and doused in rose-pink, mango-orange and purple kala khatta syrups. It melts fast in the Karachi heat, so children lick it from the bottom as it drips, and the fancier stalls serve it in a plate with condensed milk, desiccated coconut and a pinch of chaat-style salt on the sour syrup. At home a hand ice shaver or a powerful blender makes snow fine enough to press into balls. The most common disappointment is ice crushed too coarsely, which will not hold together and lets the syrup run straight through. Chef's tip: freeze the ice from boiled and cooled drinking water in a shallow tray, and put the glasses or plates in the freezer too, so the gola keeps its shape for longer.
Tarkhuna is the emerald-green soda that every Tbilisi child knows, sold from street fountains since the early 1900s and still poured in tall glasses at cafés on Rustaveli Avenue. The bottled kind is coloured; the home version gets its green from blitzing fresh tarragon with lemon and syrup, giving an aniseedy, sweet-sour fizz. A common mistake is boiling the tarragon, which dulls the colour and turns the flavour stewed. Chef's tip: blitz the herb into cool syrup and strain it straight away; the drink stays vivid green for a day in the fridge.
The name joins limon and nana, lemon and mint, and this slushy green lemonade is what beach cafés from Herzliya to Eilat hand over the counter on blazing summer days. Lemon juice, sugar syrup, a big handful of mint and ice are blended until smooth and frosty, so the drink is sour, sweet and cooling at once. It is alcohol-free and children love it. The mistake is blending the mint so long that it turns bitter and brownish; a short, hard blitz keeps it bright. Chef's tip: make the syrup ahead and chill it, then use plenty of ice so the drink stays thick rather than watery.
Before bottled soft drinks, the kiosks along Rothschild Boulevard and in Florentin sold gazoz: a squirt of fruit syrup topped up with fizzy water from a tap. Tel Aviv cafés have revived it as a glass crammed with fresh and lightly fermented fruit, flowers and herbs, so it is pretty, tart and only gently sweet. Make it on hot afternoons, for children's birthdays or as an alcohol-free welcome drink. The mistake is pouring the soda too early, so it goes flat before you drink it. Chef's tip: macerate the fruit in syrup for at least 30 minutes, ideally overnight in the fridge, so it bleeds colour into the glass.
Squeezing a little cloth bag of seeds in a bowl of water until it turns into jelly sounds like a magic trick, yet that's how aiyu has been made for well over a century in Chiayi, at the foot of the Alishan hills where the climbing fig grows wild. The pectin in the dried seeds sets the water into a soft, glassy, pale-gold jelly with almost no taste of its own, so it's cut into cubes and served icy cold with tart lemon juice and honey syrup, the most refreshing thing on a sticky Taipei summer afternoon. The classic failure is a bowl that won't set, usually because the bowl was oily or the water was distilled or very soft; it needs ordinary tap or mineral water. Chef's tip: rub the bag steadily for 8–10 minutes and stop as soon as it feels slippery and nothing more comes out, or the jelly turns cloudy and bitter.
Ask for 'ling cha, dung' at any Hong Kong cha chaan teng and a tall glass arrives crammed with ice, a heap of thin lemon slices and a long spoon for pounding them, the default thirst-quencher with set lunches all year round. The tea is brewed almost bitter, so it holds its own against the ice, and the sharp lemon and simple syrup turn it bright, tangy and refreshing. It is drunk with everything from macaroni soup breakfasts to afternoon pineapple buns. The common slip is brewing tea at normal strength, which tastes thin and watery once the ice melts; double the tea. Chef's tip: press the lemon slices with the back of the spoon only a few times to release juice and oil from the zest; grinding them to a pulp brings out bitterness from the pith.
Juice shops all over Cairo and the towns of Upper Egypt crush sugarcane through clattering steel rollers and serve the pale green juice ice-cold for a few pounds a glass, a favourite in the summer heat and after Ramadan fasting. It is sweet, grassy and refreshing, with a faint lemony edge, and it tastes best within minutes of pressing. Without a press, peeled cane chopped small and blended with a little water gives a very close result at home. Chef's tip: peel the cane completely, because the hard green rind makes the juice bitter and dark.
Barbadine, the giant granadilla, grows on vines over backyard fences across Trinidad and turns up at Sunday lunch blended into a pale, creamy punch. The fruit's soft white flesh and the perfumed seed pulp inside are both used, giving a gentle passion-fruit flavour that milk, nutmeg and a little sugar round out. It is alcohol-free and made for the whole family. A frequent mistake is blending the seeds hard, which cracks them and turns the drink gritty and bitter: pulse the pulp briefly and strain it. Chef's tip: if you can't find barbadine, use the pulp of 6 passion fruit plus 200 g peeled honeydew melon for a similar taste.
Its name means "to die dreaming", and on a hot afternoon in Santo Domingo a tall glass of it from a colmado or juice stand feels exactly like that: fresh orange juice and ice-cold evaporated milk, sweetened and stirred over lots of ice into something like a creamsicle. Many Dominican families make it with dinner on Sundays. The common mistake is pouring the milk into the juice, or using warm ingredients, which curdles it; the juice goes slowly into very cold milk. Chef's tip: squeeze sweet, low-acid oranges and chill the juice and milk for an hour first, and it will stay smooth.
Every summer, from late May to September, the dessert shops of Taipei's Yongkang Street have queues that stretch round the corner for one thing: a mountain of feathery milk ice buried under cubes of ripe Aiwen mango. The ice is frozen milk shaved so thinly it melts on the tongue like snow, and it's drenched in mango syrup and sweetened condensed milk, often with a scoop of mango sorbet on top. At home, freeze the milk base the night before; the active work then takes about 15 minutes. Shaving the block straight from the freezer is a common mistake, as it splinters into icy shards; let it soften for 5 minutes so it curls into ribbons. Chef's tip: chill the serving bowls in the freezer too, so the snow holds its height while you add the toppings.
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