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EinspännerBlack coffee with whipped cream

The Einspänner is named after the one-horse carriages of old Vienna: coachmen waiting outside in winter supposedly liked their coffee under a lid of cream that kept it hot and stopped it slopping. Today it is served in a handled glass at classic coffee houses, a strong black mocha (a double espresso or Großer Brauner without milk) topped with a thick layer of cold, lightly sweetened whipped cream and a pinch of icing sugar. You do not stir it: you sip the hot, bitter coffee through the cold, sweet cream, so each mouthful is two temperatures and two textures. It is an afternoon or late-morning coffee, often with a slice of Sachertorte. The common mistake is runny cream that sinks and turns the drink into a milky latte; whip it until it just holds a peak and spoon it on gently so it floats. It is ready when the cream stands at least 2 cm above the coffee and slowly sinks at the edges. It is strong: a double shot of caffeine in one glass. Chef's tip: pour the coffee in first and wait ten seconds before adding the cream, so the crema settles and helps support the cap.

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Jugo surtidoMixed fruit juice

Step up to any juguería in Lima's Mercado de Surquillo or a barrio market at breakfast time and order a surtido: the juicer drops papaya, banana, pineapple and freshly squeezed orange into a tall blender, sometimes a slice of cooked beetroot for colour or a splash of milk, and pours you a big glass with the rest left in the jug for your 'yapa', the free refill. It is thick but still pourable, sweet from ripe fruit with a sharp orange edge, the kind of drink that stands in for breakfast before a long day. The common mistake is adding lots of ice and water, which makes it thin and frothy rather than velvety. Use cold fruit and freshly squeezed orange juice as the liquid. It is ready when it coats the glass and no lumps of banana are left. This version is fruit only; stalls also make it with milk if you prefer. Drink it straight away: papaya and banana go brown and bitter within half an hour. Chef's tip: use very ripe papaya with orange flesh; under-ripe papaya tastes of nothing and gives a faintly bitter aftertaste.

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Mate de muñaAndean mint tea

Muña is the minty shrub that grows wild on the slopes around Cusco, Puno and the Sacred Valley, and highland cooks reach for it after a heavy meal of chicharrón or when visitors are struggling with the altitude. Market herb sellers sell it in fresh bunches, and hotels and homes leave it in a flask for anyone coming in from the cold evenings. Steeped simply in hot water, it smells somewhere between spearmint, oregano and pennyroyal, with a cooling, slightly peppery taste and a pale green-gold colour. It is traditionally drunk to settle the stomach. The usual mistake is boiling the leaves hard for a long time, which turns the tea brown and bitter. Pour water just off the boil over the sprigs, cover, and let it steep. It is ready when the cup is pale gold and the aroma rises as soon as you lift the lid. Outside Peru, look for dried muña in Latin shops; failing that, use mostly spearmint with a little fresh oregano. Muña is strong: avoid large amounts in pregnancy, and check with a doctor if you take regular medication. Chef's tip: cover the cup while it steeps so the scented oils stay in the tea.

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TereréIced yerba mate

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.

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Pira caldoCreamy fish soup with cheese

Along the Paraguay River from Asunción to Concepción, pira caldo is the fishermen's soup, said to restore strength after a long night: chunks of firm river fish poached in a broth of onion, peppers and tomato fried in fat, then made creamy with milk and melted fresh cheese. Surubí or other catfish is traditional; any firm white fish such as hake or pollock works. The mistake most people make is boiling the soup after the milk and cheese go in, which splits it. Chef's tip: fry the vegetables until they are very soft and sweet before adding the water; that is where the flavour comes from.

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Chilcano de piscoPisco and ginger ale highball

When Lima's grey winter finally lifts and summer reaches the beaches south of the city, the chilcano takes over from the pisco sour: lighter, longer and made for an afternoon. Peru even gives it a Semana del Chilcano each January, and it is poured at weekend lunches with chifa or fried fish. This is a highball for adults only: pisco poured over a tall glass of ice with fresh lime and ginger ale, finished with a few drops of bitters. It should taste crisp and fizzy, with the ginger and lime lifting the floral grape notes of the pisco rather than hiding them. The common mistake is using too little ice and warm ginger ale, which gives a sweet, diluted drink that goes flat in minutes. Fill the glass to the top with ice and keep the ginger ale in the fridge until the last second. It is ready when the glass is frosty, the bubbles race up the sides and the bitters drift through the top as a pink haze. Light it may be, but drink responsibly. Chef's tip: try a fruit-infused pisco, made by steeping passion fruit or mandarin peel in the bottle for a few days; Limeños love a chilcano de maracuyá.

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Pisco sour

Lima drinks its pisco sour as the aperitif before a long ceviche lunch, and celebrates it every year on the first Saturday of February; the recipe took shape in the city's bars in the 1920s. It is for adults only and stronger than its pillowy look suggests. Underneath a thick white foam you get sharp Peruvian lime, a clean sweetness and the floral, grapey warmth of quebranta pisco, with the bitters adding a spicy smell to every sip. The texture should be silky, almost creamy, never thin. The classic mistake is squeezing the limes too hard or too early: the oil from the pith turns the drink bitter within half an hour. Halve the limes, press each half gently by hand just before mixing and stop when the juice slows. The egg white is raw, so use pasteurised egg white for anyone pregnant, for babies, older people or anyone unwell, or swap in 30 ml aquafaba. It is ready when the foam stands about 1 cm high and is firm enough to hold the drops of bitters on its surface. Sip one slowly and drink responsibly. Chef's tip: shake once without ice first to whip the egg white, then again with ice; the foam will be twice as thick.

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Caldo de gallinaHen broth with noodles

In Lima's markets and the all-night caldo stalls of districts like La Victoria, a bowl of caldo de gallina is the dawn breakfast for market porters, taxi drivers and anyone coming home late: a deep, golden broth from a slow-simmered hen (a boiling fowl) with ginger and spring onion, ladled over thick noodles and yellow potato, with a boiled egg, lime and ají chilli on the side. The common mistake is boiling the broth hard, which clouds it and toughens the meat; keep it to a lazy simmer. The chicken must reach 74 °C, though after this long simmer it will be well past that. Chef's tip: cook the noodles separately, then put them in the bowls; cooked in the pot they drink the broth and turn it starchy.

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EiskaffeeIced coffee with ice cream

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.

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Wiener MelangeCoffee with milk and foam

In Vienna you never simply order 'a coffee'; you order by name, and the Melange is the one most Viennese ask for. It arrives in a large cup on a small silver tray with a glass of water and often a tiny chocolate, and you may sit over it for an hour with the newspapers at Café Prückel or Hawelka, mid-morning or after lunch. Traditionally it is a mild, longer espresso (a Verlängerter) with roughly equal hot milk and a soft cap of milk foam; it is gentler than a cappuccino and the foam is looser and creamier. Expect a round, nutty, slightly sweet cup with little bitterness. The common mistake is overheating the milk: once it passes about 70 °C it smells cooked and loses its sweetness and the foam turns big-bubbled and dry. Stop when the jug is too hot to hold for more than a second or two. It is ready when the foam sits in a smooth, glossy dome about a finger thick and the coffee shows as a brown ring at the edge. One cup has about the caffeine of a single espresso. Chef's tip: always serve the glass of water alongside, as Vienna does; it is drunk first to clear the palate.

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Refresco de coconaCocona cooler

In Iquitos, Pucallpa and the river towns of Loreto, heat and humidity make a cold refresco part of every lunch, and cocona is one of the favourites sold from plastic jugs at the Belén market. The fruit looks like a fuzzy orange tomato and tastes between tomato, lemon and apricot: very sour, aromatic and juicy. Blended with water and sugar it makes a tangy, golden drink with a light pulp, served with juane or tacacho con cecina. The usual mistake is skipping the fuzz: cocona skin is covered in fine hairs that make the drink scratchy, so rub them off under running water before you start. Blend only briefly, too, so the many seeds do not crack. It is ready when the refresco is opaque orange, sour first and sweet after, with no grit. Outside the Amazon, look for frozen cocona pulp in Latin American shops; naranjilla (lulo) pulp is the closest substitute. Chef's tip: a pinch of salt makes the fruit taste sweeter and fruitier without more sugar.

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Jugo de macaWarm maca drink

Before dawn at markets in Huancayo, Cusco and Lima, juice ladies ladle hot jugo de maca from big pots for workers on their way in: maca root, a turnip relative grown above 4,000 metres in the Junín highlands, simmered with milk, cinnamon and cloves and sweetened with honey or sugar. It tastes malty and toasty, a bit like butterscotch. The common mistake is stirring the powder straight into hot milk, which leaves gritty lumps; whisk it into a little cold milk first. Maca is not usually advised in pregnancy, so ask your doctor first if you are pregnant. Chef's tip: use gelatinised (cooked) maca powder if you can find it; it dissolves smoothly and is gentler on the stomach.

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Cocido quemadoBurnt sugar mate drink

Cocido is how Paraguay starts the day: in Asunción, in the villages of Guairá and Itapúa, and in school kitchens, a pot of burnt yerba is brewed and poured into cups with chipa, the cheesy cassava bread, or with a hard galleta. The old way is to drop a glowing piece of charcoal into a pot with yerba and sugar and stir until the sugar burns. On a home stove you caramelise them together in a dry pan instead, which is safer and gives the same smoky, toffee-like taste. The drink is clear amber-brown, with roasted, slightly bitter mate notes over burnt-sugar sweetness; with milk added it becomes cocido con leche, creamy and coffee-coloured. Yerba mate contains caffeine, so treat it like a cup of coffee. The common mistake is letting the sugar go black: it turns acrid and bitter. Pull it off the heat when the caramel is deep amber and the yerba smells toasted, not burnt. It is ready when the liquid is a clear dark amber and tastes of toffee and smoke. Chef's tip: the water will spit fiercely when it hits the hot caramel, so pour it in from the side, at arm's length.

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CalapurcaHominy and meat soup

Nobody hurries calapurca. In the villages of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, especially around Carnival and the August Pachamama rites, cooks heat stones in the fire until they glow and then drop them into a clay pot of soup made from dried maize, beef and lamb (or llama), potatoes and chilli, so it boils up in a hiss of steam and takes on a faintly smoky taste. Bowls are passed around the gathering with a sprinkle of fresh herbs. The stones are a ritual best left to people who know which ones are safe, because wet or river stones can crack or burst when heated, so this home version simply simmers on the stove. Look for dried white hominy (mote, or pozole corn) in Latin American shops; it needs soaking overnight. The usual problem is undercooked corn: it needs a good 2 hours before the meat goes in. Chef's tip: for a hint of the smoky flavour, char the onion and a dried chilli in a dry pan before adding them.

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PucheroBoiled beef and vegetable stew

Winter Sundays in the towns of Buenos Aires Province mean a big pot of puchero bubbling from mid-morning: beef shin and brisket on the bone, a marrow bone, chickpeas, corn on the cob, squash, sweet potato, potato, carrots and cabbage, all simmered together. The meal comes in two courses, as in the Spanish cocido it descends from: first the golden broth, often with fine noodles or rice, then a platter of meat and vegetables doused with olive oil, salt and a spoon of salsa criolla. It is gentle and clean-tasting rather than rich. Many families add chorizo colorado or pancetta (pork); this version keeps to beef. Plan for the chickpeas to soak overnight. Boiling it hard is the classic mistake, which clouds the broth and toughens the meat; it should barely shiver. Chef's tip: add the vegetables in stages, longest-cooking first, so the cabbage and squash hold their shape instead of dissolving.

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ChampúsMote corn and pineapple drink

When Lima's grey winter sets in, from June to September, champús sellers set up on street corners with big pots of this thick, fruity drink, ladled warm into glasses and eaten as much as drunk. It's made from mote (hulled white corn), simmered with pineapple, quince or apple, soursop, chancaca and warm spices, then thickened lightly with corn flour, so every spoonful has soft fruit and chewy corn in a spiced, molasses-sweet base. It is close in spirit to mazamorra morada but paler and tangier. The mistake people make is adding the thickener straight into the hot pot, where it forms lumps; always slake it in cold water first and pour it in while stirring. Canned or jarred hominy saves hours; frozen soursop (guanábana) pulp is in Latin shops and can be left out. Serve warm in glasses with spoons. Chef's tip: simmer the pineapple peel and core with the spices for the first 20 minutes, then strain them out; they give much of the flavour.

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Berliner KartoffelsuppePotato and root vegetable soup

This is the soup of Berlin's cheap lunch counters and winter kitchens: potatoes and the 'Suppengrün' bundle of carrot, celeriac, leek and parsley root, simmered thick and seasoned with plenty of marjoram. In Berlin it usually comes with a sliced Wiener sausage floating on top; this vegetarian version is finished instead with crisp fried onions and croutons, which give the same savoury contrast. A common mistake is using waxy potatoes, which never thicken the soup; you want floury ones that collapse. Chef's tip: rub the dried marjoram between your palms as it goes in, which wakes up its sweet, piney scent.

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FlädlesuppeBeef broth with pancake strips

In Swabia, Flädlesuppe opens Sunday lunch, wedding dinners and many a Stuttgart inn meal: a clear, golden beef broth with thin ribbons of pancake, the Flädle, and a scatter of chives. The broth is simmered slowly from beef shin and a bone, and the pancakes are cooked, rolled up and sliced like noodles. For a vegetarian version, make the same pancakes and serve them in a strong vegetable broth with browned onion. Chef's tip: never let the broth boil hard; a lazy simmer keeps it clear instead of cloudy.

170 minGermanSoups
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Gaisburger MarschBeef stew with potatoes and spätzle

Gaisburger Marsch is named after Gaisburg, a district of Stuttgart, and the story goes that officer cadets marched there from barracks for it. It is a hearty Swabian one-pot of beef broth, cubes of boiled beef, potatoes and spätzle, crowned with onions fried in butter until sweet and brown, and it is still a weekday lunch in Stuttgart pubs and canteens. Chef's tip: cook the potatoes in the strained broth rather than in water, so they soak up the beef flavour.

180 minGermanSoups
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Grumbeersupp mit QuetschekuchePotato soup with plum cake

In the Palatinate, between the Rhine and the vineyards of the Weinstraße, September brings a pairing that puzzles outsiders: a bowl of creamy potato soup served with a slice of plum tray cake on the side, and you dip the cake as you go. It is a plain, cheap farmhouse supper for plum season, and the sweet-sour fruit against the soft, marjoram-scented soup is the whole joy. This version makes a small tray of yeasted plum cake while the soup simmers. A common mistake is sweetening the soup; it should stay savoury so the cake can do the sweet work. Chef's tip: use dark, oval Zwetschgen plums, which hold their shape; round dessert plums go watery.

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SubmarinoHot milk with chocolate bar

Café tables in Buenos Aires have their own way with hot chocolate: the waiter brings a tall glass of frothy, steaming milk on a saucer with a slim bar of dark chocolate, and you drop the bar in yourself and watch it sink like a submarine. Stirred with a long spoon, it melts into a rich, not-too-sweet drink, and it is the classic order with medialunas on a cold winter afternoon or after school. At home it takes five minutes, and children love the moment of dropping the bar in. The common letdown is milk that is only warm: the chocolate sits in a lump at the bottom. Heat it until it is steaming and just starting to rise, but not boiling. Chef's tip: froth the hot milk with a whisk or milk frother before pouring; the foam on top is part of the café ritual and keeps the drink hot while the chocolate melts.

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AguajinaAguaje palm fruit drink

Aguaje is the scaly, chestnut-red fruit of the moriche palm that grows in the flooded forests around Iquitos, and its orange flesh ends up in ice lollies, ice cream and, above all, aguajina, the cold drink sold in plastic cups at every corner and in Belén market. The taste is unusual and loved locally: tangy, a little like apricot and carrot, with a rich, slightly oily body. Fresh aguaje must be softened in warm water for an hour before its thin layer of pulp can be scraped off; outside Peru, frozen aguaje pulp from Latin American shops is the realistic choice and gives a good result. A common slip is adding all the sugar before tasting: the pulp's sourness varies from pack to pack, so sweeten at the end. Serve very cold with lunch or on a hot afternoon. Chef's tip: blend the pulp with only part of the water first, so it breaks down fully, then stir in the rest.

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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.

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ChapoPlantain and milk drink

Breakfast stalls in Iquitos and the riverside towns of Loreto pour chapo into glasses from big steaming pots before the heat of the day sets in, and by afternoon the same drink is sold chilled. It is made from plantains left until their skins are black, simmered with cinnamon and cloves until soft, then blended smooth and loosened with milk. The result is thick, naturally sweet and gently spiced, somewhere between a smoothie and a thin custard, and children love it. Some families make it with water only; evaporated milk is the common addition in town. The mistake is using plantains that are still yellow-green: they taste starchy and the drink turns grey and gluey, so wait until the skins are mostly black and the fruit gives when pressed. Serve hot with bread or a tamal, or cold over ice. Chef's tip: strain it through a sieve after blending for a silky drink, and thin it with water if it thickens as it cools.

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