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Vegetable tagine (khodra)Steamed vegetable tagine

Across Morocco, from village kitchens in the Atlas to family tables in Marrakech, a tagine of khodra (vegetables) is the everyday midweek pot, cooked on a low flame while bread bakes and set in the middle of the table for everyone to scoop up with khobz. The vegetables are stacked like a tent over a bed of onion and tomato, so they steam in their own juices rather than boil; the sauce left at the bottom is short, golden with saffron and turmeric and sharpened with preserved lemon and green olives. Serve it straight from the pot with warm bread and a bowl of carrot or tomato salad on the side. Chef's tip: lay the hardest vegetables (carrots, potatoes) closest to the heat at the bottom and the soft courgettes on top, or the courgettes collapse before the carrots are tender.

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MsemenFlaky square pancakes

Msemen are the square, layered flatbreads sold hot from griddles in every Moroccan medina at breakfast time and again for afternoon tea, when they are drizzled with honey or dipped in olive oil. The dough is stretched paper-thin on an oiled surface, sprinkled with fine semolina, folded into a square and cooked until crisp outside and flaky in the middle. This version uses oil throughout so it is vegan; many homes use butter or smen. Chef's tip: oil your hands and work surface generously; the dough should be stretched, not rolled, and it tears if it sticks.

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SeffaSweet steamed vermicelli

Seffa comes from the old medina of Fez, where it is carried out at the end of wedding feasts and served for breakfast after a baby's naming day: a mountain of fine steamed vermicelli tossed with butter, then decorated with lines of cinnamon, icing sugar and crushed almonds. The noodles are steamed rather than boiled, so they stay soft and separate rather than sticky. Each person eats from their side of the cone, often with a glass of cold milk. Chef's tip: steam the vermicelli in short bursts and fork it apart between each one; a single long steaming leaves it clumped.

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SellouToasted flour and almond sweet

Sellou (also called sfouf or zmita) is made in big batches across Morocco for Ramadan, for new mothers and for Eid, and is served in a mound beside mint tea. Flour is toasted slowly in a dry pan until it turns the colour of sand and smells like biscuits, then mixed with ground toasted almonds and sesame, anise, cinnamon, butter and honey. The result is a crumbly, nutty, not-too-sweet sweet that you eat by the spoonful, or press into balls. It keeps for weeks. Chef's tip: toast the flour patiently over a low heat and keep it moving; scorched flour tastes bitter and the whole batch is lost.

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Seven-vegetable couscous (bidaoui)Couscous with seven vegetables

In Casablanca, Friday lunch after midday prayers means couscous bidaoui, the city's own version piled with seven vegetables, from pumpkin and turnip to cabbage and carrot. Families eat it from one great dish, each person working on their own corner of the mound, with extra broth ladled on as they go. The grains are steamed twice over the simmering broth so they swell into separate, fluffy beads that soak up the flavour without turning soggy. This vegetarian version builds the broth from onion, tomato, saffron and chickpeas, so it is rich enough without meat. Chef's tip: rub the couscous between your palms after each steaming to break up every clump; that is what makes it light.

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TaktoukaRoasted pepper and tomato salad

Taktouka is the pepper partner to zaalouk, served side by side on the salad plates of Moroccan homes and cafés, especially around Casablanca and the north. Grilled green peppers are peeled and cooked down with tomato, garlic and cumin until soft and jammy, then eaten lukewarm with bread or as a side to tagines and grilled vegetables. It is cheap, quick and keeps for three days in the fridge. Chef's tip: use the thin-skinned, slightly bitter green peppers if you can find them; they give a more authentic flavour than sweet bell peppers.

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Vegetable briouatsSpiced vegetable pastry triangles

Briouats are the small, crunchy pastry triangles served at Moroccan weddings and at the iftar table during Ramadan, especially in Rabat and Fez where women make hundreds ahead and freeze them. The wrapper is warqa, a paper-thin pastry, though filo works well at home. Savoury briouats are often filled with meat or seafood; this vegetarian filling of potato, carrot, peas, spices and cheese is popular in family kitchens and loved by children. Bake or fry them and serve hot with a dipping saucer of harissa. Chef's tip: let the filling cool completely before wrapping; hot filling makes the pastry soggy and it splits in the oven.

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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.

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ZaaloukAubergine and tomato salad

Zaalouk is one of the cooked salads that open almost every Moroccan meal, from Fez to Essaouira, set out in small dishes with taktouka and carrot salad and scooped up with bread. Aubergine and tomato are cooked down together with garlic, cumin and paprika until they become a soft, spoonable relish, sharpened at the end with lemon and olive oil. It tastes even better the next day, so many cooks make a big batch. Chef's tip: char the aubergine over a gas flame or under the grill first if you can; the smoky skin flavour gives the best zaalouk.

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Soup joumouPumpkin soup

Every 1 January, Haitian families from Port-au-Prince to Brooklyn wake up to soup joumou. It marks independence from France on 1 January 1804: under French rule, enslaved Haitians cooked this pumpkin soup but were forbidden to eat it, so the free people of the new nation made it their own as a dish of freedom. In 2021 it was added to UNESCO's list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The base is a velvety purée of joumou (Caribbean pumpkin) with epis, and in it simmer chunks of carrot, potato, cabbage, celery and turnip, with pasta and a squeeze of lime. It's usually made with beef; this vegetable version is full and golden, rich enough for the day. Chef's tip: roast half the pumpkin before puréeing it; the caramelised edges give the soup the depth that slow-cooked meat usually provides.

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Griot with pikliz

Griot is Haiti's party food: it is piled on platters at weddings, first communions and Saturday-night fritay stalls in Port-au-Prince, always with pikliz, a crunchy, very hot pickle of cabbage, carrot and Scotch bonnet. Chunks of pork shoulder soak up a green epis marinade of sour orange, herbs and garlic, simmer until tender and then fry until the outside turns dark and crisp. This is a pork dish. Serve it with fried plantain (bannann peze) and rice with beans. The mistake that ruins the crust is frying the pork straight from the pot while still wet; it spits and steams instead of browning, so drain and dry the pieces first. Chef's tip: make the pikliz at least a day ahead; after a night in the fridge the heat softens and spreads through the vinegar.

140 minHaitianMeatGluten freeSpicy
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Diri djon djonBlack mushroom rice

Diri djon djon comes from northern Haiti, around Cap-Haïtien, where the tiny black djon djon mushrooms are gathered and dried. Soaked in hot water, they give an inky liquid that turns rice a striking grey-black and makes it taste deeply earthy and savoury. It's the rice for weddings, baptisms and big Sunday lunches, cooked with epis, cloves and green peas or butter beans, a whole scotch bonnet laid on top for perfume. Dried djon djon is sold in Haitian and Caribbean shops and online. Chef's tip: avoid djon djon stock cubes, which are often made with chicken fat and add little real flavour; use the dried mushrooms, and add a few dried shiitake for even more depth.

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Diri kole ak pwaRice and red beans

Diri kole ak pwa, rice 'stuck together' with beans, is the plate Haitians call their national dish, cooked in homes from Jacmel to Gonaïves and served most days of the week. Unlike rice and peas from elsewhere in the Caribbean, there's usually no coconut milk: red beans are simmered first, then their dark, savoury cooking liquid goes into the rice with fried epis, thyme and cloves, so the grains turn a rich reddish-brown and taste of beans all the way through. A whole scotch bonnet adds fruity heat without fire. Chef's tip: fry the drained beans in the epis until their skins blister and catch slightly; that browning gives the rice its deep, almost smoky taste.

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EpisGreen herb seasoning base

Epis is the jar that lives in every Haitian fridge, in Port-au-Prince flats and in Haitian kitchens in Miami, Montreal and Boston alike, and it's made fresh most weeks. Flat-leaf parsley, spring onion, garlic, sweet peppers and thyme are pounded or blended with a few cloves, a little scotch bonnet, oil and lime into a loose green paste. It is the first thing into the pot for rice and beans, legim and soup joumou, and it's rubbed over vegetables and tofu before they're fried. Raw it smells bright and herby; cooked it turns sweet, savoury and gently warm with clove. Chef's tip: use whole cloves and grind them yourself; just three or four give epis its signature warmth, but more turns it medicinal.

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LegimMashed vegetable stew

Legim (from the French légumes) is a Haitian Sunday dish, made in big pots in Port-au-Prince and the countryside and eaten with white rice or diri kole. Aubergine, cabbage, chayote (mirliton), carrots and spinach or watercress are cooked down slowly with epis and tomato paste until soft, then crushed with a pilon or spoon into a thick, rough, savoury mash. It's often cooked with beef or crab; this vegetable version is just as traditional for the days without meat. It tastes deep and green, gently sweet from the carrot and warm from clove and scotch bonnet. Chef's tip: cook it uncovered at the end until the liquid has almost gone and the oil shows at the edges; that's when the flavours concentrate and it stops tasting boiled.

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Pen patatSweet potato pudding

Pen patat, sweet potato 'bread', is the Haitian pudding sold in squares by street vendors and baked at home for Sunday afternoons and holidays, from the hills above Pétion-Ville to Haitian bakeries abroad. Grated white sweet potato (patat) and ripe banana are baked with coconut milk, evaporated milk, fresh ginger and warm spices until set and caramel-brown on top. It is dense, moist and fudgy, a little like a spiced cake and a little like a custard, and it's eaten warm or cold with coffee. Chef's tip: grate the sweet potato finely on the small holes; coarse shreds stay stringy, fine ones melt into a smooth pudding.

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PiklizSpicy pickled cabbage

Pikliz is the fiery slaw-pickle that sits on every Haitian table, in a big glass jar in the middle, and no plate of fried food in Haiti is served without it: it's spooned over fried plantain (bannann peze), fritters and rice. Shredded cabbage, carrot, onion and peppers are packed with hot scotch bonnets, cloves and peppercorns, then drowned in vinegar and lime. After a few days it is crunchy, sour and properly hot, and the vinegar itself becomes a hot sauce you sprinkle over everything. Chef's tip: slice the scotch bonnets thinly rather than leaving them whole; the heat spreads evenly through the jar and every forkful has a kick.

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ChipaCheese bread rings

In Paraguay you hear 'chipa, chipa!' called by vendors with big baskets on buses and street corners, and every family bakes it for Holy Week, when chipa is the food of Good Friday. Cassava starch, a little cornmeal, butter, eggs and a lot of hard cheese are kneaded into a dough scented with aniseed, shaped into rings or small rolls and baked in a hot oven, traditionally a domed clay tatakua. It's chewy, crisp outside and best warm with cocido (toasted yerba tea). Chef's tip: the dough should feel soft and slightly greasy; add milk a spoon at a time, as too much makes the chipa spread flat.

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Asado uruguayoGrilled beef short ribs and chorizo

Sunday in Uruguay means asado: in Montevideo backyards and the cattle towns of the interior, beef ribs (asado de tira), chorizo and morcilla cook slowly over the embers of a wood fire, with only coarse salt, while the family waits. The parrillero rakes coals under the grill and keeps the heat low and even. This recipe includes pork chorizo. The mistake is cooking over flames; the fire should burn down to embers you can hold your hand above for 6–8 seconds. Chef's tip: salt the meat only when it goes on the grill, with coarse salt, never fine.

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ChajáSponge, peach and cream cake

Chajá was created in 1927 at a bakery in Paysandú, a city on the Uruguay River, and named after a local bird whose feathers look as fluffy as its crumbly meringue coat. Today it's Uruguay's birthday and celebration cake: layers of light sponge soaked in peach syrup, filled with whipped cream, peaches and dulce de leche, then covered in crushed meringue. It's sweet, soft and crunchy at once, best on the day it's assembled. Chef's tip: soak the sponge but not too much; it should feel moist, not wet, or the layers slide.

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Chipa guasuFresh corn and cheese bake

Chipa guasu (Guaraní for 'big chipa') is sopa paraguaya's softer cousin, made from fresh corn instead of cornmeal. The kernels are grated or blended into a milky purée and baked with onion, cheese and whipped eggs into a tender, gently sweet bake that rises and wobbles. It's a summer dish at Paraguayan asados and fiestas patronales (saints' days), eaten beside grilled meat or simply with a tomato salad. Chef's tip: fold in the whisked egg whites last; it's what makes chipa guasu light and puffed rather than dense.

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ChivitoSteak sandwich with ham and egg

The chivito was created in the 1940s at a restaurant in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and became the national sandwich: a soft roll filled with thin, tender steak, ham, melted mozzarella, a fried egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato, olives and mayonnaise. It is eaten in Montevideo's parrillas and corner bars with chips on the side. This sandwich contains pork. The mistake is a thick, chewy steak: use thinly sliced sirloin and sear it fast. Chef's tip: toast the cut sides of the rolls so they stand up to all the juices.

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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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Pastel mandi'oCassava turnovers with beef

Pastel mandi'o are the golden half-moons sold at bus stations and street stalls all over Paraguay, especially in Asunción and around Holy Week: a soft dough of cooked cassava (mandi'o in Guaraní) and a little corn flour, wrapped round minced beef with onion, pepper, boiled egg and cumin, then fried. The mistake is a wet cassava dough that sticks and tears; drain the cassava well and add starch until it is smooth and pliable. Chef's tip: shape them between two sheets of cling film, which stops the soft dough sticking to the worktop.

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