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Adana Kebab

Lamb shoulder and lamb tail fat (or extra fatty trim) chop fine with a heavy knife or zırh (curved blade), proper Adana is hand-cut, never minced through a grinder. The texture has visible pieces of meat and fat the size of small peas. Knead with salt, ground sumac, hot red Aleppo / Maraş chilli flakes (acı biber) and crushed garlic for 6-8 minutes until tacky and clinging to the bowl. Chill for 2 hours. Press a fistful onto a wide flat skewer, working from the centre outward, shaping a 25 cm × 3 cm flat sausage with finger-tip dimples down the length. Grill over hot charcoal 5-6 minutes per side. Slide off skewer onto warm lavash. Rest for 2 minutes; serve.

Turkish 2 hours 42 minutes Serves4

Agra Ginger Chicken

A light, cleansing chicken curry from Agra with fresh ginger, warm spices and bright tomato notes. This vibrant dish is designed to be accessible and fresh, with spinach and lime lifting the finished curry.

Indian 1 hour 10 minutes Serves4-6

Ajiaco

Chicken poaches with onion, garlic and herbs into a clean, golden broth. The first potato (sabanera, or floury maris piper) drops in to start; the small yellow papa criolla follows to break down and thicken; pastusa or red potatoes go in last to hold shape. Cobs of sweet corn cook in the same pot. Guascas, the dish's signature herb, adds at the very end. Each bowl tops with shredded chicken, avocado, capers and a generous spoon of cream; rice on the side.

Colombian 1 hour 40 minutes Serves6

Alle Belle

A simple eggy flour-and-coconut-milk batter is whisked together with turmeric for colour and left to rest. A separate filling of palm jaggery is melted with grated coconut, cardamom, nutmeg and a pinch of salt until thick and glossy. Pancakes are cooked in a hot pan with a thin film of ghee, the filling spooned along one edge and rolled into a long log. Served warm, with a dusting of fresh coconut on top.

Desserts 1 hour 15 minutes Serves4

Aloo Paratha

Whole-wheat (atta) flour is mixed with salt and just enough warm water to make a soft dough; rests for 20 minutes. Potatoes boil whole, peel hot, mash with cumin, garam masala, ginger, green chilli, amchoor and coriander. The dough divides into balls. Each ball flattens into a small disc; a heaped spoon of potato sits in the middle; the dough pleats up around the filling and pinches closed; flattens again carefully; rolls out gently to a 20 cm disc. Each cooks on a hot tawa or non-stick pan with ghee, 2 minutes per side, until crispy and gold.

Sides 1 hour 25 minutes Serves4

Aloo Tikki

Floury potatoes boil in their skins, then mash dry. A spice paste of green chilli, ginger and roasted cumin folds in with chopped coriander, mint and amchur for sourness. Cornflour and gram flour bind without making the tikki gummy. Patties form, chill to firm up, then shallow-fry in shallow oil on a flat pan for 4-5 minutes per side until deep gold and crisp with a soft interior. The chilled rest is what stops them falling apart.

Snacks 1 hour 10 minutes Serves4

Alur Chop

Alur chop (alu meaning potato, chop being a Bengali loan-word for a fried cutlet, inherited from the British "chop") is the workhorse of Bengali street snacks: every tea stall, every train platform, every late-afternoon adda has a stack of these warming under a glass cover. The construction is two layers. The inner mash is heavily seasoned: boiled potato folded through fried onion, ginger, green chilli, roasted cumin and a measured punch of Bengali bhaja moshla (a dry-roasted spice blend of cumin, coriander and dried chilli). Some versions add a few peanuts or roasted chana dal for crunch; in Kolkata the mash often includes a slick of mustard oil for fragrance. The outer shell is a thin chickpea-flour batter, the same family as beguni and piyaju, fried hot so it sets into a thin crisp casing rather than a heavy crust. The trick is contrast: a shell crisp enough to crackle, a centre soft and yielding and a touch wet from the onion. They are sold individually wrapped in newspaper for a few rupees and eaten standing up, often with muri puffed rice and a small dollop of kasundi (Bengali fermented mustard sauce) on the side. A monsoon and winter snack above all, when the cold air makes the hot oil and the inside-warm chop feel particularly right.

Snacks 55 minutes Serves4

Américaine Sauce

A luxurious, amber-hued sauce featuring tender lobster meat and shells creating a rich, umami-forward base. With tomato, aromatic aromatics, and luxurious cream finishing, this classic French sauce exemplifies refined seafood cookery at its finest.

Sauce Fish 1 hour 10 minutes Serves6

American Hot Deep-Pan Pizza

A breadlike yeasted dough is pressed into 23 cm cake tins, given a thick rim, and baked over a deeply reduced tomato sauce sharpened with red wine, vinegar, Worcestershire and Tabasco. Two kinds of salami sit beneath grated mozzarella and cheddar, with jalapeños scattered on top. The pan technique gives a chewy crumb and a crisp, cheese-lacquered base.

Pizza 1 hour 30 minutes Serves2

Amok Trey

Cambodia's national dish, the centrepiece of any Khmer feast and the proper-occasion food across the country. You start by pounding kroeung fresh in a mortar (the paste of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, garlic, shallots, kaffir lime zest and coriander root that defines Khmer cooking, and that no shop-bought paste comes close to matching). The kroeung fries briefly to bloom its aromatics, coconut cream and stock loosen it, and eggs whisk in to set the eventual custard. Chunks of firm white fish fold through with chopped greens (traditionally noni leaves, with spinach or chard standing in), and the whole mix spoons into banana-leaf cups (or small ramekins). Twenty minutes in a steamer turns the custard just-set around the soft fish, and the banana leaves perfume everything. Served from the parcels with steamed rice and a wedge of lime.

Cambodian 55 minutes Serves4

Andhra Chicken Curry

Chicken thighs are marinated briefly with turmeric, ginger-garlic paste, yogurt and a pinch of red chilli. A dry-roast of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, coconut, fennel, coriander and dried red chillies is ground with a splash of water into a coarse paste. The base is built with shallots, curry leaves and tomato; the chicken is browned in stages; and the masala paste is folded in for the long, gentle simmer. Tamarind and a curry-leaf temper finish.

Indian 1 hour 35 minutes Serves4-6

Anjero

A simple batter of plain flour, semolina, yeast and warm water is left to ferment overnight; this gives anjero its characteristic sourness and the bubbles that make the texture. The next day, batter ladles onto a hot pan and cooks just on one side, the bottom turns golden, the top sets with a lattice of bubble-craters. Stack between cloths to steam soft.

Somalian 24 hours 35 minutes Serves12

Apfelstrudel

A simple flour-egg-oil dough kneads until silky, rests so the gluten relaxes, then stretches over a floured cloth until you can read newsprint through it. A filling of grated and sliced tart apples, sugar, cinnamon, raisins, lemon zest and butter-toasted breadcrumbs spreads across the dough. The cloth helps roll the whole thing into a long log. Bakes brushed with butter until shatteringly crisp.

Desserts 1 hour 50 minutes Serves8

Apple Pie

All-butter pie pastry rests in two discs. The filling, a mix of apples (Bramleys for tartness and break-down, Granny Smith and Braeburn for hold), brown sugar, cinnamon, lemon, cornflour, pre-cooks slightly to release water and keep the crust from going soggy. Bottom crust lines a pie dish; filling piles in tall (it sinks); top crust seals on, vented. Egg-washed and sugar-dusted; baked until deep gold.

Desserts 3 hours Serves8

Arancini

Cold risotto (saffron Milanese-style is traditional in arancini "alla Milanese"; plain works too) is mixed with grated parmesan and beaten egg to bind. Filling, a stew of beef-and-pork ragù with peas, OR a cube of mozzarella, sits in the centre of each ball. Hands wet with water shape the rice around the filling into a tight orange-sized ball (or cone, for the Catania style). Each ball is rolled first in flour, then in beaten egg, then in fine breadcrumbs (or in the doubled-up "panata" mix of flour + water for the Sicilian original). Deep-fried at 180°C in 4-5 cm of oil for 4-6 minutes per ball until deep gold. Drained on kitchen paper; eaten warm.

Snacks 45 minutes Serves4

Arayes

Lamb mince mixes with grated onion, parsley, allspice, baharat, pine nuts (optional) and salt. Pita pockets split open along one side; the filling presses thin (5-6 mm) into both halves. Brushed with olive oil; pan-fried or grilled hot 3-4 minutes per side until the bread is crisp and gold and the meat is just cooked.

Snacks 35 minutes Serves4

Aroog

Fine bulgur (#1 grade) soaks in hot water until soft and fluffy. Lamb or beef mince mixes with the bulgur, grated onion, lots of chopped parsley and coriander, ground baharat, cumin and a pinch of cinnamon. The mixture should be soft enough to spread, if it's too dry the aroog crumble. Small portions press onto a hot oiled pan and flatten to 1 cm thick discs; cook for 4-5 minutes per side over medium heat until deeply browned and the meat is just cooked through. Lift, drain briefly, eat hot with lemon and yoghurt.

Snacks 1 hour 20 minutes Serves4

Arroz de Pato

Arroz de pato is Portugal's answer to paella, except baked rather than simmered, and the rice picks up a top crust of crisped chouriço at the end. You poach a whole duck for two hours with onion, bay, cloves and lemon peel until the meat falls apart, then strip the meat off the bones and put the bones back to extract another half hour of flavour from the stock. The strained duck stock cooks the rice, the shredded meat folds back in, and the whole thing goes into a baking dish under a layer of paper-thin chouriço slices. Twenty minutes in a hot oven and the top emerges deeply burnished, the chouriço slices crisp at their edges and slick at their centres. Sunday lunch, ideally with a heavy red from the Douro.

Portuguese 3 hours 25 minutes Serves6

Arroz Refogado

Rice is rinsed but not soaked (this is Portuguese-style rice, where short-grain is preferred for its slight starchiness). Goan chouriço is rendered in olive oil with garlic and bay, onion is softened, tomato is cooked down to a paste, and the rice is toasted briefly before stock is poured in for a covered steam. Peas are folded through in the final minutes. The dish has a faintly smoky paprika colour and a clear Portuguese DNA.

Rice 40 minutes Serves4-6

Ash Reshteh

Dried beans (chickpeas + kidney beans + green lentils, OR the popular cheat of mixing all dried into one pot) soak overnight. Onion fries in oil; turmeric, salt and the soaked-and-drained beans go in with stock; simmers for 1 hour 15 minutes until tender. A heaping double handful of finely chopped fresh herbs (parsley, coriander, dill plus blanched spinach) goes in. Reshteh noodles (Persian flat egg noodles, sold at Iranian shops) add for the last 10 minutes. The bowl finishes with a sour-fermented kashk drizzle, dried-mint-and-garlic-in-oil sizzle, deep-fried golden onion, and a swirl of yogurt. Garnishes are not optional.

Persian 2 hours 10 minutes Serves6

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