Recipe Description:

Anywhere in India that there’s a Muslim community or a history of Persian trade, there’s a biryani, a supercharged Indo-Persian pilaf cooked in a single pot. Biryani is, literally, a potted history of India, a cross-cultural cosmopolitan blend spread out in infinite regional variations, each a distillation of that community’s favourite flavours. In our version, spicy marinated chicken is browned in an onion tarka. Then the real magic happens, fragrant rice steaming and stewing together with the meat into infinitely more than the sum of its parts.

Recipe Description:

The Italians don’t have a monopoly on delicious flatbreads with tomato-based toppings. Lahmacun was described as early as the 13th century in a Syrian cookbook, and today it’s beloved all over the Middle East and (especially) between Eastern Turkey and Armenia. Like pizza, lahmacun stretches simple ingredients as far as possible, serving up herby meals to crowds on-the-go at minimum expense, with maximum baking artistry. Unlike pizza, minced lamb is the star, with more spices helping to develop the roasty flavours. Don’t slice it into triangles: take an entire flatbread, dollop over some baba ganoush and wrap it up!

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 50 minsFor 4 - 70 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 60 minsFor 4 - 80 mins

Recipe Description:

You might recognise the word ‘pad’, meaning ‘stir fried’, from ‘pad thai’, Thailand’s iconic national dish, but pad krapow deserves to be equally famous, a meaty fry with ample amounts of garlic and local basil. The Thai basil in our recipe is similarly sweet in aroma to the more common variety, but with gently spicy, aniseed notes. It’s also sturdier, able to withstand stir-frying, only gaining in flavour as it heats and wilts. Served traditionally with jasmine rice, it’s an irresistibly fragrant experience.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 30 minsFor 4 - 45 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 45 minsFor 4 - 60 mins

Recipe Description:

Once a rich, rustic treat, musakhan is now a perennial Palestinian icon. You dont have to use olive oil to cook it, but it's certainly the traditional approach— musakhan tells the story of Palestine, its farming communities and olive trees. The olive harvest is an annual cause for celebration and feasting, with musakhan ('sakhan' means 'to heat') the preferred way to test the quality of the newly pressed olive oil. If it doesn't change colour or become bitter when used to carameilse the onions, it passes the test. Usually a chicken dish, we've prepared this Mediterranean vegetable version inspired by the original's nutty, appealing flavours. 

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 40 minsFor 4 - 45 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 40 minsFor 4 - 65 mins

Recipe Description:

Although Thai chefs are often judged solely by their Pad Thai skills, this national dish is more culturally eclectic than you might think. The name, meaning ‘Thai-style stir fry’, probably comes from Chinese expats, who combined their techniques of noodle making and wok cooking with sweet-sour, pungent Thai flavours like lime and tamarind. Thailand’s wartime dictator, facing a rice shortage, then nationalised the dish, sending the recipe to Thais so that they could open up noodle shops and street carts. Noodle fever soon gripped the nation— no surprise, since this quick, tasty dish is easy to prepare, yet enticingly difficult to perfect.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 35 minsFor 4 - 50 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 45 minsFor 4 - 65 mins

Recipe Description:

First, the Arabs brought their samosa-like pastries to medieval Spain when they invaded. In Spain these became empanadas (meaning ‘wrapped in bread’), and the conquistador Cortés is said to have feasted on ones filled with live rabbits and birds in Mexico City. Since then, empanadas have become a little more down to earth— smaller in size, with a buttery, pastry-style coating, and filled with actual, edible ingredients! We love the flavour of dried & smoked chipotle chilli inside ours, an ingenious and centuries-old native preservation technique used only on the deepest red sun-ripened jalapeño chillies.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 50 minsFor 4 - 65 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 65 minsFor 4 -80 mins

Recipe Description:

Tagine is not just a North African dish, but the earthenware pot it is cooked in, designed with a conical lid that channels condensed steam back to the stew at its base— an ingenious technique in regions where water can be a precious commodity. This chunky, spirited vegetable tagine is boosted with a trio of classic seasonings: fragrant ras el hanout (‘top of the shop’) spices, fiery, smoky harissa and tangy dried prunes, contributing a bright, fruity accent to this otherwise intensely savoury dish. So if you don’t have an earthenware pot to hand, don’t worry! It’s the bold flavour contrasts that make this tagine so special.

• Active time:

  For 2 - 30 minsFor 4 - 45 mins

• Total time:

  For 2 - 45 minsFor 4 - 60 mins

Recipe Description:

Solidified from soy milk in much the same way that cheese is made from milk, tofu deserves to be appreciated in its own right for the many nuances of its different varieties. There’s no more popular showcase for tofu’s sophisticated appeal than Sichuan province’s ‘mapo’ tofu, named for a pockmarked (ma-zi) old woman (popo) restaurateur in Chengdu. Hoping for a cheap meal, passing workers brought her their own minced meat and tofu, and she rose to the challenge, creating this deeply spicy stew. The tofu absorbs the pork and black beans’ umami flavours, its silky textural caress disguising the bold, peppery fire underneath.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 25 minsFor 4 - 35 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 30 minsFor 4 - 45 mins

Recipe Description:

Manti are perhaps the missing link between Chinese and Italian cuisine, said to have been brought to Turkey by the nomadic Central Asian tribes who settled in Anatolia during the middle ages. The word ‘manti’ is thought to be related to the Mandarin word ‘mantou’, meaning a steamed bun. While resembling a cross between pasta and steamed dumplings when plated, it’s the dramatic, vigorous flavours that set Turkish manti apart from other dumplings, with the cooling yoghurt and buttery tomato sauce coating the earthy spiced dumpling in a layer of lip-smacking satisfaction.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 50 minsFor 4 - 65 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 50 minsFor 4 - 65 mins

Recipe Description:

The area known as Bengal covers the fertile floodplains of the world’s largest delta, where the Ganges river meets the sea. ‘Fish and rice make a Bengali’, goes the saying, and indeed macher jhol (‘fish stew’) is still the main event at the multi-course extravaganza that is a traditional Bengali meal. While the ingredients might seem humble, Bengali techniques maximise on flavour. Frying the fish to develop a flavourful sear is crucial, as is the mustard seed tarka at the stew’s base. Mustard is treated as a spice, vegetable and cooking oil; its surprisingly pungent kick leaps out of the region’s deceptively simple home cooking.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 35 minsFor 4 - 45 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 60 minsFor 4 - 70 mins

Recipe Description:

Now a full-fledged celebrity chef with an MBE to boot, it’s hard to believe that Romy Gill opened her first restaurant just 6 years ago. But she spent decades plotting and perfecting her skills. Her journey began when, homesick in the UK, a bad experience at a local Indian restaurant instilled in her the ambition of showing Britain that Indian cuisine should be about fresh ingredients and nuanced, comforting flavour. Zaika is Romy’s debut book, a tribute to the ‘simple yet delicious’ plant-based food she grew up with in West Bengal. This sabzi turns hearty, savoury green banana into the vehicle for a tangy, rich and fragrant flavour bonanza.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 25 minsFor 4 - 30 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 30 minsFor 4 - 35 mins

Recipe Description:

Thai cuisine is globally renowned for its sophisticated and complex use of fresh herbs, aromatics and chilli peppers, especially in curries and soups. On the street and in Thai homes, sometimes a looser, more rapid approach to those same flavours is called for, either for the sake of quick lunchtime convenience or for appetising contrast to a more refined main course. It was the Chinese that introduced stir-frying to Thailand (along with the wok and the soybean), but this approach to juicy fresh prawns is unmistakably Thai— that whisper of sweet Thai basil scent luring you towards a bevy of salty, sweet and umami flavours.

• Preparation time:

  For 2 - 15 minsFor 4 - 20 mins

• Cooking time:

  For 2 - 15 minsFor 4 - 20 mins