All recipes

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Morcilla dulceSweet blood sausage with walnuts

No Uruguayan parrilla is complete without morcilla dulce: a soft pork blood sausage sweetened with sugar and scented with orange peel, studded with walnuts and raisins, grilled until the skin crisps and served first, as part of the achuras, while the beef is still cooking. It is pork throughout: pork blood, pork back fat and natural pork casings. Making it at home is a project. Buy fresh pork blood with an anticoagulant added from a butcher who supplies it for sausage making, keep it chilled below 4 °C and use it within a day. The common mistake is poaching at a rolling boil, which bursts the casings. Chef's tip: keep the water at 80–85 °C, just shivering, and prick a sausage after 25 minutes: it is done when brown, not red, juice comes out.

120 min

Paraguayan Meat

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BusecaTripe and white bean stew

Buseca arrived in Montevideo with Italian immigrants from Lombardy and became a classic winter dish of Uruguayan bodegones and family kitchens, eaten on cold June and July days. Honeycomb tripe is simmered until tender, then stewed with white beans, pork chorizo, bacon, peppers, tomato and paprika into a thick, warming stew served with crusty bread. Buy tripe that is already cleaned and blanched (dressed). The usual mistake is undercooking the tripe: it needs a full 2 hours, until it's soft enough to cut with a spoon. Slow-cooker option: after step 4, cook on low for 8 hours. Chef's tip: a little grated lemon zest and parsley stirred in at the end lifts the rich, gelatinous sauce.

185 min

Paraguayan Meat

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Ají amarillo pasteYellow chilli paste

In Lima's markets ají amarillo is sold fresh all year, and most Peruvian cooks keep a tub of this paste in the fridge the way others keep tomato purée: it is the golden base of causa limeña, ají de gallina, papa a la huancaína, chupe and the sauce for tiraditos. The chillies are seeded, de-veined and blanched in three changes of water, which tames the heat and the raw grassiness, then peeled and blended with oil into a thick, silky, saffron-orange paste. It tastes fruity and sunny, almost like apricot and passion fruit, with a rounded, medium heat. Abroad, buy whole frozen ají amarillo from Latin grocers; dried ají mirasol, soaked, gives a darker, earthier paste. Common mistake: skipping the peeling; the thin skins leave papery flecks and a bitter edge. It is ready when it is completely smooth and holds a soft peak like thick hummus. This is a low-acid paste: keep it in the fridge for a week or freeze it, never on the shelf. Chef's tip: freeze it in an ice-cube tray; one cube is about a tablespoon, just right for a pot of ají de gallina.

40 min

Peruvian Basics

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Postre MassiniCustard sponge with burnt sugar top

Montevideo's birthday cake of choice since the early twentieth century, the Massini is two thin layers of sponge sandwiching a thick filling of whipped cream folded with egg-yolk custard, crowned with a thin glassy crust of torched yolk and sugar. Bakeries across Uruguay sell it on Sundays. Traditional versions sometimes add a sweet fortified wine to the custard; this one is alcohol-free. The custard is cooked to a safe 71 °C. The common mistake is assembling with warm custard, which melts the cream into a puddle. Chef's tip: if you don't have a blowtorch, put the sugared top under a very hot grill for a minute and watch it closely.

80 min

Paraguayan Baking

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Tagine bil khorchefLamb tagine with cardoons

In late winter and spring, when wild cardoons (khorchef) appear in the markets of Fez, Meknes and Rabat, Moroccan families cook them into this lamb tagine for a family lunch, eaten with bread to mop up the sauce. Lamb shoulder is simmered slowly with onion, ginger, saffron and turmeric until tender, then the peeled cardoon stalks are added and finished with preserved lemon and green olives, giving a tangy, faintly bitter, artichoke-like sauce. The usual mistake is not peeling and soaking the cardoons properly: the stringy outside must come off and the stalks must sit in lemon water, or they go brown and taste harsh. Artichoke hearts are a good stand-in. Chef's tip: reduce the sauce uncovered at the end until it is thick and oily, the sign of a well-made tagine.

155 min

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KhliiSpiced dried preserved beef

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

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MechouiSlow-roast lamb shoulder

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

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MrouziaLamb with honey and raisins

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

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BoulfafGrilled lamb liver skewers

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

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Tanjia marrakchiaSlow-cooked beef with preserved lemon

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

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QodbanGrilled lamb skewers

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

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HergmaLamb trotters with chickpeas

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

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DafinaSlow-cooked Shabbat beef and chickpea stew

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

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Loubia (white beans in cumin and tomato)

Ask in a Marrakech side street where to eat cheaply and you will be pointed to a stall with a vat of loubia: white beans stewed until creamy in a garlicky tomato sauce spiked with cumin, paprika and a little ginger, ladled into a bowl and eaten with bread. At home the same dish is a weekday staple, often cooked with a piece of meat, but the meat-free version here is just as satisfying and is how plenty of families make it. The sauce should be thick and orange with olive oil pooling on top. A sprinkle of cumin and a drizzle of oil at the table are customary. Avoid adding the tomato before the beans are tender; its acid keeps the skins tough however long they simmer. Chef's tip: soak the beans overnight and cook them until tender before the tomato goes in properly; acid stops beans softening, so loubia rushed with tomatoes from the start can stay chalky.

90 min

Moroccan Curries

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Adobo arequipeñoMarinated slow-cooked pork

On Sunday mornings in Arequipa, families head to picanterías in Cayma and Yanahuara for a steaming bowl of adobo, chunks of pork that have marinated overnight in chicha de jora (fermented maize beer), ají panca, garlic and cumin, then cooked slowly in a clay pot with thick wedges of red onion. The sauce is dark red, tangy and garlicky rather than hot, and you mop it up with pan de tres puntas, the city's triangular bread; a mug of anise tea follows. Chicha de jora contains alcohol; for an alcohol-free adobo, use the vinegar and water swap in the ingredient list, which gives the same sour edge. Boiling it hard is the classic error, as it toughens the pork; it should barely tremble under the lid. Chef's tip: marinate the pork the evening before, always in the fridge, and cook it the next morning in its marinade.

170 min

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Ourkimen (Yennayer pulse and grain stew)

Ourkimen is cooked across the Souss and the Atlas for Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year on 12–13 January, when a pot of mixed dried beans, chickpeas, wheat berries and corn is simmered for hours to wish for a plentiful harvest. Many families add lamb's feet or dried meat; this is the meat-free version, made the way many cooks prepare it when meat is not on the table, and it is still deeply savoury from tomato, cumin, paprika and a good dose of olive oil. The grains turn chewy and the pulses creamy, and the stew is eaten hot from bowls with bread. Start the soaking the night before; the stew then needs about 3 1/2 hours of gentle simmering. People who have G6PD deficiency (favism) should leave out the dried broad beans and use more white beans. Chef's tip: stir from the bottom every 20 minutes in the last hour; as the stew thickens it catches easily.

230 min

Moroccan Curries

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Fekkas (twice-baked almond biscuits)

Before Eid and during Ramadan, Moroccan kitchens fill with the scent of fekkas: logs of a soft, eggy dough studded with almonds, raisins, aniseed and sesame are baked, cooled, sliced thin and baked again until dry, golden and very crunchy. They are offered to guests on trays with ghriba and other biscuits and dunked into mint tea or milky coffee, and they keep for weeks in a tin, so they are perfect to make ahead. The flavour is gently sweet, with liquorice notes from the anise and a little lemon. Avoid slicing the logs while they are still hot from the first bake; they crumble. Let them firm up first. Chef's tip: let the baked logs cool completely, ideally overnight, before slicing; warm logs crumble under the knife.

75 min

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Sfenj (Moroccan doughnut rings)

Early in the morning, in medina lanes from Fez to Casablanca, the sfenji pulls handfuls of sticky dough from a bowl, pokes a hole through each with his thumb and drops the rings into a big pan of oil, where they puff into crisp, golden, irregular doughnuts with a chewy, airy inside. Customers carry them away threaded on a strip of palm leaf, to eat hot with mint tea or coffee, plain, dusted with sugar or dipped in honey. The dough is just flour, yeast, salt and water, and deliberately very wet; that is what gives the open, holey crumb. Allow about 1 1/2 hours for it to rise. Where sfenj go wrong is a dough that is too stiff; it should be sticky and slack, or the rings come out bready instead of open and chewy. Chef's tip: keep a bowl of water beside you and wet your hands before every piece, so the sticky dough slides off your fingers instead of clinging to them.

130 min

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Krachel (aniseed and sesame brioche buns)

Moroccan bakeries pile their windows with krachel, round, glossy buns of enriched dough perfumed with aniseed, toasted sesame and orange-flower water, and families bake them at home for breakfast, for guests and for feast days. They are soft and pillowy, lightly sweet, with a distinctive liquorice-like scent from the anise and a nutty crunch of sesame on top. Eat them warm with butter and jam, dipped into milky coffee, or with mint tea in the afternoon. The dough needs two rises, about 1 1/2 hours in all. Don't rush the rise: under-proved krachel bake dense and tight instead of soft and fluffy. Chef's tip: lightly toast the aniseed and sesame in a dry pan before adding them to the dough; it doubles their fragrance.

138 min

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Meskouta (Moroccan orange cake)

Every Moroccan home cook seems to have a meskouta recipe, the light, fluffy sponge that is baked in a ring tin and set out for afternoon tea, unexpected guests or a children's snack. This one is flavoured with fresh orange juice and zest; many families make a yogurt version instead, using the yogurt pot to measure everything, and that variation is in the steps. The crumb is airy and moist, not too sweet, and it pairs perfectly with mint tea or a glass of milk. No mixer is strictly needed, but it helps. Chef's tip: beat the eggs and sugar for a full 5 minutes until pale and tripled in volume; under-whipped eggs, the usual mistake, make a dense, flat meskouta.

55 min

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Jben (fresh Moroccan cheese)

On the road into Chefchaouen, women from the Rif villages sit with rounds of jben wrapped in palm leaves, a fresh, soft, lightly salted cheese with a clean, milky tang. Breakfast in the north often means a slab of it drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with dried thyme or za'atar, with olives, honey and warm bread. Traditionally jben is curdled with animal rennet (sometimes with thistle or fig sap), so check if you buy it; this home version uses vegetarian (microbial) rennet and pasteurised milk, and is drained in the fridge. Hands-on time is about an hour; the curd then needs 1–2 hours to set and 4–6 hours to drain. Keep it chilled and eat it within 4 days. Chef's tip: avoid UHT and ultra-pasteurised milk, which will not set into a firm curd; ordinary pasteurised whole milk works well.

60 min

Moroccan Basics

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CarapulcraDried potato and pork stew

Older than Peru itself, carapulcra comes from the Afro-Peruvian kitchens of Chincha, south of Lima, where it is cooked in big pots for saints' days and family lunches and served next to a mound of sopa seca, a pairing locals call the 'matrimonio'. Pieces of papa seca, potato that has been boiled, sun-dried and broken into nuggets, are toasted and simmered with pork shoulder in a brick-red sauce of ají panca, garlic, cumin and ground peanuts, until the potato swells into chewy, savoury lumps and the sauce turns thick and nutty. Most people skip toasting the papa seca, and the stew tastes flat; the dry pan is where the flavour comes from. Chef's tip: stir often in the last half hour and add hot stock a ladle at a time; papa seca drinks liquid and catches on the base without warning.

95 min

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Cau cauTripe and potato stew

Cheap, filling and deeply loved, cau cau is a lunchtime staple at Lima's menú restaurants and market comedores, served with white rice. Pieces of honeycomb tripe are simmered until soft, then stewed with diced potato in a golden sauce of ají amarillo, garlic and turmeric, finished with a fistful of mint (hierbabuena) that freshens the richness. The texture is soft and slightly springy, the sauce mild, warm and herby. Buy tripe from a butcher or Latin, Asian or halal shop already cleaned and blanched (white honeycomb); it must be simmered until fully tender and cooked through. The common mistake is undercooking the tripe: if it squeaks between your teeth it needs longer. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes small and let some of them break up at the end; they thicken the sauce naturally.

120 min