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Chicken thighs (or lamb) are browned, onions and tomato cooked down with garlic and a single whole chilli, then the meat simmers in stock until tender. A loose peanut paste is stirred in for the final 20 minutes, kept thin enough to ladle. Sweet potato or pumpkin softens in the sauce. A spoon of lime juice at the end balances the richness.
Pork belly is simmered until tender, prawns are poached briefly, and vermicelli is cooked just al dente. Everything cools to room temperature, then rice paper rounds are dipped briefly in warm water and rolled around lettuce, herbs and the protein with the pink of the prawns showing through the wrapper. The peanut-hoisin sauce is the make-or-break: it should be thick, sweet and lightly garlicky.
Vermicelli noodles cook briefly and get tossed with sesame oil to stop sticking. Tofu pan-fries until golden. Rice paper rounds soak in warm water until pliable; everything stacks on each round and rolls tightly. The peanut sauce blends in seconds.
Saudi Arabia's national dish, the one platter you'll meet at almost every gathering from family lunch through wedding banquet. You brown chicken pieces or lamb shoulder hard in a heavy pot, then build a base of onion, garlic and ginger softened in the same fat, with tomato and a spoonful of baharat (or a dedicated kabsa spice mix) blooming until the kitchen fills with cardamom and cinnamon. The protein simmers in tomato and stock until it's tender and pulling away from the bone, then long-grain rice goes in to cook absorption-style in the same liquid, drinking up every layer of flavour the broth carries. You finish with almonds toasted in butter, raisins plumped briefly, and a fresh salsa of tomato, onion, chilli and parsley spooned on the side to cut the richness. Eaten communally from the centre platter, with hands or a long spoon.
Bone-in beef or lamb is browned, then simmered with onions, garlic, tomato and stock. Smooth peanut butter is whisked in halfway and the stew thickens to a velvety coating. Chunks of cassava, sweet potato and cabbage cook in the sauce towards the end. Serve over plain steamed white rice.
A two-part dish: a deeply concentrated prawn-and-chicken stock built from roasted prawn shells, layered with a freshly pounded laksa paste of dried chilli, galangal, lemongrass and candlenuts. The two are joined with coconut cream to create a glossy, fragrant broth that bathes rice vermicelli, tofu puffs and prawns. Finished at the table with sambal, lime, fresh coriander and bean sprouts.
Multiple dried chillies (mulato, ancho, pasilla) toast and rehydrate, then blend with toasted nuts, seeds, dried fruit, spices, fried onion and garlic, plantain, dark chocolate and a slice of toasted bread or tortilla into a thick paste. The paste cooks down with chicken stock into a glossy mahogany sauce, served over poached chicken with rice and warm tortillas.
A platter built around fragrant coconut and lemongrass rice, served with a fiery sambal of dried anchovies and rehydrated chillies, then ringed with hard-boiled egg, sliced cucumber and fried peanuts. The sambal does most of the heavy lifting, sweet, sour, smoky and hot. The rice itself is gentle, designed to be a calming counterpoint to everything else on the plate.
A Sunday dish from Cap-Haïtien on Haiti's north coast where cashews have been a regional cash crop since colonial times. The dish translates as "chicken with cashews" and the nut is everywhere: ground into powder and whisked into the gravy as a thickener (the technique parallels almond-and-walnut gravies in West African and Levantine cookery), and added whole-toasted near the end for texture. The flavour is unexpectedly creamy, like a cashew-cream sauce that happens to be tomato-based; mellow, sweet, faintly nutty, sat over a base of Haitian épis (the green seasoning paste of parsley, scallion, garlic, bell pepper, thyme and lime that's the foundation of most Haitian cookery). A whole habanero in the bouquet garni adds quiet heat. Smell is roasted cashews and tomato paste with thyme drifting through. Not difficult but not quick, 3-4 hours of marinating, then 45 minutes of cooking, and the bouquet garni technique (wrapping herbs in cheesecloth) gives a clean, herb-free finished sauce. Served at Haitian Sunday tables on the north coast over white rice with sliced avocado on the side; the cashew sweetness and the buttery avocado are the pairing that makes it.
A whole fish is rubbed with salt, lemon, garlic and olive oil inside and out. While it rests, a sauce of tahini, lemon juice, water, garlic and chopped fresh coriander whisks together, adjusted with more water until the texture of pourable double cream. Diced red onion, Aleppo pepper, cumin and a pinch of cayenne fry briefly in olive oil. The tahini sauce stirs in; warms gently to a velvety consistency. The fish nestles on top in an oven dish; the sauce surrounds it; covered with foil; baked for 20 minutes; uncovered another 5-10 minutes. Topped with toasted pine nuts, pomegranate seeds and extra coriander at the table.
A spiced tamarind paste is built with a dry-roast of coriander, cumin, fenugreek, chana dal and dried red chilli ground to a powder, then tamarind extract is simmered with the powder, turmeric, jaggery and salt until thick. A temper of peanuts, mustard seeds and curry leaves is bloomed in sesame oil and folded through cooked rice with the tamarind paste, the dish left to rest so the flavour settles. Famously gets better overnight.