All recipes

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BabboucheSpiced snail broth

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

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MenestrónBeef, bean and pasta soup

Think of the Italian minestrone after a century of Lima kitchens: menestrón is thicker, heartier and greener, a weekday soup that families and menú restaurants make in huge pots. Beef shin simmers into a rich broth with potatoes, squash, corn, cabbage, green beans and white beans, then short pasta goes in, and finally a purée of basil, spinach, garlic and fresh cheese turns the whole pot pale green and fragrant. It is a meal in a bowl, best with bread and a squeeze of lime or a spoon of ají. People tend to add the basil purée too early; boiled, it loses its colour and its scent, so stir it in off the heat. Chef's tip: for a vegetarian menestrón, skip the beef and use vegetable stock, with a cheese made with microbial (vegetarian) rennet.

100 min

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PatascaHominy and tripe soup

Through the highlands of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Apurímac, patasca (also called mondongo) is the soup for cold mornings, carnivals and the day after a fiesta: plump white mote, dried maize kernels that burst open like flowers after long boiling, in a clear, rich broth with honeycomb tripe and beef shin, perfumed with mint and oregano. It is filling and gentle, and gets its fire at the table from a spoon of rocoto sauce. Plan ahead: the maize needs an overnight soak and several hours of simmering. Buy tripe cleaned and blanched from a butcher or Latin or halal shop; it must be simmered until soft and fully cooked. The typical mistake is salting the mote early, which keeps the kernels hard. Chef's tip: cook the maize and the tripe in separate pots, then combine; each needs a different time and the broth stays cleaner.

240 min

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ShámbarWheat, bean and smoked pork soup

Mondays in Trujillo mean shámbar: market stalls and huariques across the city put out pots of this thick, smoky soup of cracked wheat, chickpeas, broad beans, peas and canary beans, cooked with smoked ham hock, pork ribs and pork skin, then stirred through with a fried paste of ají panca and garlic and a handful of mint. It is earthy, porky and rib-sticking, and each bowl gets a scoop of crunchy cancha just before eating. Soak the beans and the wheat overnight. People often cook everything together from the start, and the peas turn to mush before the chickpeas soften; cook the hardest pulses first. Chef's tip: toast the wheat in a dry pan before soaking it; it gives the soup a nutty depth the locals look for.

180 min

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Smen (salted, herbed butter)

Atlas households once kept jars of smen for months, even years, until the salted butter developed a pungent, almost blue-cheese aroma; a spoonful stirred into couscous, harira or a chicken tagine gives a depth nothing else can. Long ageing at room temperature is risky at home, so this is a safer fridge version: pasteurised unsalted butter is simmered with dried za'atar or oregano, strained, salted and then matured in the fridge for 2–4 weeks, which gives a mellow, nutty, faintly tangy smen rather than the fiercely strong old kind. For the real long-aged flavour, buy smen from a reputable shop. Use it a teaspoon at a time; it is meant as a seasoning, not a cooking fat. The mistake to avoid is leaving any milk solids or water in the butter, as that is what turns it rancid or mouldy rather than pleasantly aged. Chef's tip: strain it through muslin until perfectly clear; any milky bits left in the jar are what turn butter rancid.

30 min

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Mderbel (tangy aubergine relish)

Where zaalouk is a smoky mash, mderbel keeps its aubergine in soft, silky slices that have been fried first and then stewed down with garlic, sweet paprika, cumin and a sharp splash of vinegar. Old Fez families make it as one of the cooked salads that open a festive meal, and it keeps beautifully for a few days, so it is often made the day before. The flavour is rich from the oil, tangy, a little sweet and deeply garlicky; serve it at room temperature with bread, alongside other salads or next to grilled vegetables. The usual mistake is frying the aubergine in oil that isn't hot enough, so the slices drink it up and turn greasy. Chef's tip: salt the slices and leave them for 20 minutes, then pat them very dry; they drink far less oil and fry to a deep gold.

60 min

Moroccan Sides

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Hssoua belboula (barley soup with milk)

Few things are as soothing on a cold morning in Fez or Marrakech as a bowl of hssoua belboula, the pale, porridge-like soup of cracked barley cooked in water and then milk. Many families eat it for breakfast in winter or as a light supper, and it often appears on the Ramadan table too. It is mild and gently savoury, with a whisper of cumin and a knob of butter melting on top, and the barley grains stay soft but slightly chewy. Serve it piping hot with a little extra cumin to sprinkle, plus dates or bread on the side. A common slip is adding the milk too early and boiling hard, which catches on the bottom and scorches the soup. Chef's tip: rinse the barley grits in a sieve until the water runs almost clear; it washes away loose flour so the soup is creamy rather than gluey.

40 min

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Ras el hanout

Ras el hanout means 'head of the shop', and every spice seller in the Marrakech souk will tell you theirs is the best: a warm, complex mix of a dozen or more spices that they grind to their own formula. This home version balances earthy cumin and coriander with sweet cinnamon, ginger and turmeric, the perfume of cardamom and dried rosebuds, and the heat of black pepper. Rub it on vegetables before roasting, stir a teaspoon into tagines, lentils or couscous broth, or season chickpeas and roast pumpkin with it. Toasting the whole spices first takes 5 minutes and makes a real difference. Chef's tip: make small batches and store the blend in a sealed jar away from light; it is at its best for about 3 months.

15 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

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Preserved lemons (l'hamd marked)

No Moroccan pantry is complete without a jar of l'hamd marked, lemons packed in salt and their own juice and left for about a month until the rind softens and takes on a mellow, floral, almost sweet flavour. The rind is what you use: finely chopped into salads, slivered over chicken with olives, added to fish tagines, chermoula and bean dishes. Fez cooks traditionally use small, thin-skinned doqq or beldi lemons, but any unwaxed lemon works. Hands-on work is only 20 minutes; the jar then needs 3–4 weeks in a cool, dark cupboard before it is ready. Chef's tip: press the lemons down hard every day for the first week; as they release juice they shrink, and you can squeeze one more lemon into the jar.

20 min

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Chairo puneñoLamb, chuño and wheat soup

High on the Altiplano, where nights freeze even in summer, chairo is the soup that gets Puno's market workers and farmers through the day. It is thick and brothy at once: lamb on the bone and a little charqui (dried meat) simmered with crushed chuño, peeled wheat, broad beans, potatoes and squash, scented with cumin, oregano and huacatay or mint. Expect a deep, meaty, slightly smoky bowl with lots of chew. Soak the chuño and the wheat overnight. A common error is adding the potatoes with the meat, so they dissolve before the lamb is tender; they go in for the last 25 minutes. Chef's tip: crush the soaked chuño into small pieces by hand; they thicken the broth as it cooks.

120 min

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Chupe de camaronesPrawn chowder

Arequipa's picanterías serve one chupe on each day of the week, and the prawn one, made with crayfish-like camarones from the Majes and Ocoña rivers, is the grandest, especially on Fridays in Lent. It is a big orange chowder: a broth made from the prawn shells and heads, coloured with ají panca, filled with potatoes, corn, broad beans and a little rice, then softened with evaporated milk and fresh cheese, with an egg poached in each bowl. Rich, sweet and gently spicy, it needs nothing but bread. Large shell-on prawns stand in well for river prawns. Many cooks boil the prawns from the start and they turn to rubber; add them at the end and cook only until pink and opaque. Chef's tip: fry the heads and shells in the oil first and press them hard; the orange fat that comes out is what gives chupe its colour and depth.

75 min

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HuatiaEarth-baked potatoes

After the potato harvest in May and June, families in Puno, Cusco and across the highlands build a huatia in the field: a little dome of dry earth clods heated with dried brush until the clods glow, then knocked down over freshly dug potatoes and oca so they bake slowly underground. Opened an hour later, the potatoes are smoky, floury and so soft their skins split, and the oca turns sweet and tangy. Everyone eats them with their hands, with salt, chilli sauce and fresh cheese. This recipe gives an oven method for home cooks: a lidded pot bedded with coarse salt and herbs, which traps heat and steam much like the earth. If you do try a real huatia outdoors, use a clear patch of ground away from anything that can catch fire and keep water nearby. Don't uncover the pot early to check: the steam escapes and the potatoes turn leathery. Fresh oca is sold in some markets as New Zealand yam; small sweet potatoes will do. Chef's tip: choose potatoes of a similar size so they all finish together, and serve with uchucuta.

80 min

Peruvian Sides

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InchicapiPeanut chicken soup

From the riverside kitchens of Iquitos and the Peruvian Amazon comes inchicapi, a festive chicken soup traditionally made with a free-range hen for birthdays and fiestas. Raw peanuts and a little maize flour are ground and stirred into the broth, which turns it creamy, pale and nutty, and pieces of cassava, garlic, ají dulce and sacha culantro (a long, serrated, strongly flavoured coriander) finish it. It is served with rice, boiled plantain or cassava. If you can't find sacha culantro in Asian or Latin shops (sold as culantro or ngo gai), use a big handful of coriander. The pitfall is adding the peanut paste dry: it clumps and catches on the bottom, so loosen it with broth first and stir often. Chef's tip: use raw, not roasted, peanuts; they keep the soup pale and give it the right fresh, milky taste.

75 min

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Vegetarian vori voriCornmeal dumpling and vegetable soup

Vori vori is the soup Paraguayan grandmothers make on cold June and July evenings: a golden broth full of bori, small balls of cornmeal and cheese that swell soft as they simmer. The name is a Guaraní take on the Spanish 'bolita' (little ball). It's usually made with hen; this version gets its colour and body from pumpkin, carrot and a sofrito with saffron or turmeric. Chef's tip: shape the balls no bigger than a hazelnut; they double in size and larger ones stay raw inside.

70 min

Paraguayan Soups

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Sopa de quinuaQuinoa and vegetable soup

Sopa de quinua is everyday food in the Andes, from Puno on Lake Titicaca to Cusco and Huancayo, where quinoa has been grown for thousands of years. Quinoa, potato, carrot and corn simmer in a light broth seasoned with garlic, cumin, oregano and a little ají amarillo, and the potato breaks down slightly to give body. It is light yet filling, the soup families eat at midday to warm up in cold mountain air. In Peru it is finished with huacatay, the black mint of the Andes; a mix of mint and coriander stands in well. Chef's tip: rinse the quinoa in a sieve under running water, rubbing it, until the water stops foaming; the natural saponin coating tastes bitter and soapy.

40 min

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TacachoMashed roasted green plantain balls

Tacacho is the breakfast of the Peruvian Amazon, from Tarapoto to Iquitos: green plantains roasted over coals, mashed with fat and salt and shaped into balls. There it comes with cecina (smoked pork) and is mashed with lard and crackling; this vegan tacacho uses good oil and a pinch of smoked paprika for the same savoury, smoky depth. The balls are dense, chewy and starchy, crisp at the edges where the plantain charred, and they are eaten hot with a fiery chilli sauce or alongside stews. Use plantains that are fully green and firm. Chef's tip: mash the plantains while they are still very hot; as green plantain cools its starch sets and it won't bind into a smooth ball.

35 min

Peruvian Sides

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BissaraSplit fava bean soup

Bissara is the cold-morning soup of northern Morocco: in Tangier, Tétouan and Chefchaouen you see it ladled out from big pots at street stalls before work, and it is a favourite to break the fast in winter Ramadans. Dried split broad beans are simmered with garlic until they fall apart and blended into a thick, pale purée, then finished at the table with olive oil, cumin and paprika. Eat it piping hot with crusty bread; leftover bissara thickens into a dip you can spread on toast. Chef's tip: be generous with the final olive oil, it is not a garnish but part of the dish.

50 min

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HariraTomato, lentil and chickpea soup

When the call to prayer ends the fast during Ramadan, tables from Tangier to Ouarzazate are set with a bowl of harira, dates and chebakia. This tomato soup is thick with lentils, chickpeas and a great deal of coriander, parsley and celery, and gets its silky body from a flour-and-water slurry stirred in at the end. Many families cook it with a little lamb; this meat-free version uses a well-browned onion and tomato base and olive oil instead of smen, so it is fully vegan and still deeply savoury. Chef's tip: the soup should coat a spoon like thin custard; add the flour slurry slowly while stirring and stop when it reaches that point. Variation: for the meat version, brown 250 g diced lamb with the onion at the start.

60 min