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Mince browns with onion, garlic, curry powder, ginger and a small chopped chilli; the filling is cooled. Spring-roll pastry strips are folded into triangular pouches around a teaspoon of filling, sealed with a flour-water paste, and deep-fried 170°C until deep gold. Crisp shell, hot savoury inside.
Fresh coconut is ground with green chilli, ginger, roasted gram and a small splash of water into a smooth paste. The chutney is finished with a tempering of mustard seeds, dried red chilli, curry leaves and asafoetida in hot oil, poured over the white chutney for a striking visual and aromatic contrast.
The Chilean street hot dog and the proper night-out food after a few drinks in any city in the country. You start with a long soft frankfurter roll, poach the frankfurter in barely-simmering water for five minutes, dice tomato fine and salt it to draw out the water, and mash avocado with lime and salt to a thick paste. The build is bottom-up: split roll, frankfurter, diced tomato, sauerkraut, a heroic layer of smashed avocado, mayonnaise piped generously over the top, a squiggle of mustard if you like. Wrap in paper, hand it over, eat with both hands while walking down a Santiago street.
Yellow-corn masarepa hydrates with water, salt and a pinch of paprika for colour. Beef mince cooks with onion, tomato cumin and oregano; cooked potato dices fold in for body. The dough divides; each ball flattens between two pieces of cling film into thin discs; filling goes in the centre; folded into a half-moon, sealed with damp fingers, fried.
Long Asian aubergines char directly over a gas flame or hot grill until blackened all over and totally soft inside (poke through to test, no resistance). Cool for 10 minutes; peel away the charred skin (it slips off if cooked enough). Tear the flesh into 5 cm strips. Dress with diced tomato, thin-sliced red onion, fish sauce, white-cane vinegar and calamansi juice. Rest for 5 minutes to let the eggplant absorb the dressing. Serve room temperature.
Pinto beans are soaked overnight, then simmered with onion and garlic until tender. A separate pan crisps the bacon, browns the chorizo and softens the onion, jalapeño and tomato into a thick base. The two are combined for a final simmer with coriander, and the broth turns smoky, salty and rich. Eaten by the spoonful from a bowl, or set out alongside grilled meats and tortillas.
Dried red beans soak overnight. Bacon and chorizo render in a wide pot; aromatics build the base; soaked beans simmer with a chunk of green plantain (the trick, it dissolves over the cook and naturally thickens the broth) and pork belly for 2 hours. Hogao folds in at the end. Lime brightens.
Cucumber is chopped, salted and rested briefly to draw out some of its water (the step that keeps a salad from going soggy). The drained cucumber is tossed with fresh grated coconut, finely chopped green chilli and coriander. A quick mustard-seed temper in coconut oil is poured over the top for the aroma and a faint heat. Eaten by the spoonful from a bowl, or alongside fish curry rice.
Poached chicken is shredded and tossed with finely shredded cabbage, carrot and onion that has been softened in a light vinegar bath. A bright nước chấm style dressing brings everything together and toasted peanuts and fried shallots finish the top. The trick is balance: the salad should be crunchy, not waterlogged, and the dressing should taste sharp on its own before it hits the salad.
A small dice of cucumber (seeds out), tomato (seeds out), red onion and green chilli, tossed with roasted cumin powder, lime juice and salt. A pinch of black pepper or chaat masala. Eaten within an hour, ideally within ten minutes.
Vegetables dice into 5 mm cubes, uniform size matters for both look and dressing. Lime juice, salt, chaat masala and a finely-chopped chilli toss through. Coriander on top. Eat within an hour or the salad goes watery.
Winged beans are sliced thin and tossed with kerisik (toasted grated coconut pounded to a fragrant paste), fresh herbs, dried shrimp and a sharp chilli-lime dressing. The kerisik is the heart of the dish, it gives the salad its smoky-sweet backbone and binds the dressing to the vegetables. Bright, crunchy, savoury and just lightly fiery.
Long-grain rice (not basmati or jasmine, they're too slim) toasts in oil over medium heat until pale gold and nutty, 3-4 minutes. Diced onion and garlic join briefly. A blender pulses a ripe tomato, garlic clove, ½ onion and a few sprigs of coriander into a smooth red puree; this strains through a sieve to remove fibre and pours into the pan with the toasted rice, along with chicken stock, salt, cumin and a bay leaf. Brought to a simmer, covered, reduced to lowest heat, cooked for 18-20 minutes until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender. Off heat 10 min rest; fluffed with a fork; finished with frozen peas and chopped coriander.
The Burmese fish cakes that arrive at lahpet-thoke salad tables and street snack stalls alike, bright with lime and curry leaf. You cube skinless firm fish fillets and pulse them in a food processor with shallot, garlic, ginger, lime, fish sauce and a small egg into a sticky paste. A spoon of beaten cornflour binds it. Curry leaves, sliced spring onion, chopped cilantro and a fresh chilli go in for fragrance and bite. Patties form by hand (keep your hands slightly damp so the mixture doesn't stick), then shallow-fry in batches at 170°C for two or three minutes per side until they're deep gold and crisp at the edges. Eaten warm with a sour-sweet tamarind dipping sauce.
Ripe tomato, white onion, jalapeño and coriander are chopped fine and tossed with lime and salt, then left to rest for ½ hour for the juices to draw out and the flavours to combine. Texture matters: each bite should have all four colours. A staple alongside grilled meat, tacos and chips.
Tomato and cucumber are deseeded and diced into 5 mm cubes. Onion (preferably purple/red) dices to match. Lime juice, olive oil, dried mint, salt and pepper dress; the salad rests for 10 minutes for the flavours to mingle. Doesn't keep, the cucumbers weep within an hour.
A bright, punchy raw sambal built around belacan, the fermented Malaysian shrimp paste. The belacan is toasted first to mellow its rawness and bring out its savoury depth, then pounded with fresh red chillies, a little shallot and lime juice. The texture should stay coarse, not smooth, so each spoonful carries flecks of chilli skin and seed. Unlike cooked sambals such as sambal tumis, this one is finished in minutes and meant to be eaten the day it is made.
Red chillies, garlic, shallots, tomato roast briefly under a grill until softened and slightly charred. Terasi (shrimp paste) toasts in a dry pan 1 minute until intensely fragrant. All ingredients pound or pulse to a coarse paste. The paste then fries in oil 8-10 minutes until deep red, fragrant and oil separates at the edges. Salt and a touch of palm sugar balances. Eats hot or cool.
A Yangon street-stall snack and the lunch office workers queue for at midday: broken samosas tossed in a hot yellow-pea soup at the bowl with raw onion, lime and crispy bits. You cook yellow split peas with turmeric and salt into a thick soup, season it with fried sliced onion, garlic, paprika and fish sauce. Small Burmese samosas (filo or thin pastry triangles with a lamb mince filling) are pre-fried or warmed. The construction in the bowl is fast: a heap of broken samosa, a ladle of hot pea soup, a tangle of raw red onion, a small mound of crispy gram-flour bits, chopped cilantro, a wedge of lime, chilli to taste. Toss at the table and eat while everything is hot.
A refreshing, vibrant Thai salad featuring ribboned cucumbers in a tangy ginger-lime dressing with fresh coriander and chilli heat. Its bright, sour notes cut through rich curries perfectly while remaining light and crisp.