In season

May produce

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Açorda Alentejana

Açorda Alentejana

This is the Alentejo's classic morning-after breakfast and lunchtime supper: a thin garlic-and-coriander broth ladled over chunks of stale country bread with a poached egg slipped in at the end. You start by pounding fresh coriander, garlic, salt and olive oil into a paste in a wide bowl, then pour boiling water (or light stock) over it to make a fragrant broth. Stale bread goes in to soak up the liquid, eggs poach in the same broth for the last minute, and the whole bowl comes to the table warm enough to steam but cool enough to eat with a spoon. Stir the yolk through your portion as you eat. It is the cleanest, most aromatic 15-minute bowl of bread soup you will ever make.

Portuguese 30 minutes Serves4
Ash Reshteh

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
Atakilt Wat

Atakilt Wat

Ethiopia's spiced cabbage stew, the gentle vegetable side that sits between the fiercer berbere-loaded curries on a shared platter and cools whoever's eating against the heat. You soften onions in oil with turmeric until they're pale gold, then bloom garlic, ginger and a small amount of berbere in the same fat - small because this is the mellow dish, not the fierce one. Carrots and potatoes go in first to soften; cabbage joins later. Cover, drop the heat, and let the lot steam-cook for forty minutes until the volume has halved, the vegetables have melted into each other, and the cabbage has almost disappeared into the sauce. Eaten with injera and a few spoonfuls of doro wat or misir wat alongside for contrast.

Ethiopian 50 minutes Serves4
Atchara

Atchara

Green papaya is peeled, seeded and shredded on a coarse grater. Carrot, ginger, garlic, red pepper, onion and raisins are all prepared in matching shreds. The vegetables are salted and rested for 1 hour to draw water; rinsed and squeezed dry. A syrup of cane vinegar, sugar and whole peppercorns simmers for 5 minutes. Hot syrup is poured over the vegetables in a sterilised jar. The jar is sealed, cooled and refrigerated overnight before eating. Improves over the following week.

Sides 1 hour 40 minutes Serves1
Bessara

Bessara

Dried split fava beans (foul mudammas) soak overnight with bicarbonate of soda. Simmer with garlic, bay, coriander seeds and water for 1 hour until completely soft. Blitzed (or mashed) with garlic, ground cumin, ground coriander, salt and lemon juice into a thick spoonable purée, looser than hummus but thicker than soup. Plated in a wide shallow bowl: a swirl in the centre, doused with the green oil (olive oil + paprika + cumin + chopped parsley), maybe a sprinkle of dukkah on top, served warm with hot baladi bread.

Snacks 1 hour 30 minutes Serves4
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