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Silky scrambled eggs infused with warm spices and fresh aromatics. The turmeric adds a earthy golden color while ginger and chilli provide warmth and complexity. Served with fresh coriander, this makes an excellent quick snack, elegant starter, or gourmet canapé topping.
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.
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.
Rice flour, turmeric, coconut milk and water make a thin yellow batter. Filling vegetables, mushrooms, sliced onion, tofu, are sautéed in a hot pan; the batter is poured over to form a thin pancake; beansprouts pile in last; the lot is folded in half and slides out crisp. Pieces are wrapped in lettuce with herbs and dipped in nuoc cham.
Bifanas are Portugal's national lunch sandwich, sold at every counter from Lisbon to Porto. Slices of pork loin (paper-thin, across the grain) marinate for a couple of hours in white wine, garlic, paprika, bay and black pepper, then go into a screaming-hot pan with olive oil and a knob of butter for sixty seconds a side. The marinade reduces in the pan to a salty, winey sauce, which gets ladled over a halved papo-seco roll along with the pork. Add mustard, or a squirt of piri-piri, and you've nailed it. Eaten standing at the counter with a glass of Sagres beer, or in Porto with a Super Bock.
The Cajun classic invented by Paul Prudhomme in his New Orleans kitchen in the 1980s, the dish that put smoky char on the American restaurant menu for a decade. You build a bold spice mixture (paprika, garlic, onion, thyme, cayenne, salt and black pepper), dip butterflied chicken breasts in melted butter and press them firmly into the spice rub on both sides. Then they hit a screaming-hot cast-iron skillet for about three minutes per side, where the butter and spices char into a deep mahogany crust that locks the juices in and gives the chicken its defining smoky finish. The technique works equally well on fish (Prudhomme's original was redfish), pork or beef. Eaten sliced over a salad, layered in a sandwich with remoulade, or alongside dirty rice as a proper Cajun plate.
A Caribbean-Southern crossover that works because both traditions cook in a similar register: butter, peppers, alliums, slow heat, savoury depth. The brown stew base on top of the dish is Jamaican, bell peppers, carrot, Scotch bonnet, ginger, browning sauce, that mahogany-coloured gravy with the unmistakable allspice-and-thyme signature, and the bed underneath is from Lowcountry Charleston, where sweet potato grits enriched with butter, half-and-half and gouda are a long-running modern Southern restaurant standard. The shrimp themselves are quick-cooked and sweet, picking up the brown stew sauce. Two textures stacked: silky-rich grits, brothy stew on top with bite from the diced peppers and carrot. Smell is sweet-onion-and-browning-sugar over the corn-sweet base of the grits. Not difficult but it's two pans running at once, so timing matters; the grits hold on a low warm setting while the shrimp cook quickly. A modern fusion rather than a traditional dish, popularised by Black American chefs in the 2010s exploring the points of overlap between Lowcountry and Caribbean cookery.
Butter melts gently in a saucepan; cayenne hot sauce goes in and stirs to a glossy emulsion. Sugar, garlic powder and a few dashes of Worcestershire round the edges so the bite is sharp but never aggressive. Kept on a low heat throughout so the butter never splits. Pours straight over hot wings just before serving, or stirs into mayonnaise for a Buffalo dip.
Chicken wings separate at the joint into drums and flats. Pat very dry; toss with a little baking powder + salt; rest on a rack 1 hour (the baking powder draws moisture for crispness). Oil heats to 160°C for stage one (cooks through, 10 min); rest for 5 min; oil up to 190°C for stage two (crisps shell, 4 min). Sauce: equal parts melted butter + Frank's RedHot whisked together with a touch of vinegar and a pinch of cayenne. Toss hot wings in warm sauce; serve immediately with celery sticks and blue-cheese dip.
A rich, creamy tomato-based curry with mild spice and buttery finish. A BIR-style adaptation of murgh makhani.
A pork and prawn filling is bound with shredded carrot, glass noodles and reconstituted wood-ear mushrooms, then rolled tightly in moistened rice paper and fried twice for maximum crunch. The double-fry technique gives chả giò their characteristic bubbled, blistered crust. Served with cool lettuce leaves, herbs and a punchy nước chấm dipping sauce.
Mince mixes with very finely-grated onion (squeezed dry), salt, pepper, turmeric and a hit of saffron-water. The mixture chills, then forms onto wide flat skewers in long sausage shapes. Charcoal grills are traditional; a hot grill pan or barbecue works at home. The kababs grill for 3-4 minutes per side; whole tomatoes char alongside; rice piles on the plate; everything assembles together.
Chicken inasal is the pride of Bacolod City on Negros Occidental, where streetside grill houses serve nothing else: trays of chicken parts skewered on bamboo, smoking over long coal pits, with the cook brushing on bright orange annatto oil every few turns. The marinade is what marks it as Filipino: calamansi (a small, sour citrus halfway between lime and tangerine), cane vinegar, ginger, lemongrass, garlic and a generous slug of black pepper. The annatto oil (atsuete) is just neutral oil warmed gently with annatto seeds until it stains a vivid orange-red; this is the dish's signature look and a mild peppery flavour. Basting starts halfway through cooking so the colour goes onto skin that's already partly cooked, and continues right up to the moment the chicken leaves the grill. Difficulty for a home cook is low; the only special ingredients are calamansi (lime juice plus a touch of orange juice substitutes well) and annatto seeds (sometimes sold as achiote, found in any Filipino or Latin American shop). The flavour profile is sharp, herbal, slightly smoky, with a peppery edge from black pepper rather than chilli, and ribbon-thin lemongrass perfume running through everything. Service is non-negotiable: a heap of garlic rice (sinangag), a saucer of toyomansi (soy-calamansi-vinegar dipping sauce with sliced chillies), and the cook's pot of warm annatto oil for the table.
I’m a big fan of Thai chicken satay with peanut sauce. Although it isn’t necessary, it is best to marinate the chicken for at least a day. You could get away with 30 minutes but a longer marinating time will get you much tastier results. As the chicken soaks up that incredible marinade, it not only tenderizes it but makes it much juicier when cooked. This recipe could be used with thinly sliced pork or beef, both are also popular at Thai restaurants and takeaways. Pork is the meat of choice in Thailand but chicken is the most popular in the UK. I also like to serve this dish with cucumber and chilli relish.
These striking ravioli unite fresh crab meat with silken mascarpone, sharpened by fresh lemon and parsley, all enveloped in a bold chilli-infused pasta. The combination of delicate seafood with the subtle heat of dried chillies creates sophisticated complexity, while lemon butter provides the perfect light sauce. This is restaurant-quality food made at home.
Lamb and chicken poach slowly in a saffron-tomato broth with chunks of root vegetables and chickpeas. Merguez sausages grill or fry separately. Couscous steams (or is rehydrated quickly with hot broth and butter). Everything plates separately on a vast platter; diners build their own bowls and slick with harissa.
A rich and elegant seafood bisque featuring fresh crab cooked in a flavorful broth with brandy and cream. The soup is strained for smoothness, highlighting the sweet crab meat with a touch of spice from cayenne.
A Louisiana classic, the dish whose name means "smothered" in French, and that's exactly what's happening at the table: tender crawfish tails smothered in a rich gravy spooned over white rice. You start with a blond roux (butter and flour cooked just to the colour of peanut butter, lighter than gumbo's nearly-burnt mahogany), then soften the Cajun trinity of onion, celery and bell pepper in it until everything goes glossy. Tomato paste, Cajun spice and stock loosen the mixture, and the lot simmers down to a thick velvety gravy. Crawfish tails (or prawns if you can't find them) go in near the end and cook just briefly so they stay tender rather than turning rubbery. Spring onion and parsley scatter over at the finish. Ladled over white rice in a bowl, with crusty bread and a glass of cold beer alongside.
Sweet shortcrust pastry chills for 30 min. Filling: butter + flour make a blonde roux; trinity (onion + celery + green pepper) softens; crawfish tails + cream + tomato paste + Cajun seasoning + green onion finishes. Cool. Roll pastry; cut 10 cm rounds; spoon 1 tbsp filling on half; fold and crimp; brush with egg wash. Bake for 25 minutes at 200°C till deep gold.
A Louisiana hand pie, the Cajun answer to a Cornish pasty and the snack you'd buy at a Lafayette festival booth alongside a beer. You make a flaky shortcrust enriched with a little butter and lard (or all butter if you'd rather), cold and rested. The filling is a small batch of crawfish étouffée: a blond roux first, then the trinity of onion, celery and bell pepper, garlic, tomato, Cajun spice, stock and crawfish tails, simmered down until thick enough to hold its shape on a spoon. Cool the filling completely so it can be spooned into pastry circles, folded into half-moons, crimped sharp at the edge, brushed with egg wash and either deep-fried or baked. The fried version is the classic, with the pastry blistered amber-gold and the filling steaming inside. Eaten warm from the paper with a dab of remoulade and a cold drink.