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African chicken (Macanese galinha africana)

Macau restaurants have served galinha africana since the 1940s, and the story most often told is that a hotel chef in the city created it from spices that Portuguese sailors brought back from Mozambique and Angola. Today it is a signature at Macanese and Portuguese restaurants from Taipa village to Coloane, eaten at long weekend lunches with rice or crusty bread. Chicken pieces are marinated, grilled until charred, then baked under a thick, brick-coloured sauce of ground peanuts, coconut milk, chilli, paprika, garlic and onion that is rich, nutty and quietly fiery. It is often made with a pale, timid sauce; cook the onion, garlic and paprika slowly until really deep red before the coconut goes in. Chef's tip: marinate the chicken overnight in the fridge so the garlic and chilli reach the bone.

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Galinha à portuguesa (Portuguese chicken)

Puzzlingly, you will not find this in Portugal: galinha à portuguesa belongs to Macau, where cooks mixed a Portuguese idea of a creamy baked chicken with the turmeric, curry powder and coconut milk that came through the Portuguese trading routes from Goa and Malacca. Macanese restaurants and Hong Kong's cha chaan teng serve it bubbling in a clay pot or baking dish, golden on top, with chicken and potatoes in a mild, yellow, gently sweet coconut sauce, always with white rice to soak it up. It is a favourite for family dinners and Christmas tables. The thing people get wrong is boiling the coconut sauce hard, so it splits and turns oily; keep it at a gentle simmer. Chef's tip: brown the chicken well first, and finish under a hot grill for the speckled golden top that Macau restaurants are known for.

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Minchi (Macanese minced meat with potatoes)

If one dish says home to Macanese families, the descendants of Portuguese and Chinese Macau, it is minchi: a quick hash of minced beef and pork seasoned with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and a touch of sugar, mixed with crisp little cubes of fried potato and crowned with a runny fried egg. It appears on weeknight tables, at Macanese restaurants near Rua do Cunha, and at gatherings of the Macanese community abroad, always with plain white rice. Savoury, slightly sweet and full of crunch, it tastes like the meeting of a Portuguese kitchen and a Cantonese wok. A common error is stirring the potatoes into the meat too early, which makes them soft and floury; fry them separately until crisp and fold them in at the end. Chef's tip: let the mince sit undisturbed for a minute in the hot pan before stirring, so it browns instead of stewing.

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Serradura

Portuguese for 'sawdust', serradura is the cool, creamy dessert you'll find in every Macanese restaurant and café from Taipa to the Senado Square backstreets, ordered to round off a long Macanese lunch. Alternating layers of sweetened whipped cream and powder-fine tea biscuit crumbs set softly in the fridge, so each spoonful is light, milky and caramel-sweet, with a gentle crumbly texture. It is usually served in small glasses, sometimes semi-frozen like an ice cream cake. Coarse crumbs are where it goes wrong; they stay crunchy and gritty instead of melting into the cream, so grind the biscuits as fine as sand. Chef's tip: whip the cream and condensed milk together only to firm peaks and stop there, or it turns grainy and buttery.

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Banarasi kachori sabzi

Walk the ghats of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh at dawn and you'll smell kachori sabzi frying in huge karahis. Banarasi kachori is small and puffed like a puri, with soaked urad dal ground with ginger and fennel worked straight into the wholewheat dough rather than stuffed inside. It comes with a thin, peppery potato and tomato rasa made without onion or garlic, scented with hing and fenugreek seeds, and is usually followed by a hot jalebi. Chef's tip: roll the puris evenly to 3 mm and slide them into really hot oil, pressing gently with a slotted spoon; even thickness and fierce heat are what make them balloon.

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Mirchi ka salan

Mirchi ka salan comes from Hyderabad, where it's the classic partner for biryani at weddings and Sunday lunches. Fat, mild green chillies are fried until blistered, then simmered in a nutty gravy of roasted peanuts, sesame and dried coconut, soured with tamarind. The result is rich, tangy and only gently hot, with the chillies giving a fresh, grassy bite. It also tastes very good with plain rice, jeera rice or parathas and is even better the next day. Chef's tip: roast the peanuts, sesame and coconut separately and slowly; each browns at its own pace, and one scorched spoonful of sesame turns the whole gravy bitter.

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Medu vada

Medu vada are the ring-shaped lentil fritters eaten all over Tamil Nadu and the rest of the south for breakfast, with idli, sambar and coconut chutney. A good one has a thin, crisp, golden shell and an inside as light and airy as a cloud, flecked with black pepper, ginger, green chilli and curry leaves. The secret is a very thick batter ground with as little water as possible and then whipped full of air. Serve them hot, dunked in sambar, or soaked in rasam as 'rasa vada'. Chef's tip: drop a little batter into a bowl of water before you shape them; if it floats, it's airy enough, and if it sinks, beat it by hand for another few minutes.

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Barbequed peas

Tender peas in their pods tossed with chilli, ginger, garlic and lemon, sealed in foil and steamed on the barbecue. Everyone shells their own at the table and gets the spice on their fingers. Use the youngest, sweetest pods you can find.

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Masala dosa

Masala dosa is the breakfast of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka: a huge, thin, golden crêpe of fermented rice and urad dal batter, crisp at the edges and soft in the middle, folded around a turmeric-yellow potato and onion filling tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves. In Chennai and Bengaluru it's eaten at small tiffin rooms with coconut chutney and a bowl of sambar, torn by hand. The batter takes planning, soaking in the morning and fermenting overnight, but one batch makes dosas for two or three days. Chef's tip: wipe the hot griddle with a cut onion dipped in oil, then sprinkle on water; if it sizzles away in a second the pan is ready, and the batter will spread thin without sticking.

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Shingara

Shingara is Bengal's samosa, and every Kolkata sweet shop fries a batch for the evening tea crowd. It differs from the North Indian kind in small, important ways: the pastry is flecked with nigella seeds, the potatoes are diced rather than mashed, and in winter the filling gets cauliflower florets, fried peanuts and a few raisins, all tempered with panch phoron. The shape is a tall cone with a tight pleated top, so it stands upright on the plate. Chef's tip: dice the potato small (1 cm) and cook it only until just tender; mushy potato turns the filling into mash and loses that Bengali bite.

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Moong dal kachori

In Jaipur, Rajasthan, moong dal kachori is the street snack people queue for: a round, golden pastry that shatters into flaky layers around a dry, crumbly filling of coarsely ground yellow lentils roasted with fennel, coriander seed and chilli. Because the filling is dry and the crust is fried slowly, they stay crisp for days, which is why families make a big batch before a journey or festival. Serve them warm or at room temperature with tamarind chutney and green chutney, or break them into a bowl of kadhi. Chef's tip: grind the soaked dal coarse and without water, then roast it until it smells like toasted nuts and feels sandy; a wet or under-roasted filling is the reason kachoris go soft.

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Khasta kachori with aloo sabzi

In the lanes of Old Delhi, breakfast often means a leaf plate of khasta kachori broken into a hot, thin potato curry, with a dollop of pickle and a cup of chai. The kachoris are large and flat with a peppery filling of coarsely ground urad dal, fried slowly until they blister and puff, and the aloo sabzi is fiery with chilli and sharp with tomato and dried mango. It's a weekend dish, filling enough to last until lunch. Chef's tip: break the boiled potatoes by hand rather than chopping them; the rough edges melt into the gravy and thicken it naturally.

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Koraishutir kochuri

Koraishutir kochuri is a winter treat in Kolkata and across West Bengal, made when sweet new-season peas arrive in the markets. Soft maida dough is filled with a smooth, gingery green pea paste, rolled thin and fried until it puffs into a pale golden pillow with a green blush showing through. It's a Sunday breakfast or a festive snack, classically served with aloor dom (Bengali spiced potatoes) or cholar dal and a sweet to finish. Chef's tip: cook the pea paste until it's dry enough to roll into a ball that doesn't stick to your fingers; a wet filling tears through the thin dough as you roll.

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Pesarattu

Pesarattu is the breakfast dosa of Andhra Pradesh, made from whole green moong beans ground with ginger, green chilli and cumin rather than rice and urad dal. Because the batter needs no fermenting, you can soak the beans before bed and have crisp, nutty, bright-green dosas on the table by morning. In Andhra homes they're scattered with onion and eaten with a sharp ginger chutney, and on festive days filled with upma to make 'MLA pesarattu'. They're high in protein, light and naturally gluten free. Chef's tip: add a small handful of raw rice to the soak; it isn't traditional everywhere, but it gives the dosa a crisper edge and stops it tearing on the pan.

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Tandoori tinnies

Baby onions, carrots, potatoes and corn par-boiled, coated in a creamy, fiery marinade of red chilli, garlic, ginger, coriander-cumin and dried fenugreek, then grilled on skewers over charcoal until golden. They're small, colourful and bursting with flavour. Serve hot with lemon wedges.

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Soya seekh kebabs

Vegetarian seekh kebabs of soya chunks, potato and paneer, spiced with garlic, ginger, green chilli, chaat masala and white pepper, pressed onto skewers and cooked over charcoal until browned. They're meaty in texture and very moreish. Serve with spring onion and yogurt dip or any chutney; they can also be deep fried.

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Punjabi chole samosa chaat

Samosa chaat is how the street stalls of Punjab and Delhi turn yesterday's samosas into the best snack of the day. Samosas are broken open on a plate, covered with a ladle of hot, tangy chole, then cooled down with sweet whisked yogurt, green and tamarind chutneys, raw onion, crunchy sev and a dusting of chaat masala. Every spoonful is hot and cold, crisp and soft, sweet, sour and spicy at once. Use bought samosas or the site's own samosa recipe. Chef's tip: warm the samosas in the oven until crisp before you crush them; a soggy samosa makes a heavy chaat, a crisp one soaks up the chole and still crunches.

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Tawa mushrooms

Halved mushrooms cooked on the tawa in a rich masala of browned onions, ginger, garlic and puréed tomato, finished with a little cream and dried fenugreek. It's quick, creamy and full of flavour. Serve hot with naan, paratha or bread straight off the barbecue.

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Barbequed paneer and vegetables

Party skewers of paneer, onion petals, capsicum, tomato, mushroom and cassava, each marinated in a thick, garlicky tandoori yogurt marinade and grilled over charcoal until charred at the edges. Make the marinade the day before and string the skewers just before the barbecue. Serve hot with mint and yogurt chutney.

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Corn & beans kebabs

Soft vegetarian seekh-style kebabs of sweetcorn, kidney beans and potato with fenugreek, spinach, ginger and green chilli, pressed onto skewers and browned over charcoal. They're crisp outside and soft inside. Serve hot with green chutney and mint and yogurt chutney.

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Corn bomb

Chunks of tender corn on the cob tossed in hot oil with cumin, green chillies, fresh coriander, turmeric, black pepper and lemon until every kernel is coated. It's hot, tangy and messy to eat with your fingers. Serve hot from the barbecue.

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Tawa chilli potatoes

A big tawa of potato cubes tossed with a fragrant tempering of mustard, cumin, coriander seeds, aniseed, cloves, cinnamon and black pepper, then onions, ginger, garlic and two kinds of chilli. It's hot, aromatic and great as a barbecue starter. Swap the potatoes for steamed paneer cubes for a change.

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Pyaaz kachori

Pyaaz kachori is the pride of Jodhpur in Rajasthan, where sweet shops fry them from early morning and sell them by the hundred with tamarind chutney. The crust is khasta: short, layered and crackly, made by rubbing plenty of oil into the flour and frying slowly. Inside is a soft, jammy filling of onions cooked with fennel, coriander seed and nigella, bound with a little gram flour and potato and lifted with dried mango powder. Eat them warm for breakfast or with afternoon chai. Chef's tip: fry them in oil that is only just warm and let them take their time; the slow fry is what puffs the crust into crisp, hollow layers instead of a hard, oily shell.

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Hyderabadi chicken dum biryani

Hyderabad's biryani grew up in the kitchens of the Nizams, and the kacchi style is its proudest form: the chicken goes into the pot raw, in a thick yogurt, mint and fried-onion marinade, and cooks only in the steam trapped under part-cooked basmati. In the old city it is wedding and Eid food, ordered in huge copper deghs, and at home it's the Sunday showpiece, served with mirchi ka salan and a cooling raita. Because the meat cooks without being stirred, small bone-in thigh and drumstick pieces work best. Chef's tip: marinate overnight in the fridge — the yogurt tenderises the chicken and the flavours go right to the bone.

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