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GrießbreiSemolina porridge

Grießbrei is the soft, sweet semolina pudding that German and Austrian families from Bavaria to Vienna eat warm as a light supper on cold evenings, especially when children are tired or someone is under the weather. Semolina is rained into hot milk and stirred until thick and velvety, then topped with cinnamon sugar, a knob of butter or stewed fruit. The classic mistake is tipping the semolina in all at once, which makes lumps that never smooth out. Chef's tip: take it off the heat while it still looks a little runny, because it keeps thickening on the plate.

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HirsebreiMillet porridge

Hirsebrei is one of the oldest dishes in German cooking, the millet porridge of fairy tales, and it is still made in homes across the country as a warm breakfast or a sweet supper for children on cold evenings. Golden millet is rinsed, then simmered in milk until creamy and soft, and served with stewed apple, berries and a dusting of cinnamon. A bowl gives about 12 g of protein from the milk and millet; stir in a spoon of quark or top with chopped almonds if you want more. The usual mistake is skipping the rinse: unrinsed millet tastes bitter and soapy, so rinse it in hot water until the water runs clear. Chef's tip: toast the rinsed millet in the dry pan for a minute before adding milk; it brings out a lovely nutty flavour.

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EierpfannkuchenEgg pancakes

Eierpfannkuchen are the thick, eggy pancakes German families fry for a quick Friday-night supper or a weekend lunch, thicker than a French crêpe but thinner than an American pancake. Children eat them rolled up with apple sauce, jam or sugar and cinnamon; grown-ups often fill them with mushrooms or cheese instead. The batter needs no resting, so they are on the table in 20 minutes. The most common mistake is a pan that is not hot enough, so the pancakes soak up fat and turn pale and greasy; wait until a drop of batter sizzles at once. Chef's tip: beat the egg whites separately and fold them in at the end if you want them especially light and fluffy.

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Fruit and cereal mash (Obst-Getreide-Brei)

German weaning follows a well-known plan: a vegetable lunch first, then a milk and cereal evening meal, and finally an afternoon Obst-Getreide-Brei, a dairy-free mash of cooked cereal flakes and fruit, usually from around seven months. Fine oat or millet flakes are simmered in water, then stirred into stewed apple or pear with a spoon of rapeseed oil, which German paediatric advice recommends for healthy fats. It is fruity, smooth and naturally sweet. It contains gluten if made with oats (use millet flakes for gluten free); there is no milk, egg, nuts, soya, sesame or fish. Chef's tip: stew the fruit in a little water rather than using juice, which adds sugar.

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BauernfrühstückFried potatoes with ham and egg

Despite its name, the 'farmer's breakfast' is mostly eaten at lunch or supper in Hamburg pubs, Hanover canteens and farm kitchens across Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. Leftover boiled potatoes are fried until crisp with onions and diced cooked ham (pork), then eggs are poured over and set gently into a golden, folded omelette, served with gherkins and a tomato salad. Leave out the ham and add peppers or mushrooms for a vegetarian version. The usual mistake is adding the eggs before the potatoes are properly crisp. Chef's tip: use potatoes boiled the day before and chilled; they hold their shape and brown far better.

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Tortilla de acelgaSwiss chard omelette

In Montevideo and Buenos Aires, tortilla de acelga is a homely supper or picnic dish, cut into wedges for a weekday dinner or packed for a Sunday at the beach, hot or cold. Plenty of chard is cooked down with onion and garlic, then bound with eggs into a thick, green, juicy omelette that is flipped in the pan like a Spanish tortilla. Serve it with a tomato salad. Suitable as part of a balanced diet. About 190 kcal and 7 g carbohydrate per portion. The usual mistake is leaving the chard wet: squeeze it well, or the tortilla weeps and won't set. If you're cooking for anyone pregnant, a young child or anyone with a weakened immune system, cook it until fully set in the middle. Chef's tip: cook it on a low heat with a lid on for the first side; it sets through without burning the base.

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ButterbrotRye bread with cheese and vegetables

Every German schoolchild knows the Pausenbrot: two slices of rye or mixed-grain bread spread with good butter, closed around a slice of cheese, wrapped in paper and eaten in the mid-morning break, with a few cucumber or apple slices on the side. Adults take the same Butterbrot to work. The common mistake is spreading cold, hard butter, which tears the bread and leaves bare patches that let any wet filling soak in. Many Gouda-style cheeses use animal rennet, so choose one marked vegetarian. Chef's tip: butter right to the crust on both slices; the butter is a waterproof layer that keeps the bread fresh until lunchtime.

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Cheeni parathaSugar paratha

Every Punjabi grandmother has a version of this, usually made from the last ball of dough after the family's parathas are done: sugar sprinkled over ghee, folded inside and rolled out, then cooked until the sugar melts into sticky, caramelised seams. In villages around Sargodha and Faisalabad it is the treat a child gets dunked into a mug of sweet milky tea before school, and in winter it is sometimes made with jaggery instead. The outside should be crisp and blistered, the inside layered and chewy with pockets of melted sugar. The trap is too hot a tawa: the sugar bursts through and burns before the dough has cooked. Chef's tip: seal the edges well when you fold, keep the heat medium, and wipe the tawa between parathas so any escaped sugar does not scorch the next one.

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Dal pakwanFried bread with spiced chana dal

Sunday morning in Karachi's old Sindhi neighbourhoods, and in Hyderabad, means a queue at the dal pakwan stall, or a home kitchen hot with frying oil. Pakwan are crisp, bubbly discs of cumin and black-pepper dough, fried until they shatter like a cracker, and they are eaten broken into a bowl of soft, lightly spiced chana dal, then topped with sweet-sour tamarind chutney, raw onion and a dusting of chilli. The contrast of crunchy, soft, sweet and sharp is the whole point, so the parts are kept separate until the last moment. Thick pakwan are the most common disappointment: rolled too thick, they turn chewy instead of crisp. Chef's tip: roll each one as thin as you can and prick it all over with a fork before frying, so it puffs only a little and stays flat and crunchy.

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GiyalingBuckwheat pancakes

Buckwheat, known locally as bro, grows in the cold upper villages of Hunza and Nagar where wheat struggles, and giyaling are the thin, lacy pancakes made from its flour for breakfast. The batter is no more than buckwheat flour, water and a little milk, poured thin onto a hot griddle so the pancakes cook in a minute or two, with crisp edges and an earthy, nutty flavour. They are stacked and eaten warm, smeared with butter and a few drops of apricot-kernel oil, sometimes with a drizzle of honey and always with tea, especially on cold mornings. A thick, gloopy batter is the frequent mistake, because it makes heavy, raw-tasting pancakes. Chef's tip: rest the batter for 15 minutes, then thin it to the consistency of single cream, and buy flour labelled gluten-free if that matters to you, as buckwheat is often milled alongside wheat.

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Halwa puriPuris with semolina halwa and chickpeas

Sunday mornings in Lahore start with a queue: outside the halwa puri shops of Gawalmandi and Lakshmi Chowk, families wait with steel tiffins to carry home stacks of puffed puris, a tray of orange semolina halwa and a pot of sour, peppery chickpeas. The joy of the plate is the contrast, a hot, crisp-chewy puri torn and used to scoop both the sweet, cardamom-scented halwa and the spicy chana, with mango pickle and onion on the side and a cup of strong tea or lassi to finish. It is heavy, celebratory food, made for weekends, Eid mornings and guests. Doing it at home is a matter of order: cook the chana first, then the halwa, and fry the puris last so they reach the table puffed. Where many go wrong is rolling the puris too thin or frying in oil that is not hot enough, so they lie flat and soak up grease. Chef's tip: knead the puri dough stiff, with a spoon of semolina in it, and it will puff and stay crisp much longer.

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KhaginaSpiced scrambled eggs

Ask almost any Pakistani what their mother made on a school morning and khagina comes up: eggs beaten with salt and turmeric and stirred into onion, tomato and green chilli softened in oil, served in a heap beside a hot paratha with a cup of doodh patti. It comes from the old Mughal and Hyderabadi kitchens that reached Karachi after Partition, and it differs from a plain scramble in being cooked a little longer, so it sets into soft, moist clumps coloured by the masala rather than staying creamy. It is everyday food in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar alike, also eaten for a quick supper with chapati. The usual mistake is adding the eggs before the tomato has cooked down, which leaves the dish watery and the eggs rubbery. Chef's tip: take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly glossy but no liquid egg remains, because they keep cooking on the plate.

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Seyal phulkaChapatis in tomato onion sauce

Nothing gets thrown away in a Sindhi kitchen, and yesterday's phulka become this morning's seyal phulka, a breakfast found in homes from Karachi's Gulshan to small towns along the Indus. Seyal is the Sindhi way of cooking in a thick sauce of onion, garlic, tomato, green chilli and plenty of coriander, and the torn chapatis soak it up to become soft and savoury at the centre while their edges keep a little chew. It is eaten straight from the pan with a glass of sweet tea or a spoonful of plain yogurt, and people tend to make it on lazy weekend mornings. Over-simmering is what ruins it, because the bread turns to porridge within minutes. Chef's tip: let the sauce reduce until it is thick before the chapatis go in, then toss them for no more than two or three minutes.

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Anda parathaEgg-stuffed paratha

At the dhabas along the GT Road and the breakfast stalls of Rawalpindi's Saddar, the paratha-wala cracks an egg straight into a bowl with onion and chilli, half-cooks a paratha, pours the egg over and flips the whole thing onto the tawa so the egg fries into the bread. The result is one golden, layered disc that is crisp at the edges, soft where the egg meets the dough, and peppery with green chilli. Truck drivers, students and office workers eat it folded in half with chai, ketchup or green chutney, and it is a common packed lunch for school because it needs no curry. The problem most people run into is pouring the egg onto a raw paratha, which tears, or onto a fully cooked one, which will not let the egg stick. Chef's tip: cook the first side only until brown spots appear, then add the egg to the cooked side and flip so the egg sets against the hot iron.

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Qeema parathaMince-stuffed paratha

Leftover keema from last night's dinner becomes the best breakfast in a Pakistani kitchen, cooked dry, packed into paratha dough and fried on a tawa until crisp and flaky, then served with a cup of strong doodh patti chai and a bowl of yogurt. It is weekend nashta from Islamabad to Hyderabad, and roadside dhabas on the GT Road make it to order for truck drivers before dawn. The filling is savoury, fragrant with cumin and green chilli, and lifted with onion and coriander. A wet filling is the big hazard; it tears the dough and steams instead of crisping, so cook the mince until completely dry and let it cool before stuffing. Chef's tip: mince the cooked keema briefly in a food processor so it is fine and spreads evenly, giving thinner, flakier parathas that do not split.

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PlinsenBuckwheat pancakes with quark

Plinsen come from Lusatia, the Sorbian-speaking borderland of Brandenburg and Saxony, where buckwheat once grew in the sandy soil. They are thin, soft pancakes, slightly thicker than a crêpe, made with buckwheat or a mix of buckwheat and wheat, and they are eaten for breakfast or as a sweet supper with sweetened quark, apple sauce or, in July, wild blueberries from the Lusatian pine woods. The buckwheat gives a nutty, earthy edge. A common mistake is cooking them in a too-cool pan, which makes them pale and rubbery; the butter should sizzle as the batter hits it. Chef's tip: rest the batter for 30 minutes so the buckwheat swells and the pancakes don't tear.

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MbejúCassava starch cheese cake

Mbejú (say 'mbeh-JOO') is a Guaraní breakfast and merienda: cassava starch rubbed with butter, cheese and a little milk into damp crumbs, then pressed into a hot pan where it fuses into a thick, chewy, crisp-edged cake. It's eaten in the countryside with cocido (sweet toasted yerba tea with milk) on cool mornings, cut into wedges. It's naturally gluten free and very quick. Chef's tip: the mix should look like damp sand, not a dough; if you can squeeze a handful and it just holds, it's right.

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