FROM THE WORLD SERVICE KITCHEN by Katayoon Forouhesh Tehrani

Index Introduction (5) Foreword by Claudia Roden (7) AFRICA (8)

Pilau and Kachumbari, Mariam Omar –East Africa (10), Cambuul,–Mohamed Mohamed –Somalia (14), Shiro–Hewete Haileselassie -Ethiopia (16), Rice with Beans and Beef Stew –Victoria Uwonkunda -Rwanda (18), Sautéed Chicken Livers -Audrey Brown –South Africa (20), Calulude Peixe, Paula Moio -Angola (24), Chocolate Cake –Annabel Blair –Sudan (28)

SOUTH AMERICA (30)

Venezuelan Empanadas - Eulimar Núñez - Venezuela (32), Tortillas de Harina & Salsa Mexicana - Lourdes Heredia - Mexico (34), Arepa de Huevo– Natalia Guerrera - Colombia (36), Feijoada Completa – Ricardo Acampora - Brazil (38), Caldo de Costilla– Natalia Guerrero - Colombia (40), Frango com Quiabo– Thomas Pappon - Brazil (42), Caldo de Costilla (Short Ribs Soup)- Natalia Guerrero – Colombia(44), Banana Cream Pie – William Marquez - Colombia (46), Borracho - Natalia Guerrero - Colombia(48), Yerba Mate – Natalio Cosoy – Argentina (50)

EAST ASIA (52)

Bean Vermicelli Salad –Thida Koo & Tin Htar Swe - Burma (54), Tempeh Stir Fry – Mohamad Susilo - Indonesia (56), Li’s Lemon Potatoes – Li Yang – China (58), Chinese Cold Noodles – Donna Leung – Hong Kong (60), Daw Khin, Saw Mu’s Beef Curry – Tin Htar Swe - Burma(62), U Chit Ko Ko’s Fried Rice - Tin Htar Swe - Burma (64), Carol’s Chinese Dumplings– Carol Yarwood, China (66), Li’s Dumplings– Li Yang - China (70), Li’s Hometown Aubergine – Li Yang - China (74), Xi’an Rou Jia Mo– Angela Hausenloy - China (76), ‘12345’ Spare Ribs – Donna Leung – Hong Kong (78), Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken – ChiChu Liu (80), Salmon Hot Pot Ha Mi - Vietnam (82), Vermicelli Noodles with Tofu & Shrimp Sauce – Giang Nguyen - Vietnam (84), Somtam ‘Papaya Salad’ - Issariya Praithongyaem-Thailand (86)

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA (88) Borsch - Olexiy Solohubenko - Ukraine (90), Borsch – Alexander Zhuravlyov Russia (92), Dora’s Svekolnik - Janina Litvinova - Russia (94), Empanada Gallega – Elena Varela - Spain (98), Tortilla de la tía Lola – Maruxa Ruiz del Árbol – Spain (102), Dimlama Chicken- Diloram Ibrahimova - Uzbekistan (104), Kichiri – Rustam Qobil - Uzbekistan (106), Imam Bayildi – Aylin Bozyap - Turkey (108), Khash Mark Grigoryan - Armenia (110), Yarpaq Dolmasi - Konul Khalilova – Azerbaijan (114), Caldo Verde – Sharon Shaw - Portugal (118), Olivier Salad– Katya Linnik - Moscow (122), Sour Cream Chicken – Oleg Boldyrev - Russia (126), Pimientos del Piquillo Rellenos– Elena Varela - Spain (128), Boris’ Lamb & Zucchinis – Boris Maksimov – Russia / UK (130), Asian-style Baked Salmon – Dmitry & Masha Shishkin – Russia / UK (132), Bacalhau da Consoada – Ana Bastos - Portugal (134), Home-made Yoghurt – Aylin Bozyap - Turkey (136), Pogaça – Cenk Erdil - Turkey (138), Diana’s Ice Cream – Jo Episcopo – UK (142), Pistachio & Parmesan Biscuits – Callum Hunt - UK (144), Les Galettes Bretonnes – Hélène Daouphars – France (146), Pineapple Upside-down Cake with Caramel & Rum – Monique Barclay France (150), Blinis – Katya Leder – Russia (152), The Loaf of Independence - Rose Kudabaeva - Kazakhstan (154), Vasina’s Torte – Maja Petrusevska - Macedonia (158), Kasha– Alexander Zhuravlyov - Russia (160)

NEAR EAST, MIDDLE EAST (162)

Bolani – Asif Maroof - Afghanistan(164), Borani Banjan - Saeeda Mahmood – Afghanistan (166), Mantu - Tahir Qadiry - Afghanistan(168), Paneer-eAfghani– Hameed Noor (170), Mirza Ghasemi – Sadeq Saba - Iran(172), Sangak – Mehdi Beigi - Iran (174), Cheese Fatayer – Hamzeh Al Agha - Palestine (178), Bric – Wafa Zaiane - Tunisia (180), Chicken Kebab & Afghan Rice – Hameed Noor – Afghanistan (182), Musakhan - Samah Hanaysha - Palestine (184), Sitti’s Bamia - Hannah Khalil - Palestine (186), Chicken Bayuti of Iraqi Jews - Diloram Ibrahimova - Iraq (188), Basbousa / Namora – Hamzeh Al Agha - Palestine(192), Harrissat el louz - Constanza Hola - Syria (196)

SOUTH ASIA (198)

Akoori Omelette – Joanne Episcopo - India (200), Dahi Baingan– Khadeeja Arif- India (202), Kaddu - Neha Bhatnagar – India (206), Muttar Chawal– Umber Khairi - India (208), Pongal - Thirumalai Manivannan – India(210), Gaja Ka Halwa, Dam Allo & Salted Pancakes – Tabinda Kaukab Gillani – Pakistan (212), Kerela Qeema– Khadeeja Arif - India (216), Chicken Qorma – Umber Khairi - India (218), Fresh Quince curried with lamb –Aliya Nazki– Kashmir (220), Pasanday – Amber Shamsi - India (222), Sri Lankan Fish Buns – Radha Satkunam- Sri Lanka (226), Leek Chingri - Manoshi Barua India (228) Editor’s note (231)

Introduction – Liliane Landor

The idea for this book emerged when the Language Services first moved into New Broadcasting House, the BBC’s new headquarters in the heart of London. Every month one or two of the Language services would host a “meet the neighbours” event to welcome new colleagues from around the BBC. After the fourth or fifth such gathering, having sampled the most wonderful Burmese food, Uzbek snacks and Vietnamese salads, I decided we couldn’t possibly let all these recipes be forgotten -and so the idea of this collection was born. Food is what links many of us to the idea of “back home”. Sometimes real, sometimes imagined, it allows us to recreate it, however authentically. It’s central to our identity and a crucial way through which we make contact. What we eat, how we eat it, indeed how we prepare and pick the ingredients, it’s ultimately all about communicating. And in the interest of communication we insisted that every recipe should come with a story to situate it and give it “body”. My own recipe -Moros y Cristianos (also known as rice and peas) -is handed on by my Cuban grandmother, Dolores Lolita Quintero, whose story is one of migration from the Caribbean to the Middle East. It graphically encapsulates the history and mix of Cuba and that of my own family. It’s a simple one. Fry onion and garlic in olive oil. Add some seasoning -cumin, red pepper, thyme or oregano and a bay leaf if you have it. When the onion turns golden add a cup of rice, a can of rinsed and drained black peas, water to cover and salt and pepper. Some like to stir some tomato paste in the mix. When it’s boiled, reduce the heat and let it simmer until it’s cooked. And there you have it. May you enjoy the tales and delight in the smells and tastes! Happy cooking, happy eating!

Photo by Jason Lowe

Foreword by Claudia Roden I am honoured and thrilled to have been asked to write the foreword to this cookbook because I am an addict of the World Service. Now as I listen I can imagine the people behind the programmes. It is really moving to read these recipes with the stories behind them. They were passed down in families or given by friends and are full of emotional baggage. They work because the dishes have been cooked again and again many times, because they bring comfort to their writers who miss home, and because they share them with friends to “see the smiles on their faces” as they eat. There is nothing like a taste or a smell to trigger memories of people and places and times past. For émigrés or people away from home, food is a link with the past; it is about the nostalgia as well as the pleasures of the moment. A dish is not just a dish. It is about roots and identity. And there is always a story behind it. The stories that accompany the recipes here are a unique insight into people’s lives; of parents and grandparents and relatives, of intimate moments and convivial occasions, of cooking together and eating together. The writers are not only passing on recipes, they are sharing a little bit of their lives. They also give snippets of the history and culture of their societies. The dishes are full of flavour. Herbs, spices and aromatics are used. Some of the ingredients are exotic and for those that are hard to get we are given possible substitutes. There are secrets and tips to achieve good results, and shortcuts that will not compromise the taste of home. Do make them and share them with friends. There is something about eating together and laughing together that creates a bond.

Africa The BBC World Service has a long history of broadcasting to Africa. Today, it delivers content in English, French, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Somali, Kiswahili, Afaan Oromo, Amharic, Tigrinya and Pidgin. It is soon to add Yoruba and Igbo. African audiences make up the largest share of the BBCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global audience for its news services. BBC Africa journalists are based in London as well as all over the continent, with the main bureaus in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Abuja, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Dakar. For our colleagues based in London, food connects them back to Africa. Below is a wonderful selection of home cooking from the continent, some dishes are associated with religion and celebration, other dishes evoke memories of homeland. This is hearty food with simple ingredients, African cooking at its best! Celebrating Eid in New Broadcasting House, at the Swahili Service, July 2016.

Photos by Sharon Shaw and Lara Owen

Pilau and Kachumbari Mariam Omar – East Africa

I learnt to cook this dish from my grandmother and then perfected it after looking through my mum’s recipes, because she’s a very, very good cook. I remember seeing my grandmother cooking it at home but it’s not a regular dish, it’s very special. We would have it during Eid celebrations. This dish was initially just popular with people who live near the East Africa coastline. The majority of them are Muslims so during Eid it was an easy choice of what you’re going to have for your dinner. It’s like turkey at Christmas; Pilau and Kachumbari at Eid. Then it spread and now this dish is popular all over East Africa. So at Christian weddings, Muslim weddings, Christmas – it’ll be there. Any occasion, you’ll find pilau. It’s diversified and now everybody’s cooking it all over East Africa. My grandmother was hands-on in the kitchen. I used to like her style. My grandmother was strict when I cooked with her, so I learnt a lot, and then with my mum I took cooking as just having fun. Then, later on I became serious about it and wanted to cook a pilau which tasted and looked like my mother’s. My father loved pilau, we used to cook it almost 3 times a week because he just loved it. This is unusual, because it’s really a dish for special occasions! 11

Method:

Kachumbari Ingredients: **

Wash the rice under cold running water using a sieve till the water runs clear, then leave to soak for about 30 minutes in fresh cold water. (This makes the rice fluffy and also gets rid of excess starch.)

Heat oil in a deep pot, fry the onions until they turn brown in colour (this depends on how many onions you have; it can take up to 8 minutes to brown completely – it’s important for colour and flavour).

Add the garlic and ginger paste (blend the two ingredients together).

Pilau ingredients:

Continue stirring and frying until the flavours have mixed. It should develop a nice aroma.

450g of meat (beef, chicken or mutton) 2 cups of rice (uncooked) 2 big onions, chopped thinly (the more onions the better for taste and colour) 2 tsp fresh ginger 1 tsp salt 1 tbsp cumin seeds 1 tsp whole black peppercorns Several whole cloves Few pinches ground cinnamon Few cardamom pods or 1 tsp ground cardamom Several garlic cloves 3 tbsp oil for frying

Add all the spices and stir for two to three minutes making sure it doesn’t burn; if it starts sticking, add a little water.

Add the meat; stir and cook over high heat until it browns.

Reduce heat and simmer for a few minutes.

Add the rice and stir until thoroughly coated with the ingredients, then add hot boiling water (the water should be an inch above the rice and chicken) and stir gently and not for long - as soon as it starts bubbling reduce the heat and cover it tightly.

Leave to cook for 20 - 10 minutes until all the water is absorbed before turning off the heat (if the rice looks half cooked add a very small amount of hot water and cover it) then transfer the pot to a medium heated oven for 20 - 10 minutes.

Serve hot with Kachumbari

Pilau and Kachumbari- Mariam Omar – East Africa

3 ripe tomatoes 3 – 2 large onions Small cucumber ½ lemon or one tablespoon of readymade lemon juice 3 tbsp salt (for soaking the onions) Medium hot/warm water (for onions)

13 Photos by Sharon Shaw and Lara Owen

Cambuulo (Ambulo)– Mohamed Mohamed – Somalia

I’m a fan of good meals and I think this is one of the best. Cambuulo is a simple dish popular with Somalia’s farming communities. It is sometimes referred to by its nickname ‘Dalka’, which actually means countryside.’ It is mainly made from well-cooked red adzuki beans, they are mixed with sorghum (grain), butter, sugar and usually dressed with sesame seed oil which gives it a very distinctive taste. It does not take much time to prepare and it is delicious. Cambuulo has become the number one dish in Somalia and the story of how a simple dish became so popular touches me. It started life in rural areas and then appeared in small restaurants and now it’s even served in hotels – it’s everywhere. And it’s always the cheapest dish on the menu. Over the last two decades, Somalis have found it difficult to get food because of the civil war and dishes made with Somali produce have become even more popular. I first remember eating this when I was five or six years old and I liked the taste. It’s an everyday dish but we also have it for celebrations. When people are having festivals or weddings, they cook this and share it. The ingredients are not easily found in the UK so I take my hat off to my friend who found them and made Cambuulo.

Ingredients: Beans (azuki or a mixture) Sorghum (grain) Salt Sugar Butter Sesame seed oil

Method: **

Soak a large quantity of beans (you can use a mix of varieties) overnight in water.

With fresh water bring them to the boil along with the sorghum and simmer for about half an hour with a pinch of salt until the water is absorbed.

Then add the butter and some sugar and sesame seed oil. It is ready for eating.

It is that simple and Somalis say, it is a good source of protein.

15 Photo by Mohamed Mohamed

Shiro (Split Pea Stew)– Hewete Haileselassie - Ethiopia

Shiro is the staple of the Ethiopian diet. It is rich, nourishing, cheap and tasty. When prepared with oil and not butter it is vegan and a ‘fasting’ dish, fitting well into the Ethiopian Orthodox fasting calendar. Shiro is an everyday dish and most Ethiopians eat it every day. It’s also not as labour- intensive as many dishes and can be made easily in about 45 minutes. My own mother has lived abroad, away from Ethiopia for over three decades and makes this dish about once or twice a month when she wants a taste of home. This is her recipe for Shiro.

Ingredients: (serves 4 as a main)

5 medium red onions, finely diced 4 garlic cloves, crushed A head of ginger, crushed 3 tbsp vegetable oil 4 - 3 tbsp berbere spice powder 6 - 4 tbsp shiro powder (from yellow split peas) 3 – 2 tbsp Ethiopian clarified butter (optional – omit this for a vegan dish) Salt to taste

Method: **

Fry the onions, ginger and garlic in the oil until the onions are completely softened and cooked but not golden or coloured.

Simmer on a low heat for 5 minutes.

Add a cup of hot water to the onion mix and simmer for a further ten minutes, covered and on a low heat.

Add the berbere powder and mix well with a wooden spoon. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the shiro powder mixing well to avoid lumps, heat through and add 3 cups water.

Cover and simmer for a further 30 - 20 minutes on a low heat. Add salt to taste.

If you are including the clarified Ethiopian butter add it now.

Serve with enjera flatbread or pitta bread/tortillas and a tomato salad on the side.

Rice with Beans and Beef Stew– Victoria Uwonkunda - Rwanda

I don’t know when this dish came to Rwanda, or how it got there. I grew up with this and it was, and still is, a staple for many families in Rwanda, Burundi and elsewhere in the Great Lakes region. Those who can’t afford meat because it’s quite expensive usually have the dish without it - just rice and beans. Another version can be made with boiled potatoes or Ubugali (a mass of cassava flour mixed with water). This is comfort food for me, which I usually turn to when I miss food from ‘home’. I’ve tweaked it over the years, and I’ve taken to adding in a little cream, which isn’t in the traditional dish.

Ingredients: 450g Beef, diced 4 - 3 onions, finely chopped 4 - 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 chilli (or however much you like), finely chopped 1 tin tomatoes (or well-ripened tomatoes) Tomato paste Beef stock Double cream (can be dropped, just a preference) 1 cup of basmati rice (or however much you need of whichever type you choose) 2 cups of water 1 tin red kidney beans Salt and pepper for seasoning

Method: **

Fry the meat till brown, add your onions, garlic and chilli. Fry for a couple of minutes, but don’t let it burn.

Add the tomatoes and a dollop of tomato paste.

Add the beef stock then gently and slowly pour this over the mix of meat, tomatoes and tomato paste over a medium heat.

Let it simmer for a little while (10 - 5 minutes over low heat).

Start on your rice: put a splash of oil in a heated pan, add the rice, stir and coat it with oil, add the water (all the rice should now be covered by water). Let it boil on high heat, reduce to low and keep cooking on a very low heat until the meat is tender.

By now your beef stew should be coming to a fine delicious end. Taste, and if ready, add a dollop of cream (if you prefer).

Turn off the heat and keep warm on the stove.

While waiting for the rice to finish cooking, add a small amount of oil in a small pot, fry remaining onion till slightly shiny, add the kidney beans, lower the heat and just stir (add a small amount of water if you want, this will make you beans more creamy and more delicious).

Et voila! Bon appétit.

19 Photo by Victoria Uwonkunda

Sautéed Chicken Livers Audrey Brown – South Africa

It should have been the very best of times in South Africa - Nelson Mandela had just been released from jail, the white supremacists that had held the country in their grip, had finally relinquished power. The long and bloody struggle against apartheid was finally over. All that was needed now was to negotiate the peaceful transfer of power. We were all woken from our reverie of freedom when a wave of violence swept our dreams away. There was a contest for political power between the African National Congress and an organisation called Inkatha. That fight had been going on for years but it had been confined to the province of Natal (now Kwazulu Natal) - far away from Johannesburg and the rest of the country. And we’d thought that once Mandela was released, solving that - and all our other problems - would be easy. What happened instead was that the war in Natal began to spread, first to the eastern and southern reaches of Johannesburg, where mine workers from Natal lived in men-only hostels, isolated from the communities around them. These men were mobilised to fight against the people in those townships, to try and gain political ground for Inkatha. But when that violence spread to Soweto - the sophisticated heart of black life in South Africa - everyone was terrified. Because that meant a seriously destabilising civil war, right at the centre of the richest province of South Africa. I was a young reporter at the time, working for one of the pioneering anti-apartheid newspapers. And in the style of a young, activist journalist, I was interested in the lives of the people living through the terrifying events. So I decided I was going to go and spend a few days with a family living on the frontline of the violence. I knew lots of people in Soweto and I knew that life continued, in spite of the fighting. So I wanted to convey that to our readers, who were removed from this reality. The mother of the family I was going to stay with - perhaps eyeing me as potential daughter-in-law material - was very happy when I said I’d love to prepare a meal on one of the nights I would be staying with them. I decided on something quick and easy: sautéed chicken livers. 21

Ingredients:

(try the proportions to suit your tastes, especially the quantities of chillies) Chicken livers Onions Garlic Ginger Green chillies to give it a kick Soy sauce (You can also add mushrooms or bacon to give it body.)

Method: **

Fry onions, garlic and ginger and chillies. I like lots of ginger because it gives a lovely flavour. And I like it quite brown - scorched is what I call it.

Add diced chicken liver. Fry at a high temperature so it gets brown quickly but stays pink inside. A splash of soy sauce right at the end adds delicious gravy to mop up with bread or pap - which is the maize staple we eat with it.

In Soweto, when I opened a drawer to get out a kitchen knife to dice the chicken liver, I realised that the drawer was full of huge, lethal-looking knives, many more than an ordinary household would have. My potential mother-in-law saw the expression on my face and burst out laughing.

«Protection» she said. And I remembered where I was. On the frontline of a fight that had claimed many lives and darkened our dreams. And tonight the men of her family - her sons and brothers - were stationed at either end of the street protecting us from others who could kill them, and kill us.

While I was cooking, the girls of the family were telling me stories of how they used to panic about the possibility of death. They laughed about it and I laughed too. I laughed because they told very funny stories. It was a way of dealing with life in a houseful of knives, while your brothers and uncles faced death outside.

We all laughed because we felt invincible, wrapped as we were in freedom’s dream. And may I say it - eating a very, very tasty meal. I didn’t marry any of her sons - but my potential mother-in-law lived in hope that I might for a long time after she had tasted my food!

23 Photo by Audrey Brown

Calulu de Peixe (Fish Stew)

Paula Moio - Angola

Invariably, every Saturday in every house in Luanda, we eat Calulu or a variation of it. It’s the weekly family gathering, turning into a social event as friends come in and out either for aperitif, digestif or are simply passing by and then stay for the whole feast. They know we are there; we know they will come. It’s a ritual, a tradition that we are proud to keep. And so the day starts early with a buzz – it is usually hot and humid, the houses get deep- cleaned and back yards washed. The big pans are queens in the kitchen and the tropical flavour of smells begin! But it couldn’t be a proper Saturday without a visit to the market to get the fruit, the greens, the roots, the nuts and all the specialities that go with a good old traditional Calulu, and perhaps a bit more fish to add to the mountains already at home – just in case we get more ‘unexpected guests’ than usual. A quick drop-off of the shopping at home and check if the table is set, the drinks are in the fridge, there’s enough ice, and because it is a late lunch we certainly deserve a dip in the sea. A nice giggle with friends; the gossip of the week and off we go. On the way back home we stop randomly at a dear friend’s house for a quick aperitif, a catch up and oops…time to go and be ready for our own ‘unexpected guests’ – sometimes they arrive before us and patiently make themselves at home. We all start to arrive, it’s 3pm and people are busy putting everything out on the table for a bunch of hungry tummies - ten in total, family plus partners and some children. This is the ‘mother house’ – my uncle and aunt’s; they host us and we all host the guests. Who is in charge of aperitifs this week? I make coffee and dessert. We drink and talk about the week and there is always the latest gossip in town, the new face on TV, the new construction site, etc. At four in the afternoon, we finally start lunch and politics dominate the scene – passionate opinions are shouted across the table, arguments, laughs, children crying - someone is at the gate, must be your godfather and one high-school family friend with his partner – bring some more plates and chairs. Where is your cousin? It’s coffee time. She’s having a nap with the twins, I’ll take over. The last guests (including us) leave around ten at night. We all ate too much, laughed a lot, drank a little, but we also leave full of energy for the week ahead, our hearts full of love for one another and friendship. And, more importantly, we are passing on this tradition to the next generation. For the first couple of years after I left Angola, I could not acknowledge a Saturday, or if I did acknowledge them, it would be a difficult, tearful and miserable day. So I decided to lock them deep in my heart until I was ready to accept that Saturdays were going to be different from then on. Saturdays have been different for some time now and that’s OK.

Photo by Paula Moio

Ingredients: 3 or 4 thick slices of fish (fresh or frozen) 1 or 2 slices of African dried fish – washed and cleaned with warm water or Portuguese dried & salt cod ‘Bacalhau’ – soaked overnight in cold water to remove the excess of salt 500g Okra 500g Spinach 200g (½ tin) chopped tomatoes 1 chopped onion 1 hot chilli (preferably scotch bonnet) 3 or 4 chopped garlic cloves 4 or 5 tbsp palm oil 1 tbsp cassava flour

Method: **

Put all the ingredients in a casserole – starting with the palm oil, chopped onion and garlic.

Then add the fresh fish, dried fish (roughly cut), tomatoes, okra and spinach.

Chop the chilli and season with salt.

Add two cups of water and let it simmer in slow cooking.

Once cooked, mix one tablespoon of cassava flour with ½ cup of water and add to the Calulu to get a thicker consistency.

Accompany with Fufu (cassava flour mash) or Ugali (cornmeal mash).

Ingredients: Fufu or Ugali

Fufu: 400g cassava flour Boiling water Ugali: 250g cornflour (semolina) Boiling water

Method: **

Bring half a tall pan to boil.

Mix one cup of cassava or cornflour with cold water and add that paste to the boiling water, mixing with a big flat wooden spoon.

Once it thickens, add the remainder of the flour and keep mixing. Make sure you don’t stop mixing until you get a smooth mash consistency.

If too runny, keep adding flour and equally if it’s too thick, add water and keep mixing until you reach a balanced consistency.

Chocolate Cake – Annabel Blair – Sudan

My first encounters with the organisation I am now so proud to work for was on a crackly shortwave radio, back in the 1970s, when I was a child and my family was living in Omdurman, Sudan. It was my first introduction to BBC World Service, and it gave me the passion for international broadcasting that I still have today. We usually listened every morning over breakfast to hear what was going on in the world. Indeed, given the odd coup or two, sometimes we tuned in to try to get an understanding of what was happening on our own doorstep. Meals and some of the foods we ate were a bit different in Sudan to those I’d known in England. At breakfast, it was cheese and jam instead of butter and jam, and we just picked the weevils out of the bread before eating it; that was the easiest way to do it. We got used to the differences at mealtimes and didn’t think too much about it. Tea time was a bit more like being back in the UK. My mother used to make a really delicious chocolate cake. As children, my brother and I, not to mention our friends, used to devour it. It was served regularly at home (especially at weekends), popped into our lunch boxes, brought along with us on picnics to the Sahara desert and taken to friends’ houses as a gift. I don’t think we really appreciated the efforts my mother went to help make us feel at home when we were far from home. But we simply didn’t think of it as anything else – and tea time, in particular, and that chocolate cake, was a highlight. The recipe was handwritten into one of my mother’s cookery books and she has since told me that this was one of the things that saved her from total cooking misery!

Ingredients: 3/1 cup cooking oil 2/1 cup cocoa (3/1 cup cocoa makes a lighter cake) 2/11 cups plain flour 3 teaspoons baking soda Pinch of salt A few drops of vanilla (optional) 1 cup sugar 1 cup milk 2 eggs

(To make a vanilla cake, replace cocoa with 3/1 cup of cornflour.) Mix the dry ingredients together first, then add the wet ingredients, to make a soft batter. Put it in a pre-heated oven. The handwritten recipe says Gas mark 4, for around 40-30 minutes. Don’t ask about the temperature though, as my oven was either on or off, and I cooked it for as long as it takes—maybe half-an-hour.

Joanna Blair – a cake to remember **

On arrival in Sudan in the early 1970s, and not at all prepared for life in Africa, I found that cake ingredients as I knew them were not available. Someone kindly gave me this recipe. Everyone who used this recipe produced a different texture of cake!

The vicar’s wife was coming to tea (my first attempt at entertaining in Sudan). I made a cake and carefully put it under some gauze on top of the fridge to cool.

The gauze kept the flies off well enough. However, one must not forget ants in Africa. Not long before the guest arrived, I went to add some decoration to the cake only to find it teeming with ants! There was nothing for it but to very quickly make another cake… there was just time. Why do I underline “very”? Well now, at tea, I served the cake to the vicar’s wife. The expression on her face, as she ate, became frizzled and fraught to say the least. Then I discovered why, as I ate my piece of the cake… a lump of baking soda in the mouth does things to the facial muscles! I realised that in my haste to get the second cake into the oven, I had not mixed in the baking soda praoperly. Until going to Sudan, I had had no experience of dealing with baking soda, having always used self-raising flour, but I can report that now I always mix it in VERY well! Oh… and I always put cakes to cool on a stand with its legs in water!

29 Photo by Annabel Blair

Latin Americas On March 14, 1938, the BBC greeted its first ever listeners in Latin America. Since then a lot has changed in this politically turbulent and vibrant region, however, food is the one thing that has remained timeless. Food and family are intimately connected -the recipes below are ones passed down from the older generation to the younger. For our journalists from the Americas working in London, food reminds them of experiences of home and allows them not only to keep their legacy alive but relive the comfort of home every time they cook. Of course the cooking from this region is a complete melting-pot of cuisines, with Native American, European, African and Asian influences. Below are some classic Latin American recipes like empanadas and traditional Brazilian dishes like feijoada for you to try at home.

Empanadas -

Eulimar Núñez – Venezuela Most of my recipes belong to my Mom Lili. She was the one cooking while I grew up. At first, I used to help her with the basic tasks: cut the vegetables, fry the plantains, until I was able to do the “adult’s part” by myself, like the white rice. Even though she always worked outside the home, when she was at home she was always there. She taught me how to eat properly, how to appreciate the food and especially how to be creative in the kitchen. One of the things I keep asking her to cook for me when I see her now - she lives in Caracas and I live in Miami - is Venezuelan empanadas, ‹empanaditas’ as she calls them. They don’t look or taste the same as the rest of the empanadas that are prepared in the region, like the ones from Colombia and Argentina. Although the filling changes all the time (I remember eating empanadas filled with all sorts of leftovers from the refrigerator: cheese, meat, chicken, fish, black beans, etc.), the dough made with precooked cornmeal is very unique. And my Mom’s empanadas are especially delicious: crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. I remember having friends coming over, asking her for more. She used to make 30, 40, 50 empanadas in one night. My brother used to eat around seven just by himself! And I also have a pretty respectable record of five, that’s how good they are. Today, after so many years spent watching her, this is the recipe I tend to choose when I have friends at home. If they are Venezuelans, the empanadas are going to remind them of home, if they are foreigners, they love trying them, and nobody has refused one so far. I usually fill them with whatever I have. The most important thing is to learn how to make the dough. Once you do that, you are set to go! Hope you enjoy the recipe.

Ingredients: 3 ½ cups precooked cornmeal ½ tbsp vegetable oil, plus more for frying 2 tbsp sugar 1 tbsp salt Grated white cheese (or filling of your choice)

Method: **

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and knead until you have soft dough.

Cut a re-sealable plastic bag into a square or take a piece of strong plastic wrap.

Place a ball of the dough on the plastic and with your fingers press it until you have a circle.

Add 2 tablespoons of the filling (white cheese is amazing, but you can also use any kind of meat, chicken, fish, beans).

Fold up the plastic wrap from the bottom to close the dough over the filling in a semi-circle shape. Press it so that the edges are sealed.

Use the rim of a bowl to trim your empanada into a neat shape (the idea is that they all have the same shape).

Carefully take off the plastic and then put the empanada in a large skillet.

Deep-fry it until it’s golden and crispy.

Keep doing the same procedure until you finish the dough.

Serve them with spicy sauce.

33 Photo by Eulimar Núñez

Tortillas de Harina & Salsa Mexicana Lourdes Heredia - Mexico

The simplest things in life are the best. The best culinary memory of my childhood is the flour tortillas made by my grandmother. Her kitchen was the hub where all the family met and I can remember that all the news, bad or good, was always shared in that kitchen. But even in the tough moments, my grandma would make tortillas for all of us. The recipe seems very simple, but beware I haven’t been able to make anything similar to my grandma’s tortillas in all my life (even when I followed her recipe step by step). Some people have good hands and some not so good. It’s like having ‘green fingers’, you are either born with good hands to make tortillas or not. But if you want to try, these tortillas can be used like bread and you can eat whatever you like with them. Scrambled eggs, beef casserole, cheese, or even chocolate. I prefer them naked.

Ingredients: 3 cups plain flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 6 - 4 tbsp lard (or vegetable shortening) 360ml cups warm water (approximate)

Method: **

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Then with your hands, add the lard and mix all the ingredients together by rubbing gently.

Once they are all mixed, add the water and with your hands make a mass with the dough, and shape it into a ball with your hands.

When you have a ball with all the ingredients very well mixed, let the dough rest in the bowl, covered with a towel or plastic wrap, for about 10-5 minutes.

Now comes the difficult part: to make little dough balls and roll them. My grandma’s tortillas were always perfectly round… mine are sometimes in funny shapes!

You can roll them to the thickness you prefer, depending on how you like them but you’ll need to adjust the cooking time according to how thick they are.

The final step is to get them in the comal, which is a cast iron plate used in Mexico to make tortillas. If you do not have a comal, you can use a normal pan, the result will be the same as long as you do not burn the tortillas.

Get the pan or comal heated, put in one of your tortillas and when it starts to puff (in about 30 seconds) turn it around.

In around 30 seconds more you will have a delicious tortilla. Some people make lots and save them… If I were you, I would eat them immediately.

Photo by Cerys Hogg

Arepa de Huevo (Egg Arepas) – Natalia Guerrera – Colombia

I love to cook. It is something I do well. It is one of those simple talents in life, like parking a car or having a good sense of humour. It just comes naturally to me. The difference is that with cooking I can express my emotions: I can give love. Cooking and inviting friends is one of my favorite cocktails in life. Arepa de huevo is the rich and bright Caribbean variation of the arepa from the centre of Colombia. They are very popular in cities like Cartagena, Barranquilla and Santa Marta, and are usually served as breakfast or for snacks.

Ingredients: (serves 4) 1 cup precooked cornmeal flour 1 cup hot water 4 eggs ½ tsp salt ½ tsp sugar (optional) Vegetable or Canola oil

Method: **

Mix the pre-cooked cornmeal, salt, and sugar (if using) in a bowl.

Add the cup of hot water and mix it together with your hands. The dough will become firm after mixing well.

Prepare a pot to deep fry, allowing the arepas to be fully covered in the oil. Use a medium heat so the arepas get fried but not burned.

Divide the dough into 4 balls. Reserve a small amount of dough to close the arepas later.

Lay down a sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper on your work surface.

Put 1 ball of dough on the sheet and another piece of plastic wrap or wax paper over the dough. Flatten the ball using an object such as a plate, book or board.

** **

Remove the plastic and gently place the arepa into the oil. Fry it for 3 minutes (1½ minutes per side). It should puff up in the oil.

Then carefully take the arepa out of the oil and place it on some paper towels to let it drain.

When it has cooled down to the extent that you can touch it, cut a 3 - 2cm wide hole with a knife in the edge of the arepa.

Break one of your eggs into a small glass and carefully pour it into the hole then repair the opening using the dough that you had saved previously.

Place the arepa back into the hot oil and let it fry until the egg is cooked, about 2 minutes per side.

** ** **

Remove the arepa de huevo from the oil and let it drain on paper towels. Repeat this process with the other 3 balls of dough. Serve with sour cream and salt on the side. You can also put a mix of chopped tomatoes and cilantro on the table.

Tips: **

You can fry several arepas at once, being very careful not to burn them, especially during the first fry. I suggest frying up to two at a time until you can really manage the process.

Arepas shouldn’t stick together if the oil heat is really high and if there is enough space in the pot.

37 Photo by Natalia Guerrera

Feijoada Completa Ricardo Acampora - Brazil

Feijoada is certainly my favourite dish of the Brazilian cuisine. And I am not alone on that. A huge part of the 200 million Brazilians also love it and this passion has helped to make black bean stew the most popular dish in the country. Nowadays, a great number of Brazilians have a quasi-religious relationship with it, having some kind of beans in their meals every single day, in many cases twice a day. With its high protein and fibre contents, beans are an efficient and cheaper substitute to meat and fish which can in part explain feijoadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s huge popularity. However, my recipe is for the so-called feijoada completa (complete feijoada), the beautiful and aromatic stew of black beans cooked slowly together with chunks of pork, served with white rice (arroz), greens (couve), toasted manioc flour (farofa) and oranges (laranja), appealing equally both to eye and palate. Some say its origins date back to the time of slavery, when African people were taken to Brazil by the ruling Portuguese to do all sorts of hard labour, mainly in the sugar cane plantations. With no rights whatsoever, the slaves had no choice in what they ate, and received from their owners only the worst parts of the slaughtered pigs: ears, feet, tail, snouts and the entrails of the animals, all of which they preserved by burying under a pile of rocky salt. With all this offal, the slaves prepared a stew, cooking it very slowly together with black beans. Without knowing it, they were developing something that would last much longer than the Portuguese rule in Brazil. Feijoada overcame all social barriers, conquered the palate of the entire country. But there are those who reject the slave culinary inheritance theory, they say that the dish was introduced to Brazil by the Europeans, as we find similar meals in Portugal, Spain and France. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in-between, but the uncontested fact is that it has become a national icon, sharing with carnival, samba and football a place in the heart of millions of Brazilians.

Ingredients: (serves 8) For the main dish: ½ kg black beans 1kg loin of pork (*) 1kg jerk beef (*) best known in Brazil as carne seca (dried meat) 100g paio, a Portuguese large sausage ½ kg smoked pork ribs ½ kg fresh pork ribs 1 pig tail (*) - optional 1 pig ear (*) - optional 1kg pork sausages – it´s important to be Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish or Italian which are very different from the English ones 50g fatty bacon 3 large onions 5 garlic cloves 1 large tomato 3 dry or fresh bay leaves Salt Black pepper 2 tbsp olive oil

Method: **

If you managed to get the salted version of the pork, soak the chunks of meat in water for some 36 hours prior to cooking, otherwise you risk the excess of salt which will spoil the taste.

With a thorough inspection, get rid of the ‘bad beans’ and any dirt left in them. Soak the good beans in water for 24 hours before cooking.

Cut the meat and the sausages into smaller chunks. Cut the onions and the garlic in tiny pieces. Take out the seeds from the tomato and slice it in small pieces. Cut the bacon into small pieces.

In a big pan, boil two litres of water; add the beans and a third of all the meat. Lower the heat and leave it to cook, stirring from time to time.

Using another pan, heat the oil on a high heat, fry ¾ of the bacon, 2 of the onions and 4 of the garlic cloves (saving the rest for the rice and greens) until they start acquiring a golden colour. Turn the heat down to avoid burning them.

Add the tomato, stir together, add a bit of salt and ground black pepper and let it simmer for some three minutes. Take the mixture (refogado) to the big pan and stir it well.

Now all you have to do is to let it cook on a low heat for some 4 hours, stirring occasionally to check the texture and avoid it sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add more water if necessary. The beans are going to produce a rich, dense sauce and most of the meat will simply ‘disappear’, melting away in the mix and adding a rich taste to the final dish.

You have time now to prepare all the accompaniments, the greens, the rice, the farofa and the oranges.

Three hours into cooking, add the remaining meat and stir it from time to time. When you get a dense mixture making it harder to stir and the meat is well cooked turn the heat off. You have your feijoada ready to be served!

(*) The salted version can be found in small shops in London, which sell Brazilian/Portuguese products.

Rice (arroz): **

In Brazil we cook rice by frying it first, mixed with garlic and onions.

Wash the basmati rice.

Heat the oil and fry the leftover onions and garlic until they become golden. Add the washed rice and fry it together with the onions and garlic for one minute. Cover it with water, add a bit of salt to taste and bring the heat down. Wait until it dries out, check if the rice is well cooked and turn off the heat.

For the accompaniments: ½kg white basmati rice 1kg kale again the original choice is the Brazilian or Portuguese couve but alternatively any other type of greens can be used ½ kg manioc flour – it can be found in shops which sell Brazilian or Portuguese products 2 tbsp olive oil 50g butter 3 large oranges Salt

Manioc flour (farofa): **

(The fat contained in the pig’s tail and ear add taste and texture to the dish, but they can be left out with no great loss to the final result.)

In a large frying pan, melt the butter on a low heat to avoid burning it and add the small pieces of leftover bacon. Add the flour slowly and keep stirring to make sure it toasts entirely and equally. Add salt to taste. When the mixture starts changing colour from white to gold turn off the heat and put it to one side until everything else is ready.

Greens (couve): **

Wash all the leaves thoroughly; cut the wider part of the stem off as it tends to add a bitter taste to it. Roll the leaves in a cigar shape, hold the bunch together and with a sharp knife cut it in extremely thin shreds.

In the same frying pan used to prepare the farofa, heat a tablespoon of oil and add the shredded greens. Keep stirring until they shrink a bit. Repeat it with a new bunch until you have all the greens fried this way.

Feijoada Completa - Ricardo Acampora - Brazil

Oranges (laranja): **

Peel the oranges and cut them into large chunks. They add a beautiful colour to the final dish.

To serve, try to fork some of the meat out and put it in a separate tray so people can chose easily what they prefer to eat. In a big bowl pour the beans, the meat and the sausages together. Provide a ladle for easy serving. In individual trays, bowls or plates, serve the rice, the greens, the manioc flour and the oranges.

Enjoy it!

41 Photo by Alexandre Macieira / Riotur

Frango com Quiabo (Chicken with Okra)Thomas Pappon – Brazil

Okra is a bit like Marmite – or vice-versa – people either love it or hate it. At least in Brazil, where many seem to be put off by the vegetable’s unique slime, which takes over as soon as you start cooking the seed pods. I have to agree, it could be a bit disgusting having to eat something that looks and feels like the hanging saliva from a Labrador’s mouth. And I’m not sure if it helps to know that the slime comes from the high concentration of mucilage, the same gluey substance that some carnivorous plants secrete to trap flies, and that this was used in the last century as an adhesive element in postage stamps. Okra has a unique taste and is much loved in South Asia (they call it bhindi in India), Africa and America. It is used as the thickening agent in Louisiana’s most famous stew, gumbo. It came to America with the slaves shipped from Africa, that’s also how it arrived in Brazil, probably around the 17th century. I only started to pay attention to okra (known as quiabo in Brazil, probably because of the African Bantu word) in the eighties, when I started dating a girl from Belo Horizonte, the capital from the state of Minas Gerais, about five hundred kilometres from Sao Paulo. There, in a well-known traditional restaurant called Xapuri, located in a converted farmhouse around the famous Pampulha Lake (on the way we passed the Igreja da Pampulha, one of Oscar Niemeyer’s most emblematic and beautiful projects), I had my first ‘frango com quiabo’ - chicken with okra. It was a revelation. I ended up marrying that girl. She taught me the basic recipe here in London, fifteen years ago, after we discovered that the garden of the house in East Dulwich (south London) we had just moved into had plenty of plants with beautiful yellow flowers I had never seen before, and whose fruits were the green ladyfinger-like-shaped seed pods which we knew so well from Minas Gerais’ typical dish. The kids love it and it has become a regular culinary feature in our house, especially after I improved the recipe with a surprise ingredient that bonds amazingly well with the goo; beer and makes it taste even better. The recipe below is the real thing but when I don’t have much time, I prefer to use chicken breast cut in pieces, and it’s less messy and faster. Also, in many Brazilian recipes, the okra is fried before it’s added to the chicken, to cut the slime. I never did it, but I do add lemon juice, which also cuts (a bit of) the slime. Fresh okra can be easily found everywhere in London. Remember that as soon as you start washing it in water, it gets slippery. Recently I found packages of already sliced frozen okra from India or Pakistan in supermarkets. They worked fine, and I didn’t have to wash and cut them.

Ingredients: (serves 6) 2 large tbsp oil 1 whole small chicken, cut into pieces (if you only want to use legs, wings or thighs, it’s absolutely fine, use around 800g) 1 large onion, sliced 2 garlic cloves, finely diced 2 large bay leaves Juice of a lemon 500g okra, sliced in 1cm long pieces 400ml (a very large glass of) lager beer Salt and pepper

Method: **

In a large pan, heat the oil and fry the chicken pieces for around 10 minutes (turn every two or three minutes), until they all have some nice colour.

Add the onion, garlic and bay leaves. Mix and cook for another minute.

Add the okra and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper, mix and cook for two minutes.

Add the beer, mix, let it boil, turn the heat down to low and cook for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice.

Serve with rice, pumpkin and some nice hot chilli sauce.

43 Photo by Thomas Pappon

Caldo de Costilla (Short Ribs Soup)Natalia Guerrero – Colombia

I put the same effort into a big dinner with friends or a simple plate of rice just for myself. Caldo de Costilla is a typical dish from the cold Andean region of Colombia. It’s a delicious clear soup made with beef short ribs, potatoes, onion and cilantro (coriander). It is very easy to find Caldo de Costilla in market squares, cafeterias or restaurants as a breakfast in Bogotá or other cold cities. It comes from an Andean peasant tradition, but is very commonly used ‘the morning after’. It is known as one of the best cures for the guayabo, the Colombian word for hangover. ‹Levantamuertos’ is a Colombian slang expression that is very commonly used for broths and soups and it’s a good description of Caldo de Costilla. It means something capable of waking up a dead person, after a party night, after a long day of work, after flu. I cook a chicken version after a long night here in Miami, because it just takes 20-30 minutes to be ready, but if the hangover happens at my mother’s house I know she will cook it for me.

Ingredients: (Serves 4) 1.35kg short ribs 450g potatoes 15 cups water 5 garlic cloves 2-1 cups diced onion 6 chopped spring onions ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro (coriander) Salt and pepper to taste

Method: **

Bring a large pot containing the short ribs, salt, pepper and water to a boil.

Turn down the heat and simmer for an hour or so.

Add the garlic, onions and spring onions and cook for a further 40 minutes.

Peel and cut the potatoes into big chunks then add to the pot along with half of the chopped cilantro and season with salt and pepper.

Continue cooking until the potatoes are tender – another 30 - 20 minutes.

Top with the remainder of the cilantro and serve warm, with an extra mix of finely chopped cilantro and spring onions on the side.

45 Photo by Natalia Guerrero

Banana Cream Pie – William Marquez – Colombia

This is a very simple recipe handed down to me by my mother, although where she got it from, I do not know. It has been navigating the ether for decades and people grab hold of it as it passes by and everyone has slightly altered versions of it. The way I absorbed my mother’s cooking knowledge was very seldom through a written recipe. It was mainly through observation. I would watch my mother bake, cook, steam and sauté; whip, knead, roll and mash; flour, season, bread and baste while she uttered little titbits of valuable information. Not so much the how but the why. And, of course, all of this accompanied by the exciting aromas that filled the kitchen. All of this is to tell you that I have no idea of measures. I cook by instinct and by eye, sometimes by ear, always by smell. So, please don’t get frustrated if you don’t have the exact amounts of what is needed for this pie.

Ingredients: 2 cups/200g crackers or biscuits with a high content of whole wheat flour and low on sugar 100g butter 5 bananas, ripe but firm 2 cups custard. The type that firms up when it cools Milk – to make the custard Sugar – to sweeten the custard as needed Whipping cream. A regular container Real vanilla extract. A few drops to add to the cream as you whip it. More sugar. To sweeten the cream to taste.

Method: **

Preheat oven to about 175C/340F/Gas Mark 3.

Melt the butter in a pan. Do not let it crackle or burn.

Crush all the biscuits into a coarse powder.

Place crushed biscuits into a 12» pie tray, pour melted butter over and mix well, so that the crumbs are all moist.

Press this mixture over the entire surface of the pie tray. This is your crust, so make sure you tap it with a fork for a good few minutes to make it compact.

Place the pie tray with the crust in the middle of the preheated oven. Let it bake for about 10 minutes. But keep an eye on it. You don’t want it to burn but you want it to get very nicely toasted and release all the aroma of the buttery biscuit mixture. This is very important.

Take out and let it cool.

Prepare the custard. I have no idea how to really do this, so follow instructions on the box. I make a rule, that is, mixing a few tablespoons of custard with a bit of milk and sugar until I get a paste. I heat milk and put the paste in. Stir it until thick. If it isn’t thick enough, I stir in a bit more custard powder; if too thick I add some milk. See what I mean by instinct? Now, if you know how to make custard from scratch,

with the egg yolks and everything, be my guest. **

If you can manage, while the custard is heating up, slice the bananas and place them over the pie crust. Do not slice the bananas until you are almost ready to pour the custard, otherwise they will turn dark.

Once the custard has reached its desired temperature, puffing but not boiling, and it is thick enough, you pour it over the bananas to cover them all.

Let everything cool at room temperature and set.

Place in refrigerator to chill.

Before serving, whip the cream in an ice-cold bowl, adding the drops of vanilla extract and the sugar to taste. Once the cream reaches the consistency with which you can form peaks of cream, spread it generously over the pie.

Slice carefully and enjoy.

This is a simple desert, but the mixture of flavours is amazing. It has a bit of everything from different cultures: the ready-made American-style flavour of the crackers, enhanced by the butter, the tropical aroma of the bananas, and the comfort of the custard that the English cherish so much. And it’s all topped with rich cream!

Lots of calories? YESSSSS!!!!!

47 Photo by Natalia Guerrero

Borracho (‘The Drunk’ Dessert) Natalia Guerrero – Colombia

Almost every single recipe I do is related to my Mom. And before that, to my grandmother, who I have never asked where and how she learned to cook. I have a distant memory of sitting down with my twin sister on a bench in the kitchen while my mother was stirring her cakes by hand. She was known - and still is - for her exquisite food. My sister and I must have been 3 years old. My mother was instrumental in putting together the recipes that I’ve contributed to this book. I discussed every single step with her and we reviewed all the texts together. The Borracho is a dessert that has been passed from generation to generation in Colombia for more than a hundred years at least. It is very much linked to the culture of alcohol consumption in the country, especially in the Andean region. At first it seems like a complicated recipe but the truth is that it can be made in five simple steps.

Method:

Ingredients: 2 pound (or sponge) cakes 1 tin condensed milk 4 cups pastry cream 2 cups guava jelly White rum/brandy syrup Meringue to decorate

Boil %80 of the milk with the sugar and cinnamon sticks.

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining milk with the corn-starch, egg yolks and vanilla.

Add this mix to the milk and bring to the boil then immediately turn down the heat, stirring constantly for 3 minutes.

Turn off the heat and add the butter, stirring until it disappears. Set aside and let it cool down.

Method:

Pastry Cream ingredients: 4 cups milk 4 egg yolks 300g sugar 90g cornstarch (cornflour) 40g butter 1 tsp vanilla essence 2 cinnamon sticks

In a pot, boil the water, cinnamon and sugar until the sugar disappears.

Lower the heat, add the rum or brandy and stir.

Put the syrup aside and keep warm so you can soak the cake layers later when you’re putting the dessert together.

Method:

Guava Jelly ingredients: 500g block of guava paste 1 cup water

** **

Cut the guava paste into small pieces and put in a pot with the water. Boil until it thickens then put aside until it gets cold.

Meringue ingredients: 100g egg whites 200g icing sugar

Method: **

Beat egg whites with a mixer until it becomes foam.

Add sugar slowly while continuing to beat until it creates a pyramid form.

Final Drunk Dessert Ensemble: **

Carefully cut the sponge cakes into 4 layers.

Completely cover the bottom of a pan with one layer of cake.

Wet generously with hot/warm white rum/brandy syrup.

Add a layer of guava jelly.

Cover completely with second layer of cake, wet again with the white rum/brandy syrup.

Cover this layer with guava jelly.

Cover with third layer of the cake and wet with the white rum/brandy syrup.

Put on a layer of the pastry cream.

Add fourth layer of cake and wet generously with condensed milk.

Finally, spread on the meringue to decorate and let it brown in the oven on a high grill then remove immediately.

49 Photo by Natalia Guerrero

Yerba Mate –

Natalio Cosoy – Argentina Yerba mate (pronounced mah-the) is similar to tea. I don’t think it’s from the family of tea but it’s related, it’s got caffeine in it. The yerba mate bushes grow in rainforests in a specific area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay; the province in Argentina is called Misiones. And this particular environment allows for the growth of the plant. The leaves are harvested, then dried and mashed, so you end up with little tiny pieces of leaves. It’s usually sold in kilo/half kilo packs. The most common way of drinking it is from a hollowed pumpkin, also called ‘mate’. When you buy one of these you have to cure it before you start using it. To do this, you leave yerba and water inside and some people put a spirit – I use rum - in it so it gives a bit of flavour to the pumpkin. Then you can start using it. You fill about half of the pumpkin with yerba, put in the straw (it’s called ‘bombilla’; bom-bee-sha), then add hot water from a flask or a kettle. It shouldn’t be boiled – if it’s boiled it’s bad, because you burn the yerba. Pour some of the water in the pumpkin so it’s a bit full and drink! Traditionally, mate is drunk in groups so you pour one for yourself, then for the next person, and the next and it goes round. Sometimes in BBC Mundo we do that: at our morning editorial meetings we might have a round of Mate amongst us, the ones that drink it. It will give you the same effect as coffee only it’s not so heavy on the stomach; I think it’s a bit healthier. You can get it in London although it’s not as cheap as in Argentina. I’ve seen really young kids drinking this; I started a bit older. I used to have it in teabags - black in a cup with some sugar, for breakfast as a kid. My Dad would wake me up with one of those in my face and say: “Drink.” “No….” “Drink!” “No, I just want to sleep…” “Drink it!” And I’d drink it and go to school. So there’s the nasty memory associated with the teabags, but this one’s fine. And here in the UK it’s funny because everyone asks “What’s that? What are you smoking? Is that legal? Is it hallucinogenic?” It isn’t, unfortunately, it’s just a tea. Mate is drunk in Argentina, where I’m from. In Uruguay it’s very big, they drink it a lot and in parts of Brazil, Paraguay and Chile. And there’s a curious thing: in parts of Lebanon and Syria it’s also drunk. I’m not sure, but I think it’s because there was a big immigration from those places to Argentina. Perhaps they took mate back.

51 Photo by Sarah Lee

East Asia There are currently six different Language services which cover East Asia in the World Service: Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, Burmese, Thai and Korean. Journalists are not only based in London, but also in places like Hong Kong, Jakarta, Rangoon and Bangkok. Food is particularly important when you become part of a diaspora, and unites all our colleagues across the region. The beauty of East Asian cooking is that it is generally done family style with shared dishes, and it becomes an important social activity, especially during the New Year festivities. Even the act of waiting in line for your street food, brings people together in Asiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s huge bustling cities. This part of the world has many regional cuisines and thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a great selection below. We have tried to showcase the common Asian cooking methods of stir-frying, steaming, and deep-frying, for you to try your hand at. Why not try the immensely popular Chinese boiled dumplings (jiaozi) and then the lesser known but equally delicious Chinese steamed dumplings (baozi).

Bean Vermicelli Salad –

recipe by Thida Koo, story by Tin Htar Swe – Burma

A Burmese meal is not complete without a salad dish or ‘a thote’ as it is known in the Burmese language. A thote comes in different varieties; it can be plain green leaves or meat or prawns, or fruits such as mango, papaya or even citrus fruits. The Burmese can make salad out of just about anything. A thote is best served on a warm summer day. The spicy taste will make you sweat and a gentle summer breeze brushing your body gives a pleasantly cool sensation which makes the tropical summer afternoon more bearable. It is common to find friends sitting under a tree in the garden and sharing a plateful of salad. I remember how my cousins and I crept into our grandma’s kitchen in the afternoon to prepare a thote when grandma was having an afternoon nap. We would scavenge her larder to get the ingredients. Once prepared, we found our favourite tree in the garden, rolled out the straw mat under the tree, placed the thote plate in the centre with a pot of green tea. We all sat down around the plate to share the food and also the latest gossip.

Ingredients: (serves 6) 200g glass noodles (bean vermicelli) 1 packet of cooked fish cake or 500g canned tuna steak (optional) 1 lemongrass stalk, crushed and tied into a knot 1 garlic clove, chopped 1 tbsp sunflower oil 200g fine green beans, chopped 200g carrots, grated 1 tbsp fish sauce 5 fresh small chillies, chopped 1 lime A handful of fresh coriander, chopped 1 tsp fried onion

Method: **

Soak the bean vermicelli in cold water for 15 minutes.

Boil half a saucepan of water and add the vermicelli. Bring to the boil for 5 minutes and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Drain and leave to cool.

Heat the oil in a wok or pan until hot. Sprinkle in the chopped garlic and lemongrass and cook until light brown.

Add chopped green beans and carrots and stir gently. Leave it to cool.

Put cooked glass noodles in a salad bowl and mix with the fried ingredients and chopped chillies. If using, add the tuna or fishcake, sliced into small pieces.

Add fish sauce and lime juice to taste and mix all the ingredients together. It should be salty, spicy and sour.

Garnish with coriander and dried fried onion.

55 Photo by Tin Htar Swe

Tempeh Stir Fry – Mohamad Susilo – Indonesia

In Indonesia we have three core ingredients: garlic, onion and chilli. Most of the cooking will consist of these ingredients. They are mashed together in a tube: sometimes fish sauce is added. Tempeh is a food that used to be associated with the poor but now has been adopted by everybody. It originates from the island of Java, where I come from. It takes a week to prepare and process before it is ready to be cooked. You take clean soy beans, cook them until soft and then fry them without oil, because it tastes better. Then you add special fermented flour, which makes the process much faster. You put it into plastic bags and punch it to let the air out of the tempeh. You put it into a warm room for 3 days; then it’s ready. Tempeh from a shop tastes different – they use chemical substances to keep it fresh for longer. You can put tempeh into a variety of recipes. This is a popular one – easy to prepare and it’s quick. You can enjoy it in 10 – 12 minutes.

Ingredients: (serves 6) Garlic Onion Chilli Tempeh Green beans Salt, sugar, soya sauce to taste

Method: **

Heat a teaspoon of cooking oil in a wok then add garlic, onion and chilli. When it smells good add tempeh and green beans for 4 – 3 minutes, max. Then add a little salt, sugar and soya sauce and it’s ready to eat.

You can use other vegetables – bean sprouts or choi sim for example. And you can use chicken, anchovies or chicken liver.

Serve with steamed rice and prawn crackers. And a cold beer or wine will finish it off nicely!

57 Photo by Mohamad Susilo

Li’s Lemon Potatoes – Li Yang – China

This is cheap, quick and tasty. Many of my friends have benefited from this recipe which is especially useful when you don’t have much money. We would normally use vinegar, but I know that people in the UK like lemon so I have adapted it. If you like a sweet taste you can add a bit of sugar to it as well. You don’t need any sauce; it just retains the freshness of the garlic and lemon.

Ingredients: 1 big potato, peeled, shredded and washed to reduce starch Juice of ½ lemon 2 cloves of garlic, chopped into small pieces Pinch of salt and sugar Cooking oil

Method: **

Have the washed potato shreds ready in a big bowl; add lemon juice, garlic, salt and sugar and mix.

Stir fry in a heated wok with two tablespoons of cooking oil on a high heat.

Keep stirring for about 3 minutes, then it is ready to serve; either with rice, or cool it down and serve as a cold dish.

59 Photo by Li Yang

Chinese Cold Noodles – Donna Leung – Hong Kong

I enjoy eating (especially Chinese food); I like to cook and exchange cooking techniques with friends. Through cooking, I make friends everywhere and have got to know more about the eating culture of the places where I have stayed. I tried this dish in a restaurant in Hong Kong and thought that I may be able to make it. My colleagues in the Hong Kong office are the guinea pigs who helped me to produce this successful version. Thanks to all my office members who always show positive support to my cooking! This dish is very easy to prepare. I only need to grab ingredients from the fresh market on my way to the office, do a little bit of cutting during lunchtime and it’s ready to serve. So, if you want to have something different to fill your stomach without queuing up in front of the microwave to reheat your lunch, follow this simple recipe.

Ingredients: (serves 2) 300g noodles (or any type of fresh or dry egg noodle, ramen or even spaghetti) 2 tsp sesame oil (to mix with cooked dry noodle to avoid them sticking together) 1 egg, stir fried and julienned Small piece of carrot, peeled and julienned Small piece of cucumber, julienned 2 slices of ham, julienned

Noodle dressing: 2 tbsp soy sauce 2 tbsp Shanxi matured vinegar or other type of vinegar, e.g. rice vinegar or wine vinegar 2 tsp sugar 2 tsp sesame paste or peanut butter 1 tbsp garlic powder 2 tbsp chilli sauce (optional) 1 tbsp mustard (optional) 2 tbsp roasted white sesame (optional)

Method: **

Mix all the dressing ingredients in bowl, adjust the quantity to taste.

Toss the noodles with the dressing, place the other ingredients on top and it is ready to serve.

61 Photo by Donna Leung

Daw Khin Saw Mu’s Beef Curry – Tin Htar Swe – Burma

My father, who was a naval chief, unexpectedly became a diplomat and, in his newfound career, soon discovered that my mother’s delicious beef curry would work wonders when delicate diplomacy needed to be exercised. We learned about our mother’s culinary skills only once we were posted to foreign lands to represent Burma. My mother could easily create an authentic three course Burmese meal without compromising the taste. A Burmese meal does not have a starter, main course and dessert as in a western meal. A typical Burmese meal will consist of rice, curry, fried vegetables and soup which are served all together. Each dish is carefully thought out in order to compliment the taste. If a spicy meat curry is served, a mild dish like fried chicken or fish will be included with the meal to cool down your palate. Also, it is not uncommon to find a sour and salty salad to accompany the meal and a clear soup to quench your thirst after eating it. During the seventies, my parents were posted to Japan and in those days Japanese Kobe beef was considered the epitome of fine dining. The meat is generally considered to be a delicacy and renowned for its flavour. Kobe beef is usually served as steak. My mother found out just how much the Japanese enjoyed beef steak after attending a few dinners. So she created her own beef curry which was a cross between steak and curry. The meat was deliberately cut into chunky pieces to allow the guests to cut it as if they were eating steak. The beef curry became an instant hit among the Japanese diplomats and businessmen. Their attendance was guaranteed when Beef Curry and Coconut Rice was on the menu at official functions.

Ingredients: (serves 2) 680g beef, cut into 2 inch squares 4 small onions, finely diced 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped 3/2 tsp turmeric powder 2 tsp paprika powder 4 tbsp sunflower or corn oil 2 tsp fish sauce ½ tsp salt

Method: **

Heat the oil in a medium size saucepan.

Add the diced onion and cook until starting to turn golden. Reduce heat and cook until golden brown.

Turn off the heat and remove the onion from the pan and put it on a plate. (Leave oil in the pan.)

Mix beef cubes with turmeric, paprika, chopped garlic, chopped ginger, fish sauce and salt to taste. (It tastes better if it is marinated for a couple of hours.)

Add beef cubes to the pan and cook on a medium heat until the water has evaporated.

Reduce heat and add a little water and the fried onion.

Cover the pot and bring up to a simmer and then cook on low heat until the meat is tender and gravy is thick. (Add a little water if the meat is still tough.)

The fried onion gives the dish a lovely golden brown colour and sweet taste. 63 Photo by Donna Leung

U Chit Ko Ko’s Fried Rice – Tin Htar Swe – Burma

Every morning my father got up at 5am and made himself a cup of coffee and toast. After he finished his breakfast he would start preparing breakfast for the four of us. I have five siblings and I am the third child. My eldest brother had already moved to another town to work and only four of us were living with my parents. My brothers went to the English Methodist High School which was a mixed school, but my sister and I were sent to St John’s Convent, run by Irish nuns. Our schools started at 7am and finished at 1pm. My parents wanted to make sure that we had a good hearty breakfast before we started the day and what could be better than fried rice and a cup of coffee brewed locally for us. Burma was then a socialist state and all dairy products were either rationed or simply not available. I remember so well how we all rushed to the dining room around 6am to have our breakfast. That was the time when we could exchange a few words with father before we grabbed our bags and our driver took us to the school. It was our morning ritual until I finished high school and moved to a hostel in Rangoon University. None of us ever got tired of the fried rice that my father prepared for us. We did not want to eat anything for breakfast but my father’s fried rice and I missed it so much later, especially when I had to force myself to eat the breakfast prepared in the hostel kitchen.

Ingredients: (serves 4) 3 tbsp corn oil 200g boneless chicken breast, cut into ¼ in squares 1 tbsp chopped garlic 2 eggs 750g pre-cooked rice, chilled 1 spring onion (scallion), chopped 1 tsp dark soya sauce ½ tsp salt 1 tsp ground white pepper

Method: **

Season the cold rice with dark soya sauce and salt.

Heat a wok or a large frying pan with oil until it is very hot.

Reduce heat and add garlic, stirring all the time until it turns golden brown.

Add chicken and cook for 2 minutes.

Add seasoned cold rice and stir well.

Cook for two minutes and make a space in the centre of the wok or frying pan by pushing the rice to the side.

Crack eggs into the space, break egg yolks with spoon and sprinkle salt and pepper.

Cover the eggs with rice and leave it for 20 seconds until the eggs have set.

Stir rice well.

Cook for 2 minutes, sprinkle spring onion and serve immediately.

65 Photo by Tin Htar Swe

Carol’s Dumplings – Carol Yarwood – China

Dumplings are a very important food for Chinese people, particularly in the north where they are very popular. That’s pretty much half the country, so I would definitely say that dumplings are a national treasure, a national dish, they are really close to everybody’s heart. It’s traditional to eat dumplings at Chinese New Year and people associate dumplings with hot, good-tasting food, particularly in winter, so it’s a heart-warmer. Making dumplings is like a family event, its teamwork, everyone joins in. The atmosphere is really joyful. Families and friends are together, they joke and there’s laughter and gossip. Some people can work on the pastry, some can work on the filling, and because you cook them in batches people take turns to eat them. You always have fresh, hot ones coming out of the kitchen, so that’s all part of the fun. I usually boil dumplings but you can also shallow fry them or steam them (if you’re steaming them, they’re usually bigger in size). And you can flatten them down so they become like a little meat pie or patty. Dumplings are still viewed as a treat, even now when people can eat whatever they want. It is a delight to have dumplings and you can hardly find anybody that hates them. Usually it’s “Dumplings!” and their face and eyes light up! With a group of friends, often you find that they can only make one part of the process, so they each have a different speciality. They’ll say “I can only do the rolling” or “I can do the boiling”. No one helps me so I had to learn how to do all of it! It takes a lot of effort. If you’re making 50, 70 or up to 100 dumplings at a time, it takes 2 or 3 hours. So, how do Chinese people learn how to make dumplings? Usually, they start when they are children, they are given a piece of dough to mess about with when the adults are making them and the ones the children make are really ugly! And then when they get better they might be given the role of rolling, or putting the filling in or doing the whole pinching and filling thing together, that’s how you learn the process. In China, in all the supermarkets, and even here in London, in Chinatown, you can buy dumplings, but homemade, freshly made ones are still the best.

Ingredients: (makes around 60 dumplings) 500g plain flour 500g minced meat (pork or turkey; you can also use lamb, beef or even chopped prawns) Sunflower oil Olive oil Sesame oil Light & dark soy sauce Five-spice powder 2-3 spring onions, finely chopped Cube fresh ginger, grated Chinese leaves, finely chopped Celery, finely chopped Garlic chives, finely chopped Shiitake mushrooms (optional), finely chopped Salt and pepper

Method: **

Add lukewarm water to the flour, bit by bit. Knead it by hand or use a bread machine for at least 10 minutes, until it’s smooth. Then put it in a big bowl and cover with a clean, damp cloth to let it rest for at least half an hour. You can also buy ready-made dumpling wrappers; you need the round, white ones. That makes it easier for beginners!

While the dough is resting you can make the filling. Marinate the mince with oil – there’s no exact amount, you have to use your eyes and experience! I also like to put in some olive oil to give it a different flavour, and a good splash of sesame oil, a generous amount of light soy sauce and a bit of dark soy sauce to give it colour.

Then add five-spice powder, spring onions and ginger. Mix all of this with the meat, then season.

Add the vegetables: Chinese leaves, celery, garlic chives and mushrooms (if using). You can use a food processor but I prefer to chop myself because it gives a different texture and taste. Chop very finely, squeeze out the excess liquid from the leaves and celery (or the dumpling will not hold its shape properly), then add to the meat and mix evenly. Check the seasoning and add more if needed.

Then you take your rested dough and cut it into 3 or 4 pieces, workable portions. Roll it into long lengths with your hands then chop into thin, even circles for the wrappers. Put some extra flour on the work surface so the pastry doesn’t stick. Press down each piece, then roll with a rolling pin. The rolling is difficult and requires a lot of practice! Try to roll it so the middle bit is slightly thicker than the edges. Spread them out, otherwise they stick together.

To fill the dumplings you hold the wrapper in one hand then put a reasonable amount of filling in the middle – not so much that you can’t seal it properly.

To close it up, bring the top & bottom edges together first, then bring the right and the left together. Give it a good squeeze all round to make sure that it’s sealed perfectly.

When you put these to one side, it’s very important to put flour on the work surface. Make sure they’re not too close or they’ll stick together.

Then you need a very big saucepan. Fill it halfway with water and bring it to a boil. Put a pinch of salt in the boiling water, people say that stops the dumpling breaking.

For dipping sauce: Vinegar Crushed garlic or fresh ginger strips Sesame oil, soy sauce or chilli oil

I boil them in 3 batches of around 20. If there are too many in one pot it’s too crowded; it takes longer to cook and they will break too easily. Put them in the boiling water and use a spatula to gently push them around in case they get stuck at the bottom – very gently! And then cover the pot, but you need to keep a close eye on it and move them every now and then.

When the water has boiled again, add some cold water to cool it down – you do this maybe 2 or 3 times until you see the dumplings all come to the surface, puffed up. Then you know, roughly, that they’re cooked. That probably takes 3-5 minutes.

To check, take one out and cut in half. The filling cooks quite quickly, so mainly it’s the pastry you need to check. If it’s not cooked give it 30 or 40 seconds longer.

Then, using a big flat spoon with holes in it, you need to fish out the dumplings and put them on a plate. It’s important to shake them from time to time in the first few minutes after taking out of the pot, otherwise they get stuck together.

The dipping sauce: **

Traditionally, Chinese people mix vinegar, crushed raw garlic and a few drops of sesame oil together. But in London’s Chinatown, they give you finely chopped ginger strips, because it’s not that sociable to eat raw garlic! Instead of the sesame oil you can use soy sauce or some people prefer chilli oil, you can adapt it to your own taste.

The traditional Chinese way: You don’t all dip your dumpling into the sauce in a common bowl; you each put some sauce on your own plate.

A lot of people drink the clear soup (the water you have boiled the dumplings in) afterwards as they think it’s good for digestion.

If you have leftover pastry you can make noodles, just cut them into fine strips and use the same boiling water – they will cook really quickly, in a few minutes. You can put some of the dipping sauce with them.

Carol’s Dumplings – Carol Yarwood – China

69 Photo by Carol Yarwood

Li’s Dumplings (steamed)– Li Yang – China

Making dumplings is a skill associated with family reunion; family members will get together to do it rather than just one person doing it alone. It’s a group activity, so while doing it you chat and you share jokes. Especially in the wintertime when the weather gets cold, dumplings coming out of the steamer are very hot – it’s really good. I learnt to make dumplings from my Grandma. I was making them as early as seven years old, because it takes a long time to get used to how to make the dough and how to make it as round as possible but it’s not that simple. Every one of them is like a little skin with the thickest part at the centre and as you go towards the edge it becomes thinner - the reason being that you need a strong base to hold the filling. It really requires a bit of skill to roll the pastry in such a way that it’s just right. Making dumplings is at least a 3 hour job because you need time to let the dough rise. 71

Method: **

There are no hard and fast rules as to the amount of filling and the flour used. I would say you need half of a 1.5 kilo bag of self-raising flour and one sachet of dried yeast for the dumpling skin. You can make them really small or really big but I would go the middle way.

You mix the flour and yeast with cold water; actually you use your hands to really mix the dough well. Then you put it in a pot and cover it with a white cloth. Leave it there for between 2 and 3 hours. That’s the usual time it takes to rise to a really nice puffy state.

Photo by Li Yang

Ingredients:

While you’re waiting for the dough to rise you make the filling. You marinate some meat with ginger, spring onion, sometimes a bit of ground pepper, oyster sauce, sesame oil – mix all of this together and cover the meat with it. Leave it for a couple of hours so all the flavours come out. You can use different combinations of meat and vegetables to your liking.

My favourite vegetable to use is carrots, cut julienne-style. Add leeks and minced pork – a lovely combination. The carrots give it a slightly sweet taste but if you’re using other vegetables you might want to put in a small pinch of sugar, just to bring out the flavour.

When the dough is ready, you divide it up into round pieces, rolling them out like you are making pastry. You make them big or small, to your liking.

Then you hold the pastry ‘skin’ in the palm of the left hand and put the filling right at the centre - not too much, not too little. Bring your hand into a cup shape and with the thumb and forefinger of your other hand you pinch the edges and twist, so that they come together like a flower bud. When you become very skilled you can do it in just one or two seconds but when you’re learning it can be very challenging! It’s trial and error, sometimes there is too much filling and you can’t close up the skin.

You then put the dumplings into a steamer for 15 minutes. The beauty of steaming them is that it’s very healthy and it retains the original flavour.

Another advantage of steamed dumplings is that you can prepare them in advance and keep them for later, so for people who are very busy and find it hard to make time to cook every day, you can keep them for a few days in the fridge and even if you put them in the freezer you can keep them for a few weeks.

To reheat the dumplings you just put them in the microwave for one minute and it will be ready, quick and simple.

Or better still, you can make them crispy, warm inside and crispy outside. All you need to do is place the heated dumplings (from the microwave) into a frying pan with a few drops of olive oil, using a low heat, for 2 minutes.

Dough: 1.5kg bag of self-raising flour 1 sachet dried yeast

Filling: Minced meat

Li’s Dumplings (steamed)– Li Yang – China

Ginger Spring onion Ground pepper Oyster sauce Sesame oil Carrots Leeks Small pinch sugar (optional)

Li’s Hometown Aubergine Li Yang – China

I’m originally from China but I’ve been living here in the UK for a long time. I still cook a lot of Chinese food. One of my favourites is this aubergine dish. When I was a little child we used to always eat at home, but one day my Mum took me and my brother to the club at the place where she worked as a civil servant. We had this aubergine – wow! It was like heaven. Both my brother and I loved it so much that we ate to our hearts’ content. We really loved it and we kept talking about it so my Mum said, “If you do well at school, if you get stars for your work and get 100%, at the end of the term I’ll take you to the club to eat the aubergine.” So that kept us going – we get the stars and we get the aubergine! That went on for many years until I was big enough and brave enough (at the age of about seventeen) to ask the chef for the recipe. Like they say, ‘the carrot and the stick’ my Mum used the reward to keep me going. Every year we still go to the club, but that dish has stuck in our minds as our favourite.In those days, when the general living standard was rather low and people could not afford a lot of oil, meat and dairy products, when you have something like that it’s a feast. It just felt very special. To cook this dish you just need aubergine plus spring onions, garlic and a bit of pepper. If you fancy a bit of meat you can use just a little – let’s say, 50 grams of minced pork or beef, and that will make it very tasty.

Method:

Ingredients: Aubergine Cornflour Spring onions Garlic Pepper 50g minced pork or beef (optional)

Cut up the aubergine lengthways into four long strips and then cut each one into 3 pieces so you have 12 altogether. In order to get a crispy kind of taste on the outside but tender and juicy inside, you need starch (cornflour) – that is the secret to a lot of Chinese cooking. So you dust the cornflour over and around the aubergine to cover it.

In a wok or a deep frying pan, put in enough sunflower oil so that the aubergine will be covered when that is added. Heat the oil until it’s really hot and then put the aubergine in for just a couple of minutes. When it becomes slightly brown, take it out and let the excess oil drain off it.

While this is being done, stir fry the spring onions and garlic for maybe 1 minute until they are just about to turn slightly golden brown.

If you do want the meat, add it to the spring onions and garlic so it will absorb the flavour well. When the meat is fully cooked, add the aubergine and pepper. You don’t want the pepper to be overcooked so that goes in last.

To make the sauce, there are no hard and fast rules. In Chinese cooking, we don’t do recipes; we just do ‘a pinch of this, a pinch of that’. I would say 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 3 teaspoons of sugar, one teaspoon of vinegar (this is all rough, you have to do it to taste), a bit of salt. Put them all together in a bowl. If you have oyster sauce that is really the trick, it brings out all the flavours, so add a bit of that and mix the sauce together so it becomes thick. A bit of water as well, because you want all of the aubergine to be covered.

When the heat is really hot, pour the sauce in. It will be sizzling, a minute is really enough to cook them.

Ingredients for the Sauce: 2 tsp soy sauce 3 tsp sugar 1 tsp vinegar 1 tsp oyster sauce Water to mix

75 Photo by Li Yang

Xi’an Rou Jia Mo (Pork Bun) Angela Hausenloy – China

People have only recognised the rise of China in the last few years, but the popularity of Chinese food has been around for many, many years. Chinese dishes are tasteful, flavoursome and a comfort to the stomach. I went to visit Xi’an, where the terracotta soldiers are located, in early 2013. I tasted the famous Xi’an rou jia mo (pork bun) - a typical northern Chinese street food - and fell in love with this palm-sized, meat-stuffed bun. Rou means meat: the most commonly used meat is pork, but many alternate fillings are also available, beef and lamb etc., stewed for hours in a soup consisting of over twenty kinds of spices and seasonings. Mo is made from wheat flour and baked in a Chinese oven. It is very similar to flatbread, but now the real mo with is substituted with an easy-cook steamed bun. The bun can also be changed to normal white bread, pitta bread or tortilla wrap. It is a great substitute for or change from a normal sandwich. People are busy and lack time nowadays so here I provide a quick and simplified version where one can still get the tasteful flavour, with succulent pork in soft puffy buns, in a very short time with minimum effort. Once the pork bun is made, it can be eaten either hot or cold.

Ingredients: A: 500g pork belly B: 2 tbsp cooking oil 3 garlic cloves 3 aniseed stars 4 spring onions Piece of ginger (3cm square) 1/3 of a leek C: 4 tbsp dark soy sauce 4 tbsp light soy sauce 5 tbsp white sugar D: Finely sliced lettuce, cucumber, coriander and red pepper

Method: **

Cut the pork into 4cm cubes.

Add the pork to 500ml boiling water (enough to cover pork pieces) and boil for 5 mins.

Drain the boiled water away and set pork aside.

In a wok, heat up 2 tablespoons of cooking oil.

Add B ingredients to wok and stir fry for 2 mins.

Add C ingredients to wok and stir fry for further 2 mins (season to taste).

Add pork to wok, cover with fresh water and simmer for 1.5 hours to reduce the sauce.

(A faster alternative can be to use a pressure cooker for 30 mins and an easier option can be to use a slow cooker.)

After pork has cooled down, roughly chop it and set aside.

Warm up the ready-made Chinese buns in a steamer for 10 mins or alternatively microwave them for 1 min

(if Chinese buns are not available, any white or brown bread, pitta or wraps can be used). **â&#x20AC;&#x2030;

Put a thin layer of the pork meat into the Chinese bun and add the condiments (in D) as you wish.

77 Photo by Angela Hausenloy

‘12345’ Spare Ribs – Donna Leung – Hong Kong

The Chinese dish of Spare Ribs is always considered complicated to prepare, but this version is an exception. ‘12345’ Spare Ribs is a popular party food in Hong Kong because it’s good, yet simple to cook. ‘12345’ stands for the ingredients that go into the cooking - very easy to remember.

Ingredients: 1lb (450g) spare ribs 1 tbsp wine (any kind of wine) 2 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp vinegar (any type of vinegar) 4 tbsp soy sauce (can also use 2 tbsp light soy sauce and 2tbsp dark soy sauce) 5 tbsp water

Method: **

Put spare ribs in boiling water and cook for 5 minutes to remove the ‘frozen’ smell.

Put all ingredients together and bring to boil over high heat.

Reduce to low heat and cook for 45 minutes.

Stir the ribs occasionally to ensure they absorb the ingredients evenly.

79 Photo by Donna Leung

Three Cup Chicken – ChiChu Liu – Taiwan

Being Taiwanese myself, I would like to share the recipe of famous, delicious Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken. It is called ‘three cup’ because it uses equal parts of soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. Since 1949, lots of people have immigrated to Taiwan from different regions and provinces in China. This broad-scale move has created culture diversity on the island, which makes Taiwan the ‘Window on China’. This multicultural trait also influences cooking. This dish therefore, represents the art of Chinese cuisine, with influences from Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan and Shandong cooking. With handy ingredients and an easy cooking procedure, this yummy and colourful dish is very popular with overseas Chinese/Taiwanese when they miss their home food.

Ingredients: 3 chicken thighs (boneless, skinless), cut into bite-size pieces 1 tbsp groundnut oil The three cups: 1. sesame oil – 100ml 2. soy sauce – 100ml 3. rice wine – 100ml 10 slices ginger 10 garlic cloves 1 carrot, sliced 5 mushrooms, sliced 2 spring onions, sliced 1 chilli, sliced 1 tbsp honey 2 handfuls of basil

Method: **

Heat up the wok with 1 tablespoon groundnut oil.

Add ginger and garlic.

Stir fry chicken till it turns white.

Add the three cups – sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine.

Add a tablespoon of honey.

Add sliced carrots and mushrooms.

Stir well, then turn heat down to simmer for about 10 minutes until the sauce is thick; there shouldn’t be much of it left by now.

Add basil leaves, spring onion and chilli. Serve with jasmine rice.

81 Photo by ChiChu Liu

Salmon Hot Pot Ha Mi – Vietnam

I learnt to cook at home. In my generation, girls were supposed to cook and we had to help Mum, even when I was 8 or 9 years old. We were taught how to boil vegetables and how to cook rice – simple things. Next would be how to fry an egg and then more complicated things like how to cook fish and meat. Nowadays people may not know how to cook but we had to learn a couple of things, so that you could cook when you got married and not leave it to your mum-in-law! The Hot Pot is very popular in Vietnam and it’s easy to adapt for the Vietnamese community abroad because you can get the ingredients in other countries. The beauty of this dish is everyone can put in what they like as you’re cooking at the table. It’s a family dish; everyone gets together and cooks for themselves. I like it because it’s very sociable. If you like salmon you can put that in, or beef. You can use tofu; the texture is nice. White cabbage is good for this because it’s really sweet. You can just throw in anything in that you want to eat but it depends a bit on the texture – you wouldn’t use spinach because it’s very soft. You need things that will keep their shape and stay crunchy when you cook them. We use a special electric pan which has you have adjustments on the bottom. So you throw in what you want and when it’s cooked you start eating and turn the heat down. When everybody has had some you throw another lot in and turn it up again to cook. It’s got so many different things in it so there’s something for everyone; people always find bits they want to eat. You just dip your chopsticks in.

Ingredients: Stock (either homemade or a stock cube) Turnip Pineapple Tomatoes Salmon Spring onions Sugar snap peas Okra Mushrooms Dill Tofu Instant noodles

Method: **

I would either make stock from pork ribs or use a stock cube. Turnip is very good for the stock and you often put it in together with pineapple. Then you leave it for a while and when it boils add the tomatoes.

The rest of the ingredients are added slowly, one at a time, other vegetables, depending on your taste or the season. You can have mushrooms, lady’s fingers (okra). Whoever wants anything else can just throw things in.

This one was made with salmon and dill. It doesn’t take long to cook; for the fish it depends how big the pieces are.

We also add some instant noodles to cook in the stock (2-1 minutes or so) and share it out at the end to complete the meal.

Sauce:

Some people feel that just with the stock it’s too bland, so have some sauce to dip the fish and vegetables in.

Chilli sauce Light soy sauce Sugar, to taste (optional)

The sauce is simple –mix chilli sauce with light soy sauce and my husband likes to put in a little bit of sugar depending on what type of chilli sauce it is.

83 Photo by Ha Mi

Vietnamese Vermicelli Noodles with Tofu & Shrimp Sauce –

Giang Nguyen

Bun Mam Tom Dau Phu, is a signature dish of Hanoi in Vietnam. The key ingredient is the compelling but pungent and ‘stinky shrimp sauce’, popular in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia. Made from fermented shrimp, thick like toothpaste and purplish in colour, it is served with many dishes as ‘Asian ketchup’ in street foods stalls but ‘banned’ from luxury restaurants due to its powerful smell. The legend goes that when the French first came to Vietnam in the late 19th century, they tried to ban the shrimp sauce as it was absolutely ‘hostile’ to red wine, beef and European fine dining. However, there were soldiers who fell in love with local women… and with them the shrimp sauce. They were called ‘Tay Mam Tom’ – ‘the shrimp sauced Westerners’. Colonial rule has long gone but the term sticks. Even nowadays, any non-Asian foreigners, whether from North America, Australia, Africa or Europe, who have gone ‘native’ and appreciate the Vietnamese style of life to the full, are called ‘Tay Mam Tom’. Apparently, eating this dish is a test for any foreign man and woman wishing to marry a Vietnamese citizen to prove their ‘Vietnamese credentials’. A private note: My wife (from Poland) gloriously passed the shrimp sauce test but even now, my daughter Ola, (10 years old, born in the UK) moves her chair away from the table when mum and dad have their favourite Bun Mam Tom Dau Phu. Hopefully, one day Ola will ‘come back to her roots’ through stinky shrimp sauce.

Ingredients: Stock (either homemade or a stock A pack of Vietnamese vermicelli noodles, boiled and drained (enough for four people) Fine shrimp sauce, about four teaspoons from a jar sold at Asian supermarkets, diluted with lemon sauce and flavoured with chopped red chillies Bean curd or tofu cut in small pieces and fried in olive oil Vegetables like coriander, green salads and bean sprouts

Method: **

You put the noodles into a bowl, add the tofu and pour the shrimp sauce over then add the salad.

It is ideal to have such a fresh, tasty, almost zerocalorie dish for an evening in tropical weather.

85 Photo by Thai Diem

Somtam ‘Papaya Salad’ Issariya Praithongyaem-Thailand

I never forgot the day I moved from Bangkok to London in 2003. My suitcases were full of warm clothes (as warm as I could get from a hot country) and, of course, food!! My mother packed stuffs from green curry paste to red curry paste, dry shrimps, and dry chilies to instant noodles. In the end, I had to leave most of them with her at the airport as paying for the extra kilos was more expensive than buying the same food in London. I think my mother knew that Thai people all want to eat Thai food anywhere they go, me included. I have to acceptthat I was worried, at the time, that I will miss my ‘spicy’ food. Moving from Bangkok, a city where you can find food everywhere 24 hours to London, a cold, wet place with no ‘street food’ was a bit daunting. However London has treated me well. I can find most Thai food including ‘Somtam’ or papaya salad. Actually Somtam is a dish originating from ‘Isarn’ the north-eastern region border to Laos. With cheap ingredients and no meat, people used to look at it as a dish for the poor. However,people in other parts of the country quickly embrace the sweet, sour and spicyness of shredded raw papaya. Nowadays, Somtam is one of the most popular dishes of Thai cuisine. You can fine Thai-style Somtam or Laos-style Somtam everywhere in Thailand and indeed in London too. Very good Thai cooks in London can make Somtam exactly the same as cooks in Thailand. Just one thing remains different though, Somtam in London costs 5 times more!!!

Ingredients: 1 green raw papaya, shredded 4 chopped long beans 6 cloves garlic (or 4/1 pod) 8 cherry tomatoes cut into half 4 red or green chilly 2 tbsp palm sugar 3 tbsp lime juice 2 tbsp fish sauce 3 tbsp ground roasted peanuts 1 tbsp dry shrimps Fresh lettuce and green beans for garnish

Method: **

1 Peel and seed papaya and shred it. Put in a mortar. Crush garlic with a pestle, and then add the chillies, long beans and tomatoes and pound a few times to release juices and the heat.

2 Add sugar and pound a few more times, add lime juice, fish sauce and papaya shred. Then toss to mix.

Serve in a plate and top with garnish. Somtam is good with sticky rice.

Europe and Central Asia The BBC World Service started broadcasting to Europe in French, German and Italian as an immediate response to the 1938 Munich crisis. The BBCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first broadcast in Turkish was aired in 1939 while regular broadcasts in Russian began in 1946. Azeri, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Ukrainian services went on air later in the 1990s. Europe and Central Asia have long been at the crossroads of food and culture. Some of our colleagues working for these language services have chosen dishes that are inseparable from the history and ever changing geo-politics of their homeland. For example, there are different versions of the famous beetroot soup, Borsch for you to enjoy, for both meat eaters and vegetarians. The history and spelling of Borsch is hard to trace, although some food historians claim that its origins are in Ukraine. As nations became part of the Soviet Union, cuisines also intermingled and hence we have so many different variations.

Borsch -

Olexiy Solohubenko – Ukraine Ukraine’s national dish and ample contribution to world cuisine is probably less well-known than Chicken Kiev, but is certainly much more authentic. Its ingredients are simple, colours bright, aroma enchanting and satisfaction – well, it’s how you cook it. Borsch is a simple peasant dish fit for nobility. Borsch has a collective spirit – it’s cooked in a big pot and should be shared. But it’s also an individual dish as every family and every chef in Ukraine – man or woman – has their own tricks. Some say Borsch is like democracy – it can take a variety of forms and hues and colours but will only work if the stock is right. But then, maybe it’s going too far… The suggested recipe is for a large pot serving 8-10 guests, with a bit for a second helping.

Ingredients: Meat (see below) 3 - 2 large white potatoes 1 carrot 1 white onion 1 large cooked beetroot (or several baby ones, but cooked in water, not in brine) About half a litre of good pressed tomato juice 4 bay leaves 20 black peppercorns 1 peeled clove of garlic 1 medium-size white cabbage Fresh flat parsley or dill Salt Sugar Water

Method: **

Fill the pot to about half with cold water and put the meat in it. If you can find beef on the bone, preferably knuckle bone, this will be ideal; if not, pork spare ribs will do just fine – these can be cut in half to make them more manageable on a plate. Even drumsticks are used, but it is essential that there is a bone in the borsch.

Bring the water to boil and reduce heat; skim off the froth (or whatever the term is for the scum that appears on top) regularly while the meat cooks on medium heat.

Poke the meat with a knife or fork, and when it is almost ready (i.e. soft, but not fully cooked) add the sliced carrot and chopped onion along with the pepper corns and bay leaves.

While the meat continues to cook, pour half a litre of tomato juice into a smaller saucepan, add a spoon of salt, a spoon of sugar, finely chopped beetroots and chopped garlic. Bring to the boil, and simmer for about 7 minutes, stirring gently. This ‘red stuff’ is what makes borsch look the way it is.

When the carrot is almost ready (i.e. soft, but with a bit of bite) add the potatoes, cut into large pieces. While the potatoes cook, slice your white cabbage as finely as you can.

Now again when the potatoes are almost ready, pour the ‘red stuff’ into the pot and stir. Reduce the

heat and keep cooking on a low heat for a couple of minutes. **

The finale: add the sliced white cabbage to the pot. The colour combination at this stage should look dazzling: white on red. Stir gently and keep cooking on a low heat until the cabbage is soft. At this stage add more salt and ground paprika (optional) to taste.

When ready, let the borsch stand for about 20 minutes. Serve in soup bowls or plates with a dollop of thick soured cream and a sprinkling of finely chopped parsley or dill. We eat it with raw garlic (just dip it into salt and nibble it) and dark bread - wheat or rye will do. Traditionally, it is also eaten with pampushkys – small white buns dipped into a sauce of finely chopped garlic, parsley, sunflower oil and white vinegar.

As a final touch, some cooks add a prune to their borsch, or a few green olives. I sometimes add a couple of lemon slices to the ‘red stuff’ – to give it more acidity and bite. Experiment!

91 Photo by Olexiy Solohubenko

Borsch -

Alexander Zhuravlyov – Russia This beetroot borsht belongs to the vegetarian variety and is widely used in RussianJewish families with roots in Ukraine and Lithuania. Ukrainians and Russians make it with a lot of speck and meat (beef), but I prefer this lighter version. There is a small restaurant that serves borsht near New Broadcasting House in London. The cuisine there has a bit of a Central Asian slant and the chef has obviously been educated in culinary methods in the old Soviet school. They do not subscribe to the same notions as I do so they are very sceptical about anything vegetarian. Their borsht is a beef stock-based version, it’s much sturdier. Possibly it’s not as good for somebody who is intent on dieting, but it’s still very good. For this recipe I used a combination of different recipes from Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish books and I put in a few of my own things. Like for instance, occasionally I make it with a base of mushroom stock or chicken stock. which slightly alters the taste and sometimes I use different herbs as well. It’s a very loose combination of ingredients. Of course, I saw my mother cooking it many, many times but I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I only started cooking more or less seriously quite late in my life when I had to care for my very busy wife and that probably started about 20 years ago.

Ingredients:

Method:

4 - 3 medium raw beetroots 200g any tomato sauce 3 carrots 1 big onion 3 - 2 garlic cloves 500ml vegetable stock 3 - 2 potatoes (optional) Some dried mushrooms (optional) 1 tbsp of vinegar, sugar, olive oil Parsley, coriander or dill

Put beetroots on the boil for 20 - 15 mins, then cool them under running water and peel them using a sharp knife. Shred or grate the beetroots by any means available.

Cut or grate carrots and onion, squeeze garlic.

Put shredded beetroots, carrots and tomato sauce into the frying pan, add one tablespoon of white or red vinegar and one tablespoon of sugar, cover and sauté for 25 - 20 mins on low heat.

In the meantime, put some olive oil on the bottom of your casserole and fry finely cut onion and squeezed garlic, together with finely chopped parsley or coriander, for 4 - 3 mins.

Put everything in the casserole, add vegetable stock and slowly cook for about one hour. If you want to use potatoes, add them shredded during the last 20 mins. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Important: during the final moments of cooking, test the soup and add sugar and vinegar to taste. It should be quite intensely sweet and sour.

The borsht is served hot with a bit of sour cream on top and can be sprinkled with the herb of your choice.

93 Photo by Sarah Lee

Dora’s Svekolnik (Beetroot Soup)Janina Litvinova – Russia

My maternal grandmother was extremely territorial: the kitchen was her domain and I wasn’t allowed in. I, on the other hand, always wanted to cook and the resulting clash of interests invariably ended with both conflicting parties feeling very ill-used. My mother was in called to referee. This frequently resulted in more displeasure: this time, three-sided. It is difficult to remember how I managed to learn to cook at all. The well-being of my future family was assured by a solitary life away from my home during my university and post-graduate studies. Somehow, I became quite an inventive cook and not a bad one either, but all of my own making, without any family culinary traditions. You see, my granny really hated to explain things. If I or anybody else asked her about a certain recipe, they got a perfectly regal shrug for an answer: “A little bit of this, a handful of that… I don’t know how I do it; you can watch me, if you like…” Of all the lost dishes, there was one I regretted most: a cold summer beetroot soup called ‘Svekolnik’. It was so violently purple, with a gold-eyed jewel of a hard-boiled egg, green speckles of chopped herbs and a cool snowy dollop of sour cream. The delights of a cold soup on hot summer days! Incomparable. Please, forgive me for being so sentimental, I had been craving this soup for so many years and without any hope of ever obtaining a recipe. My granny died a year after we moved to London. The secret was lost forever, I thought.

Now this story makes a detour. My mother had a best friend called Valentina. For me she was really much more like an aunt. I trusted her with my broken heart and youthful follies, of which I indulged with relish. She was discreet, intelligent, nonjudgemental, and single. She had plenty of time for me and my problems. Oh, and by the way, she was an excellent cook. She was Jewish. Life for the Jews in the old Soviet Union was never easy. There was no official policy of anti-Semitism, of course, but on a day-to-day basis the Jews were confronted with all sorts of unpleasantness. Valentina emigrated to Israel at the very beginning of ‘Perestroika’. Our contacts were rare: letters were unreliable, phone calls costly and difficult. We knew that she ended up in Haifa, that she was studying Hebrew in the ‘Ulpan’ and had got some new friends. That was just about ‘it’ until we, already in London, became the proud owners of British passports! Travelling became much easier, and one September we finally decided to go to Israel. I had just one condition: wherever we go, whatever we do, we MUST go and see Valentina. We finally met in her little flat in the lower part of the city. We tried to talk simultaneously about everything and obviously failed miserably. Our lives were so different then. But still she was there: my good trusted friend. She had aged, of course and seemed to me frailer than I remembered, but her mind was as sharp as ever, and her sense of humour ever present. Somehow the conversation turned to cooking and I remembered ‘Svekolnik’. “Do you want a recipe?” she asked. “I have it.” In a minute, and to my delight and astonishment, she produced a yellowish piece of paper torn from some ancient school exercise book. On it in her neat handwriting was the name, I thought I would never see written or spoken again: ‘Dora’s Svekolnik’ (Dora was my granny’s name), followed by a modest, I would even say, frugal list of ingredients and a simple method. I still have it, this strip of paper. I still cook this soup every summer. My daughters love it. It hasn’t lost its charm or taste. It’s by no means luxurious or fashionable. But for me, at least, it is one of the last links to the life and people, who are no more. Valentina died of cancer less than two years after our meeting. I flew to Israel to say my goodbyes. Unfortunately, she didn’t find personal happiness in this new country, but at least she found new friends. She was an amazing person and people loved her. So I translated this recipe in exactly the same way she wrote it. And I shall name it exactly the same: ‘Dora’s Svekolnik’.

Ingredients:

Method:

Dora’s Svekolnik (Beetroot Soup)- Janina Litvinova – Russia

3 medium sized potatoes (any variety I suppose, there wasn’t a luxury of choice in my grandmother’s time) 3 large carrots 2 large or 3 medium beetroots (only raw! Don’t even attempt to take cooked ones and God forbid the sacrilege of pickled beet!) A handful of spring onions, dill and parsley, all finely chopped (I suggest you check your local Turkish or Polish shop.) Vinegar (I use balsamic, however the ordinary red or white wine will do) Sugar and Salt (cannot give you precise quantities of these, since THAT depends on your individual taste.) 2 eggs, beaten

Peel and grate the vegetables (I suggest you start with beetroot, since a good one tends to stain your fingers, and afterword carrots and potatoes somewhat reduce the violent colour).

Put all the grated vegetables in a saucepan and add up to 2 litres of cold water. Simmer for 20-15 minutes, until nice and soft. By that time the beet will lose its colour and the whole concoction will become rather unpleasant in colour and completely tasteless. Don’t panic!

Take the vinegar, salt and sugar and start adding them to the soup one by one, tasting all the time. The final result should be sharp and sweet-and-sour, rather like a good wine.

At this stage the wonderful beetroot colour will be restored by the acidic properties of the vinegar. When you are satisfied with the taste, proceed with the tricky bit.

In a large bowl combine all the chopped herbs (don’t economise on them: the more, the merrier) with the beaten eggs and whisk all together vigorously.

Now very carefully start adding the herb/egg mixture to the simmering broth, stirring continuously and energetically. The idea is for the egg to dissolve completely. However, I have so far failed to achieve that, so be satisfied with very fine egg particles, almost invisible to the eye.

Switch off the heat and place the saucepan somewhere to cool. It has to be completely cold. My method is to put the saucepan with a closed lid in the bath and fill it with cold water.

Serve with a half (or two halves) of boiled egg, sliced cucumber and a generous dollop of sour cream. You can add more herbs or some finely chopped garlic.

Enjoy! If you are on a diet, be reassured that this soup has a practically negative calorie count (you will spend more by cooking and chewing and swallowing than you will get from the actual intake) and you can eat as much as you like!

97 Photo by Elena Varela

Empanada Gallega – Elena Varela – Spain

This is a very traditional Galician dish which forms an essential part of the region’s cultural identity. Its origins were first documented in the seventh century and it soon took such an important place in the regional gastronomy that the sculptor and architect Master Mateo carved one in stone on the portico of the cathedral of the city of Santiago de Compostela, the Galician capital, in the twelfth century. It was also represented in other Romanesque buildings of the same period such as the Gelmírez Palace, right next to the cathedral. It was the ideal dish for travellers and pilgrims as the pastry cover protected the food inside from the dust of the roads. Being half-Galician, I used to spend my summers there with my paternal grandparents and the rest of the family as a child and right up until I started university. I remember enjoying these delicious empanadas every Saturday and Sunday at the family table. Its preparation is almost a ritual and it was a key element of the meal. While the women were the ones who usually cooked in the family, this task was reserved for my grandfather, who would wake up at four in the morning every Saturday and Sunday to start preparing the empanada filling, so it would have plenty of time to rest and soak up all the juices. I have very fond memories of being awakened before dawn on weekends to the wonderful scent of the empanada being baked in my grandparents’ kitchen. Galician fish and seafood are among the best in the peninsula, so traditionally the empanada is filled with these local ingredients and there are many variations, although one of the most popular is made with tuna. Other types of fish and seafood used are: cod (generally combined with raisins), typical of Lent; sardines (xoubas) in tomato sauce; eel, typically eaten near the riverside; octopus, scallops, mussels, cuttlefish, clams, cockles. The most common meat fillings are made with beef or use different cuts of pork, like raxo, which is made with a stew of chopped pork, sweet paprika, garlic and salt; minced pork or minced chorizo.

Ingredients for the filling:

Method:

2 or 3 medium onions 1 or 2 medium peppers 1 tomato 1 or 2 garlic cloves Chopped parsley Salt and pepper Sweet paprika Plenty of sunflower or olive oil, as part of it will be used to make the dough (approx. ¼ litre)500/400g of the main ingredient of the filling: meat, fish, seafood...

First, you’ll need to prepare the filling. Chop all the vegetables into very small pieces and fry them lightly on a low heat. Continue cooking until the vegetables are ‘poached’ i.e. juicy, smooth and the onion is soft, but not brown.

Ingredients for the dough:

Towards the end, add the main ingredient of the empanada and season well with the salt, pepper and a pinch of sweet paprika for colour, lightly frying everything for a further 1 to 2 minutes. Leave to cool before preparing the empanada. The longer you leave it resting, the tastier the empanada will be!

500g bread flour 200ml water (at room temperature) Some of the oil used to sauté the vegetables and meat/fish Pinch of salt 1 tsp sweet paprika 15- 10g pressed baker’s yeast 1 egg

Once the filling has cooled completely you can start preparing the dough.

Sift the flour in a big bowl with the salt and add the rest of the ingredients including the yeast (crumbled). Add some of the oil you have used before (10 to 12 tablespoons): this will give the empanada a special flavour and colour.

Mix everything slowly and transfer to a floured surface to continue kneading by hand. Once all the ingredients are bound together and the dough is smooth but not sticky, roll it into a ball and leave it to rise for around 30 minutes.

Turn on the oven to 220-200C/425–400F/Gas Mark 7-6 and grease and line a baking tray or mould.

And what about the shape? While traditional empanadas can be either rectangular or round I always make mine round simply because I find them cuter!

Once the dough has risen divide it into 2 equal parts: one will be used for the base and the other for the cover. Roll out the base to make a circle around 2mm thick and transfer it to the tray.

Spread all the filling evenly on the base. Roll out the rest of the dough into another circle and place it on top of the filling, sealing the edges all around it.

Now is the time to be creative: with strips of the remaining pastry decorate the top and mould the edges to rope or plait-like patterns or any way you wish and brush the top with beaten egg.

In order to let the pastry breath while in the oven you need to make some cuts on it and a hole in the middle: this is called the chimney as it will allow all the steam to come out while it’s baking in the oven so the empanada doesn’t inflate and start floating around

your kitchen. You can always poke it with a knife to release the steam. **

Once you have done this, bake it until it is golden and delicious (around 45 minutes but check it often).

Empanada Gallega – Elena Varela – Spain

Some tips! **

Although olive oil is tastier, use sunflower oil for a lighter empanada.

You can substitute cornflour for wheat flour when making seafood empanadas.

Keep tasting the filling as you cook so it’s seasoned correctly and keep it juicy, add more stock, water or white wine if needed.

You’ll know when the dough is ready by pinching a little bit and lightly stretching it: if it breaks, you need to keep rolling!

Bake the empanada on a high heat so it keeps all the moisture on the inside while getting a pretty golden colour on the outside.

Best enjoyed with a glass of chilled albariño!

101 Photo by Elena Varela

Tortilla de la tía Lola Maruxa Ruiz del Árbol – Spain

There are thousands of different recipes for tortilla in Spain, almost as many as the number of families. It is a very simple and cheap recipe but each person adds their own element which makes it special. Out of all the tortillas I have ever tried in my life my aunt Lola’s is definitely the best. I’m not the only one who thinks this. In my family it is so popular that many of us try to copy it, and we have a competition to see who can get closest to the original. In my opinion she reached perfection with her recipe, both in taste and texture. Her secret was to pay attention to every detail. Now I would like to share the recipe and all the little tricks so everybody can participate in this delicious competition.

Ingredients: 5 eggs 5 medium potatoes Salt Olive oil

Method: **

Peel the potatoes and cut them into thin circles, as similar in size as possible.

Add salt al gusto (to taste) to the potatoes and mix it in.

Fry the potatoes. It is better to fry them in an electricfryer to avoid them becoming too soft. They have to be fried (with hot oil), not boiled in oil. If you don’t have an electric-fryer use a pan but remember the oil has to be hot enough.

Once fried, let the potatoes get cold. If not, the hot potatoes will start cooking the egg at the wrong moment.

Beat the 5 eggs well, mix them with the potatoes and leave them together for some 3 or 4 minutes before continuing with the process.

Put two spoonfuls of oil in the pan on a high heat. When the oil is hot pour the mixture of potatoes and egg in the pan. After a few seconds on the high heat, turn it down so the omelette cooks slowly.

The most delicate moment: (turning the tortilla over)

When the mix is consistent enough to turn it over (4 minutes approximately) place the cover of the pan on top of it and turn it. Hold the omelette in the cover and place it back again in the pan. My advice is to do it over the sink just in case some liquid spills.

It takes another 3 or 4 minutes to finish cooking. Remember it doesn’t have to be totally cooked inside. It has to be a bit juicy if you want to be true to the original Lola’s style.

It is difficult to do it exactly like her but if many people try it, someone in some far corner of the world will get the flavour exactly right.

103 Photo by Maruxa Ruiz del Árbol

Dimlama Chicken

(Chicken in the Jar)Diloram Ibrahimova – Uzbekistan In the mid-80s my sister Malika, who studied biology in my home country of Uzbekistan, spent the whole summer with a group of postgraduates in Moscow’s Pushino Bio-physic Centre of the Academy of Sciences. After she came back home, she told me and my mother about two methods of cooking chicken she learned from Russian scientists. One was to stretch a whole chicken over a thin jar and roast it in the oven. We tried it once but felt the meat was too dry. The second method was to cook chicken pieces inside a jar, although my dear mother thought both methods were a little bit of a waste. I must say that chicken was and still is a luxury product in Uzbekistan. Even now, the price of a farm-grown small chicken can cost ten dollars. Fresh chicken meat is a kind of delicacy that people would buy from the local market only for important guests or sick children. After twenty years of independence, the lack of chicken meat in the diet of Uzbek people remains a mystery to me. During the Soviet times when food was rationed, whenever we had a chicken at home my mother would always boil it first. She would make a soup out of it, adding homemade finely cut noodles called lapsha towards the end. She used to put a whole onion into the soup, as well as potatoes, carrots and garlic. When almost ready, the chicken would be taken out, cut into pieces and then lightly fried with vegetables cooked in the same boullion. While eating, the soup should be very hot to the point of burning one’s tongue and my uncle, a war veteran, used to say “one should break sweat while eating it”. The two recipes my sister brought back from Moscow were dead easy to prepare; she said that Russian physicists in the academy would cook it either way. All you need is chicken and a glass jar. The most crucial part of recipe was that the jar should be completely dry and the oven should be cold to avoid cracking. We liked the second method and from time to time whenever we could afford to buy a chicken we would try it. You place chicken pieces firmly inside a glass jar, season them with salt, add garlic and bay leaves then close it tightly. Put the jar into the oven and cook for an hour and a half. This has the effect of being cooked in a tight pressure–cooker. No other recipe gives such tenderness to chicken meat like the one cooked in a jar! A liquid comes from the chicken bone juices and when it’s set it turns into a nice jelly that can be eaten cold. Eventually, the concept of cooking in a jar progressed and various improvised versions emerged. One of them was later adopted in our family and was named dimlama tovuk, i.e. steamed chicken. It involved cooking chicken pieces with seasonal vegetables like carrots, celeriac or sweet peppers in a deep oven-proof glass dish covered firmly with several layers of kitchen foil. The prime idea still remains the same - to cook the chicken in a pressurised environment in the oven. Once it’s ready, the chicken tastes tender and succulent because it has been cooked in its own juice – it simply falls off the bones.

Ingredients: Chicken pieces Onions Garlic Carrots Sweet red peppers Celery stalks Bay leaves Peppercorns Salt and pepper

Method: **

Place sliced raw onions into the bottom of the ovenproof dish.

Wash and dry the chicken pieces and layer them one by one.

Throw in generous amounts of garlic and season with salt and pepper.

Add two or three bay leaves and peppercorns.

Add chunks of carrots, whole red sweet peppers and celery stalks.

If there is no lid for the dish, cover it tightly with several layers of foil so that no steam will escape.

Transfer the container into the cold oven then switch on and cook for 30 minutes at 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2.

After half an hour increase the temperature up to 190-180C/375-350F/Gas Mark 5-4 and cook it for another hour.

Take extra care while removing the dish from the oven and opening it.

Serve with a salad of finely cut fresh herbs, radishes and spring onions mixed with plain yoghurt.

105 Photo by Diloram Ibrahimova

Kichiri –

Rustam Qobil – Uzbekistan I was watching an old British film about an Indian community in the West Indies. There was a wedding ceremony and a new father-in-law cooked Kichiri and offered it to his new son-in-law. He started naming the whole list in his daughter’s dowry and when the groom agrees to the dowry he is supposed to show his agreement by trying the Kichiri. There is also a Kichiri in Uzbek cuisine and the recipe is the same except Uzbeks sometimes add diced lamb. Otherwise it’s a mix of mung beans and rice cooked together. Bizarrely, in my hometown of Shahrisabz in Uzbekistan, Kichiri is cooked on the day a bride comes to her new husband’s house. The mother-in-law offers her a plateful of Kichiri, and then starts promising a list of gifts for her new daughter-in-law. If the bride agrees to the gifts she tries the Kichiri to show her acceptance.

Ingredients: 250-200g lamb, diced 200g mung beans 200g rice ½ onion 1 carrot 100ml sunflower oil Salt Cumin Plain yoghurt (for serving)

Method: You need a cast-iron pot to cook it in. **

Heat the pot and add 100 grams of sunflower oil.

Add half an onion, thinly sliced, and fry it until it turns golden.

Add 250-200 grams of lamb diced into small pieces, season it with salt and cumin and cook it, turning occasionally for about 15-10 minutes.

At the same time, pour about 200 grams of mung beans in another pot half full of cold water. Put it on a medium heat and half cover with the lid. Leave it for 20-15 mins.

Slice one carrot into long, thin pieces, put on top of the meat and turn it 2 or 3 times, occasionally.

Add about 300ml of boiling water into the pot with the meat and carrot and check the seasoning.

Put about 200 grams of rice in the pot with the meat and carrots. At the same time drain the mung beans in a sieve and add to the main pot.

Cook on a medium heat for about 20 mins and wait until the water evaporates.

Once cooked leave for 5 minutes and serve it with plain yogurt.

107 Photo by Rustam Qobil

Imam BayildiAylin Bozyap – Turkey

I once heard that there are a hundred ways of cooking aubergines in Turkey. You can use aubergines in many ways: peeled, skinned, chopped, boiled, as a paté: the list goes on. Come winter or summer, open any fridge in Turkey and you will find a vegetable dish marinated with olive oil, lemon and/or garlic. In general they are called ‘zeytinya‫ل‬ lı’, meaning ‘with olive oil’. These dishes can stay in the fridge for 2 - 3 days and are eaten with or without meat, usually with yoghurt and salad. ‘Imam bayildi’ means either ‘the priest fainted’ or ‘the priest loved it’. No matter which one you choose to believe, it is one of the most traditional dishes in this region. This is a summer recipe which I always enjoyed as a child, with watermelon and white cheese (similar to feta).

Ingredients: (serves 4) 4 small or medium size aubergines, striped in 2cm pieces lengthwise (fatter ones work better for stuffing) 4 pointed green peppers or pimento peppers, whole Juice of half a lemon For the stuffing: 4 medium size tomatoes, chopped 4 - 3 garlic cloves, chopped 1 medium size onion, chopped 2 - 1 pointed green peppers or pimento peppers, chopped in circles Generous handful of parsley, chopped finely Juice of half a lemon Pinch of salt Pinch of sugar Extra virgin olive oil

Method: **

Wash the aubergines well and strip the skin in 2cm lengths, so that the aubergine looks stripy lengthwise.

Fill a large bowl with water and add some salt. Soak the aubergines for half an hour in order to drain out the bitterness.

If the aubergines are too big or too long, you can cut them in half by length. Otherwise keep them as a whole.

If you want a healthy dish, heat the oven up to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6, brush the aubergines with extra virgin olive oil then bake until they are brown (usually 40 - 30 minutes).

If you want a tastier dish, then heat up some sunflower oil in a non-stick pan and make sure it is very hot before you place the aubergines carefully in it. You might need a screen to cover yourself from the splashing oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the aubergines will soak the oil and the dish will be very heavy. Fry both sides evenly, then remove excess oil by leaving them on some paper towels.

If the aubergines are very small, then you could actually use very little olive oil and some water and cook them in a pan with the lid on.

Whilst the aubergines are cooling, fry the chopped onion, sliced garlic and chopped green peppers until brown.

Add the chopped tomatoes, stir well and simmer for 4 - 3 minutes.

Add the chopped parsley, a pinch of sugar and salt, stir well, then strain the stuffing. Keep the juicy bit aside.

Heat the oven up to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Place the aubergines in an ovenproof dish, cut them from the middle and widen with the help of a spoon.

Fill them with the stuffing. Place the whole green pepper on top and stick a toothpick through both to keep it steady. This is optional: some people prefer topping it with halloumi or some sort of cheese which does not melt very easily, it’s all up to your imagination.)

Pour the juice evenly in the baking dish then cook it for at least 20 minutes. You can also grill for a smokier taste.

Once cooled or lukewarm, serve it with some watermelon and feta, fresh bread, yoghurt, or some salad. It always tastes nicer the day after and cold. And it is one of the best dishes you can have in summertime! Enjoy!

Meat Option: **

Some people cook it with minced meat. All you have to do is to replace the stuffing with fried onions and minced meat, cooked with some parsley, salt and pepper. This version is called Karniyarik and served warm, usually with some bulgur or pilau rice.

109 Photo by Aylin Bozyap

Khash-

Mark Grigoryan – Armenia Khash is not food. Well, it is not just food. Basically, it is anything but just food. You don't have to travel to the Far East to get a bite of one of the most exotic foodstuffs on earth. Forget about Oceania and the pampas of South America. You will never – well, almost never – get something like this as close as a four hour-long flight from Heathrow. Khash unites. The Caucasus may be torn in pieces by conflicts and entrenched in long-lasting wars about dolma – rolled vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice – but let's face the truth: khash unites the Caucasus. In a sense, khash is anti-dolma, because dolma separates peoples and nations in the Caucasian region, but unites them with parts of the west, as one can taste dolma in Turkey, the Balkans and Greece. Khash does exactly the opposite: it unites the peoples of the troubled region, but separates them from the west. And make no mistake: khash is anti-western. It would be virtually impossible to imagine how it can blend into the cholesterol-aware, diet-mad, ‘be-good-toyourself’-cultured western world. It is very difficult to imagine a proper Westerner in a sound mind joining khash-eaters. Khash is a traditional meal for the villagers living high in the Caucasian mountains, where a slaughtered cow must be consumed in its entirety. And the feet – shins actually - are a very tasty part of the animal. The secret is in preparation, and the motto is keep it simple. 111

Method: Ingredients: Cow’s feet/shins Lavash (bread) Garlic Salt Cheese

The cow’s feet should be shaved clean and cooked in boiling water for 7-5 hours. That’s it.

Best to do that overnight, so that early in the morning you will have hot and ready this thick, heavy, fatty and cholesterol-rich soup.

You should also have a considerable stock of dried local bread – lavash – a type of metre-long very thin pita, a good amount of grated garlic, salt and cheese.

Radish and tarragon would go well as a salad.

Put a tablespoon of grated garlic into your bowl of boiling-hot khash, add as much dry lavash as your khash can absorb, fill in your glass with vodka, and…

Hang on. You cannot eat it alone. Good company is needed, and the guests tend to arrive quite early in the morning – each carrying a bottle of well-chilled vodka.

And when they ar rive, the feast starts.

It’s basically eating and drinking. And then drinking and eating again. Everyone gets drunk, and that brings a feeling of togetherness, unity, happiness and joy.

As I said, khash unites people. And there is a ritual to khash.

The first toast goes as «Good morning». The second

Khash- Mark Grigoryan – Armenia

is «A very good morning». The third: «Good morning to everyone». And then it goes on: «Good morning to those who cooked the khash», «… to those who are eating the khash», «… to those who are eating khash in other places»… **

A real ‘khashperson’ will eat at least two bowls of this soup. Then have a little rest, and eat a third.

And empty a dozen shots of vodka. Sorry, at least a dozen.

What happens next? Armenians would drink a cup of coffee, Azeris have some tea, and Georgians a bit of both. Then comes a game of backgammon followed by a second round of khash, or something new, like kebab, or maybe barbeque… But that’s a different story.

And don’t ask how these people in the Caucasus manage to consume such an amount of meat and vodka in one go.

This question has no answer.

113 Photo by Knar Babayan

Yarpaq Dolmasi -

Dolma -

Konul Khalilova – Azerbaijan

If you are invited to a dinner in Azerbaijan you can be sure that you will be served dolma – minced lamb meat wrapped in vine leaves. We cook it often - almost once a week. No party or New Year celebration would be complete without dolma. It is so treasured by Azeris that recently they even started a petition on the White House website asking the Obama Administration to recognise dolma as an Azeri dish. Of course it is a joke, but I haven’t made it up. This petition is believed to be a work of young Azeris mocking those who fight for exclusive rights to dolma. There has been a long ‘war’ between Azeris and their neighbours in the Caucasus region with everyone trying to nationalise dolma, and up to ten years ago I was sure that dolma, which literally means ‘filled up’ in Azeri, was cooked only in Azerbaijan. If you are a journalist and speak English in Azerbaijan somehow or other you will end up in the United States, thanks to their fellowship programmes. I won one of the US government programmes and went to Atlanta, Georgia for research. After getting fed up with pizza and McDonald’s I ended up in a Lebanese restaurant one day with my Lebanese friend. I was almost shocked when they started serving us. I don’t remember if it was a starter or if it was ordered by my friend but somehow my favourite dish in the world - dolma - appeared on our table. The conversation between me and my friend went like this:

- -

Oh, they cook Azeri dishes here? No, dolma is a Lebanese dish.

It didn’t take me long to realise that dolma was a ‘global dish’ and exists in the cuisines of the countries of former Ottoman Empire and its neighbourhood. But to this day I remain sure that the most delicious dolma is cooked by Azeris. If you don’t believe it, try my Mom’s recipe. 115

Method: **

Mix all the ingredients together except for the butter.

Leave fresh vine leaves in hot water for 2 minutes. This will soften the leaves and the dolma will be cooked faster. Cut off any hard parts or stalks in the leaves.

If you are using tinned leaves put them in a colander, rinse under boiled hot water.

Wrap the mixture in the leaves, put them inside a pot one by one, pour butter over the leaves and add water.

Cover with a lid and put on the stove to cook. When it starts boiling, reduce heat to medium and cook for another 45 minutes.

Ingredients: 500g fatty minced lamb 2 banana shallots, peeled and grated 75g pudding rice, washed and drained Medium bunch of mint ½ bunch fresh coriander ½ bunch fresh dill 1 tsp salt At least 50 medium-size fresh or tinned vine leaves 4 tbsp butter, melted 120ml water

117 Photo by Konul Khalilova

Caldo Verde -

Sharon Shaw – Portugal As a child I spent my summers in Portugal, travelling between my many aunts and uncles who would perch me on a stool next to the stove and let me help them with whatever they were preparing for dinner. Each auntie had her own unique way of making this soup; my recipe is an amalgamation of all of them, including some tips from my own mother. This is a perfect soup if you’re on a tight budget, or when you have very little left in the fridge. The joy of this soup is not to worry too much about following the recipe exactly, this is my version, but hopefully you’ll experiment and make one that suits you.

Ingredients: 6 - 5 large potatoes, peeled and diced 1 whole chorizo ring (225g), can be a spicy one 2 - 1.5 litres water 4 tbsp olive oil Salt & pepper to taste 3 – 2 pinches paprika or smoked paprika (not a deal breaker if you don’t have it as the chorizo is made with it) 2 large yellow/brown onions, finely chopped 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 bay leaf Collard Greens - if these are hard to find you can use kale or cavolo nero. I’ve used Savoy cabbage in an emergency but you don’t get the wonderful green colour. The amount you use will vary on how heavy you want your soup. This must be chopped very finely, no big stalks. I use about 150g or ¾ of a packet.

Method: **

Heat the olive oil in a deep pan; add the onions followed a minute later by the chopped garlic.

Once the onions become translucent (do not brown them), add ¾ of the chorizo, sliced into ‘pound coins’.

Cook this together for a minute and then stir in the blanched diced potatoes. Make sure to give this a good stir to allow all the flavour to soak into the potatoes.

When they start getting soft (again, don’t brown them), add 1.5 litres of water and a bay leaf.

I often add another 0.5 litre of chicken or vegetable stock if I have any in my freezer. You can add bouillon to the remaining 0.5 litre of water if you have it. Otherwise I don’t tend to add the extra water.

Leave this to cook slowly for about 25 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and crumbling.

Then separately pan fry the remaining chorizo ‘pound coins’ and pop them in with everything else.

Finally, blanch the greens before adding them to the soup; this is important as they are really bitter and will affect the taste. They should turn the soup a wonderful green colour.

I leave the pan to sit for half an hour before reheating. It is delicious the same day, and even better the next.

Serve with some crusty bread.

119 Photo by Sharon Shaw

121 Photo by Sharon Shaw

Olivier Salad (Russian Salad)Katya Linnik – Moscow

When I was little, Olivier Salad was a staple dish on any festive table throughout the vast Soviet Union from Moscow to Vladivostok. In fact, what made a table ready for any kind of celebration was this particular salad. The story of its emergence is full of twists and surprises. It was invented in Moscow, my home-town, in the 1860s by French émigré Lucien Olivier. He was a chef and the owner of a restaurant with a pompous name: Traktir Hermitage Olivier, which was a popular hangout for the rich and famous of the time. To tickle their discerning taste-buds and entertain them visually, Olivier made a new dish – Mayonnaise Venison. What he did was this: he arranged pieces of game, ox tongue, prawns and aspic around a centrepiece of boiled and sliced potatoes, cornichons and hard-boiled eggs, all richly seasoned with his specialty mayonnaise. The potato centrepiece was intended to be a purely visual element and was not supposed to be eaten but, to the dismay of the French cook, the ‘barbaric’ Russians helped themselves to the ‘feast of the eye’, mixed the ingredients and consumed everything there was on the plate. The new dish became an instant success and the Frenchman was wise enough not to insist on his original version. The Olivier Salad was born. But when, in 1883, Lucien died nobody exactly knew how to make it; the famous cook never revealed the full recipe to anybody. Since the salad was hugely popular, especially among Muscovites, it was recreated by memory with the help of one of the Hermitage’s frequenters. Interestingly, outside Russia this very salad came to be known as the Russian Salad, popularised in France and Turkey by Russian immigrants fleeing the 1917 Russian Revolution. The recipe has seen some changes over the years and keeps changing, and yet it’s still the same! To me it brings back memories of my childhood and youth when Soviet shop shelves were empty, food was scarce but festivities nevertheless were joyful and the spread was hearty. In fact, even now I don’t feel like celebrating until I have a helping of Olivier, and this is how I make it.

123

Method:

Ingredients:

Olivier Salad (Russian Salad)-Katya Linnik – Moscow

4 potatoes Any cold cooked meat: beef, ox tongue, chicken, ham, bologna 3 - 2 eggs 1 tin petit pois ½ jar of cornichons or 3 - 2 big gherkins ½ cucumber 1 apple 1 jar mayonnaise (150g)

First of all, boil the potatoes and eggs, let them cool down, then peel, slice thinly and put into a big bowl.

Add your sliced meat (I prefer chicken breast), one tin of petit pois, thinly sliced cornichons, cucumber and one peeled and cored apple.

Pour on the mayonnaise and mix everything together using two salad spoons.

The twist: to make the sauce pourable you’ve got to thin the mayonnaise. I do it by adding a bit of the cornichon (or gherkin) brine into the mayo. I also add a dash of Worcestershire sauce (I now live in England after all!) and one thinly sliced shallot, mix it with my thinned mayo and then pour it over the salad; it makes it even more piquant.

I find that my ‘Olivier’ is always at its best the next day, after a restful night in the fridge. It is of course a perfect starter and goes down well with a shot or two of vodka.

Not only does it spur your appetite, it stops you from getting drunk too quickly so that you don’t, as we say in Russia, “fall face down into the salad”, but enjoy the rest of whatever you are celebrating.

125 Photo by Katya Linnik

Sour Cream ChickenOleg Boldyrev – Russia

It’s hard to find a proper chicken in Moscow. No, there’s no shortage of chickens, of course. Cut, whole, raw or rubbed in exotic spices, they are lined up in any supermarket. But those are cage-grown birds coming from huge factories. If you ever go near one of these factories, the smell may put you off chicken meat altogether. Finding a proper chicken takes a visit to a market, but even those are largely supplied by the same industrial growers. To get anything near to free-range and (relatively) chemical-free chicken, you need to know your farm seller well. In fact, so well as to be able to tell when he or she is attempting a fib. My first market-bought chicken was a failure. Having sat on the seller’s shelf too long it developed a nasty smell somewhere along the short trip back home. A couple of local dogs were in luck that evening and had that 300 roubles ($10) bird for dinner. Wiser by now, I smelt my next chicken from head to toe (well, figuratively). It was fresh and, prior to losing its head and toes, had lived a happy life on a farm outdoors some 300km away from Moscow, the seller told me. From then, things were really easy. Unlike European recipes, Russian cuisine often relies on sour cream as a cooking medium. For a kilo of chicken, or parts, you need roughly a pint of sour cream. More wouldn’t hurt and less won’t break your meal.

Method:

Ingredients: Chicken 1 medium-sized onion Ginger (chopped) 3 garlic cloves (chopped) 570ml sour cream Mustard

If using a whole chicken, quarter it. Brown the pieces for five minutes.

Fry a medium-sized onion in two spoonfuls of oil. Mix onion with browned parts. Add salt to taste. Chop a thumb-sized piece of ginger and three garlic cloves. Fry them in a small amount of oil. Take off the stove.

Beat the sour cream with a fork for half a minute. Carefully pour it into a mixture of the chopped ginger and garlic and heat, mixing with a ladle to avoid curdling. Add a couple of spoonfuls of smooth and strong mustard.

Pour the sauce over chicken and boil or, preferably, bake for 40-30 minutes. The sour cream will curdle in the process, but gently mixing the stew will make it smooth again.

Some possible additions are rosemary or thyme and carrots. A few times I’ve added a cup of cider to the chicken/onion mix and brought it to the boil before adding the sour cream sauce.

127 Photo by Oleg Boldyrev

Pimientos del Piquillo Rellenos (Stuffed Piquillo Peppers) – Elena Varela –Spain This is a simple yet delicious dish very traditional in La Rioja, so typical that you can see them among the colourful displays of tapas on the counter of every other bar in La Laurel, our food quarter in the capital of La Rioja, Logroño. My mum taught me how to make them so every time I cook these peppers, they remind me of home. The most important ingredients are of course the piquillo peppers: a delicacy, they are roasted on firewood, which gives them this special flavour. A traditional stuffing is the mix of minced beef and pork although there are others such as minced beef alone, cod and prawns, mushrooms, etc. All you need is a few roasted piquillo peppers, garlic and parsley, the meat, fish or vegetables you are going to use for the stuffing, flour, milk, onion, tomatoes and/ or tomato sauce, good olive oil, salt and pepper. I use toasted pine nuts in my sauce but you do not have to.

Ingredients: A few roasted piquillo peppers Garlic Parsley Meat, fish or vegetable filling Flour Milk Onion Tomatoes and/or tomato sauce Good olive oil Salt and pepper Toasted pine nuts (optional)

Method: **

First of all you need to chop some garlic and parsley very finely and add it to about 3 or 4 tablespoons of hot olive oil. Fry it a little bit until the garlic starts to get golden and add the meat or fish. If you are making a cod and prawn stuffing it is nice to add some green pepper for extra flavour. Fry everything together until it’s cooked and season with salt and pepper.

The next thing you have to do is make a béchamel or white sauce to bind the ingredients together, and you can do this by directly adding flour to the stuffing and then some milk until you are happy with its consistency. At this point I also add a spoon or two of tomato sauce to the mix. Leave it to cool.

Once it has cooled down slightly, stuff all the peppers using a spoon and put them aside. Coat them with a little flour and beaten egg and fry them carefully as they might stick to the pan! When I make fish-stuffed peppers I just fry them lightly without the flour and egg batter. Put them back in the pan as you will need to add the sauce.Then, it depends how much lamb you used, add one or two (one is better) cans of chopped tomatoes.

Fry an onion with some tomato until soft and add some tomato sauce, salt, pepper and a few of the roasted peppers you might have left (chopped). Cook

everything for a little while and add some toasted pine nuts. Add more tomato sauce and/or milk to taste or if you want a sauce that is more or less pink when finished, add it to the peppers in the pan, cook up for a few minutes and that is it, they are ready to serve! **â&#x20AC;&#x2030;

If you can get your hands on a traditional terracotta pan, they will cook, taste and look better. You can decorate them with a little parsley.

129

Boris’ Lamb & ZucchinisBoris Maksimov – Russia / UK

I’m a Canadian Russian of Jewish origin but I’ve spent most of my time here in the UK, so I’m from Tottenham in London, actually! I learnt to cook because I was, in a way, very, very lucky; my mother had no idea how to cook. So I had no preconceptions. I had to learn it all by myself because she could not teach me. I got the sauce from somewhere in Spain or Turkey. The curry is obviously from India. I thought they should go together quite nicely, and there you go. It’s kind of international… or from Tottenham in London, which is kind of international! First of all you make a basic curry – simple.

Ingredients: 1 onion Ground turmeric Ground ginger Ground cumin Chopped lamb 1 or 2 tins of chopped tomatoes 1 pot of Greek yoghurt (200g or 300g) Garlic, to taste Pomegranate seeds Coriander

Method: **

Put some olive oil in a pan, chop an onion, and stick it in. Fry very slowly until it’s almost translucent, almost done.

Halfway through add ground turmeric, ground ginger, ground cumin. Don’t worry about the amounts; a tablespoon each will do.

When the onion is almost translucent, add the chopped lamb – not on the bone but lamb chopped into cubes of a reasonable size. Stick it in, stir it up, let the lamb kind of go “Mmmm!” – it has to kind of absorb stuff.

Then, it depends how much lamb you used, add one or two (one is better) cans of chopped tomatoes. Stir everything in and fry for 20 – 15 minutes max – just check the lamb because you don’t want to overcook it.

Then take a bowl and empty the Greek yoghurt into it.

Add as much as you like or you can handle of crushed garlic: I take the whole head but some people prefer less, it depends on your own taste. Add fresh pomegranate seeds and fresh coriander, chopped. Mix it all together.

As soon as the lamb is ready add this mix and eat!

You can keep a few pomegranate seeds back to sprinkle on top when it’s done to make it look good.

Ingredients: Zucchinis (courgettes) Garlic, to taste Sherry or rice wine 1 tsp sugar

Method: **

Take the zucchinis and chop them up into rings.

Heat up a little olive oil in the frying pan, preferably non-stick because it works better.

Cook them for about 3 or 4 minutes.

Add as much as you can possibly handle of crushed garlic.

Stir it up.

After frying them gently until they are soft but still a bit crunchy – i.e. no more than a few minutes on a low flame – pour on a small glass of either sherry or rice wine (or at worst white wine), sprinkle a teaspoon or so of sugar, turn the flame right up and let the alcohol evaporate – then eat!

If you’re thinking of being really fancy, add a tiny bit of lemon juice. That’s it! It takes a few minutes.

131 Photo by Boris Maksimov

Asian-style Baked Salmon Dmitry & Masha Shishkin – Russia / UK

I am a big fan of cooking and eating at home. Not that we do not enjoy going out (of course we do!), but cooking at home gives you so much: an opportunity to spend time together, learn new things, and teach each other something little every now and then. Instead of submitting my own recipe, I am passing the baton to my daughter, sixteen year old Masha, who’s become quite a cook herself over the last couple of years. Children grow so quickly and it still beggars belief that your own daughter can now bake bread, make humous or tiramisu, experiment with tastes, textures and presentation! I’m not sure if cooking will become Masha’s choice of profession, but one thing is clear, this skill as well as appreciation of the world’s diversity and complex influences will stay with her for her whole life. Masha Shiskin Gathering in the kitchen and cooking together is always a big deal in our family. All the recipes are made from scratch and ready meals are a no-go. I got most of my cooking skills from my parents, but I am constantly having new ideas on how to adapt classic family recipes. From quite a young age I was interested in TV cooking contest shows such as Masterchef or Come Dine With Me. I always got so excited about the recipes that in the middle of the show I would get up and start making myself something to eat. Mash and sausages turned into elegant plates and gazpacho was made out of tomato juice and ice. The dishes got more and more extravagant and I knew I had to share them in some way. As far as I knew, teen cooking skills didn’t go further than making cornflakes or toast because most teens are too busy on the internet. So I thought, “Why not bring the cooking to them through the internet?”. I had a YouTube account and it sort of went from there. Once, during a maths exam, I randomly started thinking about a plate of gazpacho I had at a restaurant a couple of weeks before. After the test I ran home, whipped up a couple of ingredients: home-made croutons, tomato juice, parsley, lemon and so on. I aced that exam and at the same time created a new dish. This later evolved into my salmon dish, having the fillets marinate in the liquid, making it extra juicy – it’s a keeper!

Ingredients: (serves 2) 2 salmon fillets 200ml tomato juice A drizzle of soy sauce Salt Smoked paprika Butter For the salad: ½ cucumber ½ onion Parsley Lemon White wine vinegarr

Method: **

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.

Take your baking tray and grease it with some olive oil.

Place your two fillets in the greased tray.

In a bowl, mix the soy sauce and tomato juice. Add the salt, pepper and paprika.

Pour the sauce mixture over the fillets and with your hands, gently massage the sauce into the salmon.

** **

Cut up the butter and place on top of the fillets. Place your fillets in the oven and cook for 20 - 15 minutes.

While the salmon is cooking, dice your onion and parsley.

Put the chopped ingredients into a bowl and pour in the juice of one lemon then drizzle with white wine vinegar.

Season with salt and pepper.

Serve your fillets with the side salad. Enjoy!

133 Photo by Dmitry Shishkin

Bacalhau da Consoada (Christmas Eve Codfish) – Ana Bastos – Portugal

Salted codfish is known in Portugal as bacalhau; the word derives from ‘bacal’ but no one really knows the source of it. The introduction of bacalhau in Portuguese culinary tradition is very old (there are tales of it circa 1373) and the fish is not a native to our coast but from the cold waters of the North Atlantic and Scandinavia. The story is that traders from Scandinavia came over to buy salt and introduced us to codfish, starting a love affair with the fish. Our fishermen would go on long expeditions called the Faina Maior; the fish would be gutted and salted in the boats. Then, upon return to shore it had to be left to dry in the sun on purpose-built wooden planks before it was ready for consumption. My first memories of eating bacalhau are as a very young child - about 5 - 6 years old - during Lent, just before Easter and on Fridays when meat wasn’t allowed to be eaten for religious reasons. The other occasion, and the most festive, is our Christmas Eve dinner where bacalhau is king! It’s cooked in several ways depending on personal tastes and local tradition: codfish in casserole (Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá), baked/roasted creamy cod (Bacalhau com natas), codfish cakes (Bolinhos de Bacalhau). But the most traditional recipe is Bacalhau de Consoada: boiled cod with potatoes accompanied by green vegetables (any green leaf in season: collard greens; turnip greens or Portuguese cabbage). Nowadays, I relish and treasure those memories and, being true my roots, I worship this salted delicacy. There is a saying in Portugal about ‘the 1001 ways of cooking cod’ so here goes my favourite: ‘Bacalhau da Consoada’ or ‘Christmas Eve Codfish’.

Ingredients: 4 pieces dried salted cod (soaked overnight) 1 head Portuguese cabbage or 500g turnip leaves 8 - 4 medium-sized potatoes 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced Olive oil Lemon juice Salt and pepper

Method: **

Rinse the cod under cold running water to remove any Rinse the cod under cold running water to remove any surface salt. Leave the fish pieces to soak for at least 24 hours in a basin with cold water. Do not cover the basin and change the water several times.

About half an hour before the meal, drain the cod portions and cook them in a pan with water and a little salt (if necessary), together with the potatoes.

Meanwhile, prepare the greens/leaves and when the cod and the potatoes are half cooked, add the greens and let them cook for about 10 minutes. Do not cover the pan with the lid so that the cabbage remains green.

Drain and serve hot on a big platter; drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic and lemon juice. (Cod purists might disagree but I do like lemon juice on all seasonings!)

135 Photo by Ana Bastos

Home-made Yoghurt – Aylin Bozyap – Turkey

If you are born around the Eastern Mediterranean, from Greece to Turkey, from Lebanon to Central Asia, the first solid food you eat is usually yoghurt. You can’t imagine a dinner table without a bowl of yoghurt alongside many vegetable or meaty dishes, cold or hot. As a child, we had to travel because of my father’s job. Once we were living in a small town and it was easier and possibly tastier for my mom to make her own yoghurt. I vividly remember the experience of going to the milkman every Wednesday after school, waiting for him to milk the cow or the sheep and take the fresh milk back to my mother. I have learned how to make yoghurt from my mother, who learned it from her mother and it is a recipe that is passed on generation after generation, from Turkey to Greece to the Balkans, from Lebanon to Central Asia and India. I read once in a book that the average yoghurt consumption per person in Turkey is 30 kilos per year! When I moved to the UK, I realised that I couldn’t find the exact yoghurt I was used to unless I went to a Turkish or Greek or Middle Eastern shop. That inspired me to learn how to make my own yoghurt.

Method:

Ingredients: Two pints of gold top or whole milk (The best kind is raw sheep’s or goat’s milk but it is hard to find. Also, if you make it from raw milk, you need to make sure you boil it quite long and bring it to boil twice. When the milk is pasteurised you don’t need to do that.)

Bring the milk to boil. Stir well with a wooden spoon, with an up and down movement so the milk can air enough.

Pour evenly into glass container.

Place the container on a flat surface. It should preferably be next to a radiator or a warm place in the kitchen. Make sure that there won’t be any vibration around. Put the jar or container in the middle of the blanket so you can wrap it evenly later on.

Check the heat of the milk occasionally by putting your little finger in. If you can count up to 7 seconds without moving your finger, then that’s the right time to introduce the starter yoghurt (which is best if you thin it with some of the lukewarm milk) into the milk. Pour the yoghurt into each corner of the jar or container and stir slowly then leave.

More scientifically, put a food thermometer in. If the environment is warm enough, then 42 to 45 degrees centigrade should be ok to introduce the yoghurt. If it is not, then you need to do it earlier, perhaps at 50 or 60 degrees centigrade. You need to experiment here, depending on the conditions in your home.

1 dollop of yoghurt (starter yoghurt)(Ideally bio-live, Greek or Greek-style yoghurt. Once you feel confident, you can experiment with low fat or zero fat yoghurt but the result would possibly not be as thick a yoghurt as we have in Turkey or in many countries like Greece, Lebanon or other Middle Eastern countries.)

1 wooden spoon A glass food container or glass jars A food thermometer (optional) A sieve A tea towel A warm blanket Fine muslin (optional for strained yoghurt)

Cover the jar or container with a sieve, and then a tea towel. Wrap it well and wait for it to sleep for at least 6 hours.

Unwrap the blanket and remove the tea towel and the sieve. The milk should be now transformed into yoghurt, looking thick and creamy. If it isn’t, then you might have introduced the starter yoghurt too early or too late. Try again!

If it looks thick and creamy, put it in the fridge and keep it there overnight.

Your home-made yoghurt is ready to eat in the morning. You can keep it for up to a week, sometimes even more.

Strained yoghurt: **

After it has been in the fridge for one night, you could also strain the yoghurt for an even thicker consistency. In order to do this, hang a piece of fine muslin somewhere in the kitchen, and put a large bowl beneath it. Pour the yoghurt into the fine muslin and let it strain until there is no juice left.

In the villages it is said that the juice left after straining yoghurt has a healing effect if you have flu or bowel issues. And in summertime, if you get very bad sunburn, apply it to the area affected and you will see the pain will ease down.

137 Photo by Aylin Bozyap

Photo by Cenk Erdil

Pogaça –

Cenk Erdil – Turkey “You will know when it is ready” my grandma said when I was a bit impatient as a six or seven year old waiting for the dough to prove… “You will know…” This phrase proved to be the most important element of many food recipes later on in my life. I bake regularly now. I started when I was a kid and learned the basics from my grandma and from my mother later on. Now I am trying to pass this information on to my 4 year old daughter Zeyno. She likes baking with me – very impatient now, but she will learn to know. I come from a country where baking in any form, either sweet or savoury, is a tradition; and eating sweet and savoury bakes is part of our daily routine. Of course where I come from, you can go to your corner patisserie where you are spoilt for choice and buy whatever you want. But it is not the same: it is not my grandma’s or my mum’s homemade stuff. Take my word for it, there is nothing better than a freshly baked tray of pogaças coming out of your oven first thing in the morning on a Sunday for a family breakfast. Trial and error was my main methodology and, believe you me, it took me a lot of trials and errors to get it right. I never enjoyed following recipes. No recipe can tell you when your dough is ready. Obviously your recipe will give you descriptions such as “it should double in size” or sensory clues like “it should spring back when you press a finger in” or more straightforward commands like “keep it at room temperature for forty-five minutes” and so on. They are all fine but none of them beats my grandma’s clue: “You will know when it is ready…” And to know, you need to get your hands dirty, make a bit of a mess, have a few failures and kick yourself because you made a simple error as you’re not following any recipe. This is all good. This teaches you. You start to understand. You start to know. By all means, follow the recipes to the letter if that is how you operate. Likewise, follow my recipe and you should end up with perfect pogaças. However, do me, my grandma and my mum a favour and promise me one thing to honour this recipe. Do not use a food processor if you can avoid it, get in there, and knead your dough yourself. And please take your time when you try this recipe. After all, baking is an art. And as an artisan “you will know.” 139

Method: Filling:

Ingredients: About 800g flour 1½ cups warm milk 1 cup yoghurt ½ cup vegetable oil 2 egg whites (keep the yolks for glazing) 1 tsp caster sugar 1½ tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 1 pack instant yeast (or 45g fresh yeast)

Grated white cheese and parsley. (You can use feta or a cheese like Wensleydale.)

This is the most common filling but do not let that stop you trying different variations.

Pogaça – Cenk Erdil – Turkey

Method: **

If you are using fresh yeast dissolve it in warm milk. (If you are using instant yeast, add it straight to your ingredients.)

Add the sugar and salt to your yeast and milk mix, add some flour and mix them all together.

Add the baking powder, yoghurt, vegetable oil and egg whites to your mixture and keep stirring.

Add the rest of your flour gradually and knead until all the ingredients are well mixed and the dough starts to form into a smooth ball.

Your dough should be wet but not too sticky. Keep kneading until you get a soft, wet texture.

Put your dough in a bowl and cover the bowl with cling film.

Leave it to prove for about an hour at room temperature. The dough should double in size and should spring back when you press a finger in.

Fold and knead your dough gently a few times.

Shape your dough into golf ball size pieces and flatten them into a circle shape in your palm. If they are sticking to your hands when you do this rub a little oil into your palms.

Put a teaspoon of crumbled cheese and parsley mix in the middle and fold them into half-moon shapes.

Place them on to a greased or baking sheet-lined tray. Space your pastries out as they will puff up in the oven during baking.

Beat the egg yolks and glaze your pastries with it. Sprinkle sesame seeds and/or onion seeds on top to decorate.

Baking: **

Preheat your oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7 and then turn it off.

Place the tray in the middle shelf of your oven for 5 minutes while still turned off.

After 5 minutes, turn your oven on again and set it to 220C/425F/Gas 7 while the tray is still in it.

It should take about 20 - 15 minutes for the pastries to bake. Take the tray out when they become a golden brown colour.

Turn them out on to a rack to cool a little. Best served warm.

Enjoy your pogaça, or ‘Afiyet olsun’, as we say in Turkish.

141 Photo by Cenk Erdil

Diana’s Ice Cream – Jo Episcopo – UK

My dad is Italian and loves ice cream. As children we had ice cream with every single meal. Every night, whenever we ate, my dad would always say “Who’s for ice cream?”. When we went on holiday, come rain or shine, my dad would always say “Let’s have an ice cream - we’re on holiday!”. As a result, ice cream totally lost its fascination for me. Until many years later when I ate my mum’s home-made ice cream. It is fantastic and easy and absolutely delicious. You don’t need an ice cream maker, just a bowl, a spoon and a sieve. This one is for strawberries but I have made it with frozen berries in winter, as well as using raspberries and blackberries in summer. The orange and lemon juices are the secret: they really bring out the flavour and make it taste really fruity - much better than any shop-made ice cream.

Ingredients: 340g ripe strawberries, hulled Juice of 1 orange Juice of 1 lemon 170g caster sugar 420ml whipping cream

Method: **

Rub the berries/fruit through a sieve (or you can put them briefly in a blender or food processor and strain the puree).

Combine the puree with the orange and lemon juice and sugar.

Set the mixture aside for about 2 hours stirring it from time to time until the sugar has dissolved completely. This step intensifies the flavour of the fruit.

Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks.

Combine it with the sweetened puree and whisk them lightly together.

Put in a plastic box in the freezer.

Voila!

You can vigorously whisk the partially frozen ice during the freezing process if you want.

143 Photo by Sarah Lee

Pistachio & Parmesan Biscuits – Callum Hunt – UK

When I was growing up my parents would often send me to go and stay with my grandmother in a small village called Croxley Green, just outside London. She would always organise many activities to keep me amused, but one recurring activity was making cheese biscuits. My parents also were pleased when I returned home bringing gifts of home-cooked biscuits. While my grandmother has long since passed away, I still regularly bake cheese biscuits as a treat, and still take a bag to my parents when I go to visit. My favourite cheese biscuit recipe is with pistachio nuts and parmesan cheese. So easy to make and truly delicious. You can always substitute the parmesan for any strong flavoured cheese, or the pistachio for any nuts. However, for best results stick to the below if you can!

Ingredients: 100g soft butter or margarine 100g plain flour 100g grated parmesan ½ tsp chilli powder 100g small pistachio nuts, shelled and crushed with a rolling pin

Method: Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 **

Place all the ingredients into a bowl and work together until combined into a soft dough.

Roll the dough and cut into about 25 biscuits.

Bake in the oven for about 20mins until pale golden brown.

Photo by Callum Hunt

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Les Galettes Bretonnes – Hélène Daouphars – France

Brittany may not be the most famous region for French gastronomy but there is however, one thing that unites us Bretons. It’s our galettes, savoury pancakes made with buckwheat flour. Traditionally, we eat them every Friday with egg, cheese and ham. Galettes are slightly different depending which city or town you are from, but they are always there. Those who have visited my region will always remember the crêperies all over Brittany. The crêperies that we see nowadays are very different from what they were in the 1940s when my grandmother became a crepière herself. Maria Le Guelaff was born in 1921 in the hamlet of Saint-Hervé, close to Gourin in central Brittany. She was a farmers’ daughter and had seven brothers and sisters. Her parents had a small five hectare farm with a few cows; life was not easy at the time in one of France’s poorest regions. At nineteen she married a slate miner, Joseph Daouphars. They had two children but soon they were keen to leave the farm to make a better living in Gourin. My granddad carried on working in the mine and in 1945 my grandmother hired a little crêperie to contribute towards the family spending. The business did well and her galettes became quite renowned in Gourin and the region. Soon she grew out of the first crêperie and moved around town twice over five years. She managed to buy her third crêperie in 1952 and gave it the name of ‘Ty Krampouz Mad’, which means ‘where the galettes are good’. Unfortunately, whilst my grandmother’s business was going very well, my grandfather’s was in difficulty. The slate mines were closing in the region; the slate was too deep and became so costly to dig out, and it was cheaper to import from Spain. At this time, many Bretons decided to leave their region and emigrate to the United States; it was easy to get a green card and there were jobs aplenty on the other side of the Atlantic. When the mine closed my granddad found a job as a driver for the local pea-canning factory. Meanwhile, the crêperie was successful and on market day people were queuing to get served at ‘Ty Krampouz Mad’... The business was very time consuming. Now with three children, a bigger crêperie with five employees, my grandmother was a very busy lady. In the 1960s, men didn’t always agree with such a lifestyle. My grandfather soon found new pastures and left her for another woman. He ran away to Nantes, hoping for better, and never came back to Gourin. My grandmother carried on with her life and even bought an even bigger crêperie in 1958. She had eight employees until the end of her career in 1981 and was renowned for making the best galettes in town. Her recipe was always a bit of a secret. Fortunately I have managed to retrieve it for you.

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Photo by Hélène Daouphars

Ingredients:

Method:

500g buckwheat flour (available at wholefood stores and markets) 150g white flour 1 spoon sea salt Water ½ glass milk 3 tbsp oil (olive or sunflower)

In a large bowl mix both types of flour with the sea salt and slowly add water. You need to add enough water to have a fluid mix. Then you want to leave it to rest for an hour whilst you enjoy your aperitif!

When you are ready to make the galettes, you should add the milk and the oil.

Warm a large flat pan (you can find special galettes pans in France or online), oil it and you can make your galettes as you would make pancakes.

Les Galettes Bretonnes – Hélène Daouphars – France

Tips: **

If you remove the white flour from the recipe, the galettes are gluten free!

The traditional galette is very thin and served on its own with butter. But I do recommend the ‘complète’ which is garnished with egg, ham and cheese.

I also love the smoked salmon, goat cheese and leek fondue.

And I could die for the hazelnut chocolate spread galette!

Basically you can have anything in a galette, just enjoy!!!

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Pineapple Upside-down Cake with Caramel & Rum – Monique Barclay – France Cooking has always been a very important part of our family life. I was born and grew up in Paris but my parents came from the French Antilles – Martinique and Guadeloupe. So the influence of the French Caribbean was very much felt in our everyday cooking. It was French food with a Caribbean flair. Mum was a great cook and her kitchen was full of pots and pans, spoons and spatulas of different shapes and sizes. She had everything you might need for every occasion. Her cupboards were always well stocked with lots of different ingredients for making all kinds of things. She always had whatever she needed. Nowadays, we tend to buy things when we need them for a particular recipe. Saturdays were baking days. My brothers and I would help mum make bread and cakes. There was always a cake of some sort in the house for us or for any guest who might come round. We had sweet and savoury cakes, but one that we always had in the house was the pineapple upside-down with caramel, and sometimes mum also added a touch of rum (for the adults only!). We could all cook in the family, even my dad, but my elder brother followed in my mother’s footsteps and became a very good cook. Over the past couple of years, I have been researching my family tree and found out that my great-grandmother, my grandmother and her sisters were great bakers. They were well known in Guadeloupe. People would come to them for cakes for weddings and special occasions. No wonder I am passionate about baking. It is in my blood!

Ingredients: 1 fresh pineapple (or a tin of slices) 175g sugar 160g flour 3 medium eggs 1 tsp baking powder 150g butter 2 tsp vanilla essence Dark rum

Method: **

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 22cm round cake tin.

Peel the pineapple and cut it in slices, removing the centre.

Put 50g of the sugar in a pan over a medium heat and keep an eye on it.

After about 4 minutes, the sugar will start to melt and turn liquid. Give the pan a good shake and leave it until the sugar has completely melted.

With a wooden spoon, give it a gentle stir and continue to cook and stir until it is the colour of dark runny honey.

Pour the caramel into the cake tin making sure that the base is completely covered.

Place the slices of pineapple in the cake tin making sure they do not overlap.

Melt the butter.

Separate the eggs. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and the rest of the sugar until white and fluffy.

Add the sifted flour, baking powder, melted butter and vanilla essence to the eggs. If you have any pineapple left, cut in small pieces and add to the mix.

Pour in 2 tablespoons of rum and mix together.

Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently combine with the other mixture.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.

151 Photo by Monique Barclay

Blinis –

Katya Leder – Russia I grew up in Vladivostok, the city on the eastern edge of Russia where literally land ends. Russia is so vast and has so many time zones that when another Katya in Moscow is still in yesterday getting ready for bed, I am already in tomorrow getting ready for breakfast. My all-time favourite food was (and still is) blinis. Their smell still brings back memories of my childhood: my sister and I always looked forward to Saturday brunch, when mum would not be hurrying to work and would make us something special. And what could be more special than her blinis – all buttery, puffy and checkered with the imprint of the pattern of mum’s pan. For a very long time I thought that was what proper blinis should look like! When I myself became a mother I decided to keep up the tradition of Saturday blinis for my own daughter. I could not manage to get a checkered pan so my blinis are different from my mum’s – they are very thin and lacy which is a good sign, and never a blob. We even have a saying in Russian: “the first pancake is always a blob”, meaning that practice makes perfect, and I do practice a lot because I know that one special someone is waiting for her ‘Saturday special’!

Ingredients: 100g plain flour pinch of salt 2 free-range eggs 300ml milk 5 tbsp oil (you can use melted butter as well)

Method: **

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl.

Whisk the egg into the flour.

Then slowly pouring the milk into the dry mixture, whisk together until the batter is smooth.

Pour oil (or butter) into the batter and carefully mix it.

Heat a 20cm/8in crêpe or omelette pan until very hot, drizzle in a small amount of oil (only for the first pancake) and tip the pan to swirl the oil around.

Ladle in about two tablespoons of batter mix and immediately tilt the pan from side to side to get a thin, even layer of batter to cover the base of the pan.

Cook for around 30 seconds until the underside is golden then flip or turn with a pallet knife.

Normally we start with savoury fillings like smoked salmon with cheese (blue cheese preferably) or caviar (for special occasions).

For a sweet option we fill them with jam (blueberry is my favourite), mixing it with sour cream, or lemon juice with sugar, or sweet condensed milk, or honey with melted butter… The list is endless! It all depends on your imagination!

Bon appetit!

153 Photo by Katy Leder

The Loaf of Independence Rose Kudabaeva – Kazakhstan Almost twenty years ago, in November 1993, my husband and I were sitting in our kitchen in Almaty, the southern capital of Kazakhstan, and the most pressing problem of the day was – where we will get a loaf of bread? We were not starving; we had two kids and stable jobs, but we didn’t have money. In fact, like many ordinary people in Kazakhstan in those few days, we didn’t have money at all. Soviet roubles we had used all our lives were already in the past and tenge - our new national currency – was still in the future. The very nearest future indeed, just two or three days, but in practice it meant empty pockets and empty shelves in the shops. In 1991 the crumbling ‘Titanic’ called the USSR had had its day and sank. Kazakhstan, as other former Soviet Republics, was now an independent country but financially, for two more years, it was still a part of the so-called ‘Russian rouble zone’. In July 1993 Russia suddenly issued new roubles which were available only to the Russian banks. Other members of the rouble zone – Kazakhstan amongst them were left to their own devices. Kazakh newspapers wrote about trucks from Russia delivering and ‘dumping’ old Soviet currency into neighboring Kazakhstan where prices went through the roof. Inflation was sky high, the pack of cigarettes which used to cost less than a rouble was now selling for thousands, then tens of thousands. Can you imagine the prices for other things like a fur hat or coat, which are necessary items in our harsh winters? The exchange of notes began on the morning of 15 November and lasted several days. Ratio 1 tenge : 500 roubles. And the amount of money to be exchanged for one person was limited. It meant that many people, especially pensioners, lost all their savings. I remember how one of my colleagues at the National Academy of Science was asking everyone to help her mother out, but it wasn’t so easy to find those willing to help, everyone had their own money to exchange. The Bread whisperer Like many women in the former USSR, where ready meals were virtually nonexistent, I used to cook and bake a lot. Besides, I had the example of my late Grandmother who, despite virtually losing her eyesight in old age, still made baursaks – Kazakh national buns – small bits of dough fried in oil. She couldn’t wear glasses, they caused her headaches. Instead she used a small magnifying glass with a handle. With this semblance of a monocle, she would come into the kitchen of my Aunt, with whom she lived, and would inspect everything giving instructions and advice.

With the dough, she didn’t trust anyone. She made it without any kitchen scales, measuring everything by eye and using all leftovers of milk, yogurt or other dairy found in the fridge. While the dough was resting, she used to cover it carefully with kitchen towels and forbade everyone to open windows. From time to time she would check the rising dough, whispering something as though encouraging it to be nice to her and not let her down. And it never did. It always came out dark gold. Despite all these family traditions in cooking, baking bread wasn’t my specialty. We had quite a choice of different loaves in the shops and baking bread wasn’t something I would spend your time on. But in those snowy November days 20 years ago I didn’t have any choice: I had to bake a loaf of bread. By the way, I didn’t have a bread making machine. I doubt that anyone in Kazakhstan had one at that time. Like my Granny, I first checked our fridge and took everything which I could use – milk, eggs, a bit of butter and a bit of cheese, a bit of yogurt and a bit of sour cream. Kneading the dough I whispered to my future loaf of bread: “Please be tasty”, and left it to rest for a while. And it didn’t disappoint us – fresh out of the oven it had a colour of dark gold and a wonderful aroma. It was our loaf of independence and we shared it, hoping for the best, not only for us but for the whole country which was drifting towards new, unknown horizons.

155

Method:

Ingredients: (The measurements below make a big loaf (900g); for a small one, halve all the ingredients.) 650g self-raising flour 300ml milk 2 eggs 2 tbsp double cream 2 tbsp yogurt 50g margarine 1 tbsp sugar 1 level tsp salt ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl.

Rub or dice margarine into the flour and salt until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Pour warmed milk into a separate bowl, add eggs, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, double cream and yogurt and mix everything together thoroughly.

Add flour and margarine mixture into a bowl with the milk, eggs etc.

Bring the dough together using your hands.

Knead until smooth in the bowl.

Cover the bowl with towels and leave the dough to rise for 1 ½ hours.

Oil the baking tray.

You can either roll the dough or just flatten, giving dough a round shape.

Bake at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 for 40 - 35 min until golden-brown.

Enjoy it.

157 Photo by Rose Kudabaeva

Vasina’s Torte – Maja Petrusevska – Macedonia I like baking cakes. As a child, this is how I got interested in cooking. Luckily, my mum was very encouraging and supportive. If she was baking, I was waiting by the table for the precious moment when I would be allowed to lick the edges of the mixing bowls. That was the moment of happiness! This is the cake that brings back my childhood memories. It used to be baked by my grandmother, then my mother and now I’m happily baking it for my kids and family. I baked it for my daughter’s tenth birthday. It’s an easy recipe, everyone can make it and it tastes heavenly.

Ingredients: For the sponge: 5 eggs 2 tbsp plain flour 5 tbsp sugar 6 tbsp ground walnuts For the topping: 100ml milk 100g dark chocolate 100g or a bit more of ground walnuts (my gran used to say you cannot go wrong with more walnuts) 200g sugar 150g butter Orange zest (optional but recommended as it’s lovely with the chocolate) Whipped cream for finishing

Method: **

Firstly, mix the egg whites until light and fluffy. Put them aside.

Then mix the yolks with the sugar until light and smooth.

Add the flour and ground walnuts bit by bit and add the egg whites, mixing with a spatula. Do this by hand rather than with a mixer; this will preserve the air in the mixture.

Put the mixture in a round baking tin, size 20cm and lined with baking paper.

Bake at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 until it is done.

In the meantime prepare the topping, on a medium heat, melt the chocolate with the milk.

Add sugar, ground walnuts and butter until you have a lovely chocolate mix. Add orange zest.

When the base is baked and cooled add the topping. Finish it with the whipped cream and decorate.

159 Photo by Maja Petrusevska

Kasha (Buckwheat Porridge) – Alexander Zhuravlyov – Russia For some unknown reason, this porridge is associated in the minds of all Russians who grew up in the Soviet period with the idea of home cooking, as opposed to bad food served in the kindergartens or schools where buckwheat was almost never made. There, an awful semolina gruel was offered to poor children instead. The buckwheat you need is usually sold already roasted in health shops. Or you can roast it yourself for 20 minutes in a shallow frying pan. I always try to import some Grechka (Russian for buckwheat) from Russia when I go there as it tastes better than the stuff you can buy in the UK, although the organic roasted buckwheat from Holland which is on sale at health food shops is a very close approximation.

Ingredients: 1 cup buckwheat 2 cups water 100g butter 1 tsp salt

Method: **

Put the buckwheat in a casserole dish.

Add 240ml of boiling water, 100 grams of butter and a teaspoonful of salt.

Place uncovered in the middle of the oven heated to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 45-40 mins.

That’s it. The resulting kasha is very good on its own, or with milk, or as a side dish to meats.

It can be easily reheated in a frying pan and it remains just as good.

I prefer it when it is still very hot from the oven, with a bit a butter thrown in.

161 Photo by Alexander Zhuravlyov

Near and Middle East BBC Arabic was the first Language service to launch with its radio service in 1938. BBC Persian followed soon after in 1940. Together they are two of the biggest Language services the BBC has. BBC Pashto was set up in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan forty years later and the BBC also broadcasts in Dari to Afghanistan. Today BBC Arabic is a 24-hour news service broadcasting to 20 countries in the Arab world while BBC Persian TV is the second most watched channel in Iran. The food from this region is very aromatic, and while you will find there are huge regional differences, you can be sure to see the same ingredients being used time and time again. So make sure you are stocked up on sumac, mint and parsley, rose water and za’atar spice. It’s these fragrant herbs and spices and the memories of their aroma that make cooking these dishes so nostalgic for World Service’s journalists.

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Bolani –

Asif Maroof – Afghanistan When I was a child my favourite food was roasted potatoes – here in the UK we call them ‘chips’. But in Afghanistan we call it kachaloo-i-sorkhkarda, meaning that the potato is cut into small pieces and then roasted in oil. From the time I was a child until I graduated from University, that was my favourite food. And it was the same with my small brother and with my children. Nowadays, because of the cholesterol I don’t have them so often but still it is part of my favourite food, especially with eggs! Potatoes are in another dish that you will find in Afghanistan in family homes, in the streets - everywhere there is Bolani. It is a kind of starter but you can also have it as a main dish. You can make a bit of chutney to go with it or sometimes just yoghurt mixed with a little bit of salt.

Ingredients: Flour Water Vinegar Potatoes Leeks Onion Coriander Green pepper (optional) Salt

Method: **

First of all you make the dough with flour, water and vinegar. Then put it aside to rise for an hour with a cover over it.

Then you prepare your vegetables – leek, potato and onion. Chop them. Wash them and add a little bit of salt. Some people add some oil and black pepper. You boil and mash them; some people like green pepper in the mix too.

Then select one small piece of the dough, roll it out. Now you add the vegetable mix and fold the edges in, like a big samosa.

Put a little bit of oil on a frying pan and fry it. Also you can cook it in the oven instead of frying.

Afghan Chutney (by Hameed Noor)

I usually buy a little bit of fresh coriander, fresh mint, fresh tomato and maybe 2 or 3 or 5 hot chillies – green, hot chillies.

You put it in a mixer, you mix it and that’s chutney. So easy!

And you can mix one spoon of it with yoghurt to make chutney sauce.

165

Borani Banjan (Aubergine & Tomatoes with Yoghurt)Saeeda Mahmood – Afghanistan

As a child I was fond of cooking and I liked experimenting. There is a bread that we make in Afghanistan called tawa; a fire is lit under a big pan that we bake the bread in and it comes out like a big naan or chapatti. At home, our cook made the bread and I asked her to save two pieces of dough for me each time so that I could try making it. She said my mother would not approve but I just told her not to tell my mother! So after that, our servant always saved some dough for me and each time I tried I made horrible shapes: it was all uneven on one side or it just didn’t come out right so I would throw them into the garden of our next-door neighbour! Then one day, our servant didn’t turn up and my mother was ill. She had a temperature and couldn’t get out of bed. She was worried that the dough, which had already been prepared, would go off if we didn’t use it to make the bread. I told her I could make it. She didn’t believe that I had ever done it before but I persuaded her I could do it. She was so surprised and amazed when I made the tawa! She was very pleased, even when she learnt that I had spoiled so many breads with my experimenting. She then decided to always let me experiment in the kitchen. I still experiment with cooking. If I learn a recipe from you I will add my own spices, I will mix English food with Afghan food and I’m always trying different dishes. This recipe is the result of experimenting and adapting. The aubergine dish of Borani Banjan that we used to make back home in Afghanistan needs a lot of energy and a lot of work. Here in the UK, we have different facilities, different ovens and so on.

Method:

Ingredients: 2 aubergines 2 green chillies 1 big tomato (or 2 medium tomatoes) 4 garlic cloves Turmeric powder, to taste Salt, to taste Greek-style yoghurt

Cut the aubergine into rounds, then put some olive oil or vegetable oil on with a little brush.

Put the oven on at the highest heat for 10 or 15 minutes before you put the aubergine in. Just put some oil on a tray and put the aubergine on it so that it’s coated. Then you put it in the oven and check on it; the aubergine changes colour a little bit, not very brown but a golden colour. Then you take it out.

Put two tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and heat, then add two green chillies with the seeds removed. Add one big fresh tomato or two medium ones, chopped very finely. And two cloves of garlic, very nicely smashed or crushed. Add a little bit of salt to your taste, and a little turmeric powder.

Put the aubergine that you have already cooked on top of this mix and then keep it on a very slow heat for maybe 15 – 10 minutes. You need to check on it, because the tomato has a little bit of water and juice that will come out and it’s the same for the aubergine.

When it’s cooked, you take Greek-style yoghurt and add another one or two cloves of garlic, finely crushed, and mix. Then you put the yoghurt mix in a dish and place the aubergine on top of it.

It will take you hardly 20 minutes to make. Two aubergines are more than enough for 6 people. You can eat it with rice or with home-made bread, or shopbought bread, whatever you like. It’s very delicious.

167 Photo by Paula Moio

Mantu-

Tahir Qadiry – Afghanistan I come from the north of Afghanistan, Mazar-e Sharif, which is very famous for its mantu (dumplings). This food is very typical in the north of Afghanistan. Mantu are normally eaten at very special occasions: Eid festivals, New Year, or when you invite your best friends or have family get-togethers, because it needs a bit of work. It’s not like cooking an ordinary food like pulao rice so therefore people have to make an effort to make it. Normally, women come together, they prepare it and cook it and have a chat; it’s a social activity. And it takes a few hours, making the dough and cooking it. Especially in the way that they make it because when you see the mantu at the end the shapes are all the same; you can see how good they look when they put them all together. So this is a special food. When someone is very special to you and you invite them to your home, the first thing you tell them is “Okay, come tonight - I’ll make you mantu”, because you want to surprise and please them so much. We have them here (in the UK), normally when we have some special guests or for my daughter’s birthday, things like that. And when I go to Afghanistan my mum cooks it so it’s very special.

Ingredients: Plain flour Meat Onions Coriander Yoghurt Salt and pepper Tomatoes

Method: **

Take some white flour and make a dough, the same as you might make for bread but don’t make it very soft because later you’ll be putting meat in it so it needs to be quite thick and robust.

Mince the meat – normally you make a vegetable or a meat mantu but a meat one is very popular in our part of the world. We usually use veal so that it’s very tender.

Mix the meat, chopped onion and a few other chopped vegetables like coriander to add taste to it, and pepper, and add a bit of oil. Mostly people cook the beef before putting it into mantu. In Afghanistan normally we cook it first, then it’s put into the mantu and steamed so it should just melt in your mouth.

Then you cut the dough into different shapes: there is one like a big flower, that is very special but normally they are like big ravioli.

The most important part is how you shape it – bringing the opposite corners in and twisting the edges. You put all the filling in the centre then you twist it. Once it’s twisted there are different ways of

cooking it but normally they are steamed for 30 or 40 minutes. **

For the mantu that looks like a flower you put meat inside the dough in a long sausage, and then curl it round into a rose shape. You have to be careful to make the dough thicker, because if it’s too thin and you put lots of the filling in it leaks and it won’t look good.

Once the mantu is made they are put on a very big plate - very typical Uzbek-style plates.

Take the yoghurt, add some water to make it juicy and then salt, add more coriander, pepper or whatever flavourings you want. Put the yoghurt on top of the mantu and add a sauce of vegetables with tomatoes, onions and sometimes beans.

It’s not difficult, it’s actually very easy but it has a few tricky bits!

169 Photo by Tahir Qadiri

Paneer-e-Afghani

(Afghan Cheese)

Hameed Noor

–

Food is important for fuelling our bodies so therefore it is important to eat ‘good food’. I like eating homemade food and I always prefer to use fresh ingredients. I usually ask people how to do something then I make my version.

Ingredients: 1.5 litre milk 3 tsp yoghurt or juice of half a lime or lemon You will also need a muslin, cheesecloth or thin, silky fabric

Method: **

Bring milk to boil.

Add 3 teaspoons of yoghurt or lime/lemon juice.

The milk becomes lumpy.

When the rest of the milk has separated turn off the cooker.

Pour it through cheese cloth so the water drains.

Get rid of all the water and you are left with a lump of cheese.

Slices of the cheese are normally served with raisins.

171 Photo by Hameed Noor

Mirza Ghasemi –

Sadeq Saba – Iran

Mirza Ghasemi originates from the province of Gilan in northern Iran. In my childhood my mum could hardly make any dish which all my eight siblings liked except Mirza Ghasemi. When we had this simple and delicious dish everybody loved it and we ate it as a family. When I moved from my home town of Rasht to Tehran for further education the only food I missed from home was Mirza Ghasemi. In those days it was a local dish but over the last few decades it has had a phenomenal success and has now become a national dish. You can even find it in every Persian restaurant in London. In the north of Iran it’s a main dish and people eat it with rice but in other places people eat it as a starter with pitta bread. The Persians believe you always have to have a balance of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ foods. This philosophy has nothing to do with the temperature at which the food is served; it has to do with the effects of the food on your body and whether it has a cooling or a heating effect. In Mirza Ghasemi, aubergine is ‘cold’ but eggs and garlic are ‘hot’.

Ingredients: 2 aubergines 2 eggs 3 cloves garlic 1 large tomato (optional) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper 1 tsp turmeric

Method: **

Bake aubergines in oven for about 45 – 40 minutes at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6, first piercing the skin.

Allow to cool then peel off the skin and mash.

Chop the garlic then fry in oil until golden.

Add mashed aubergine and fry for around 20 minutes, adding the salt, pepper and turmeric.

Either grate the tomato, or boil, skin and crush it. Add to the mix and cook for a further 10 minutes on a medium heat.

Make a hole in the mix and add beaten eggs, once cooked stir the whole mix to blend. Cook for another 4-3 minutes.

173 Photo by Lara Owen

Sangak â&#x20AC;&#x201C;

Mehdi Beigi - Iran Sangak is one of the most famous and delicious types of bread baked in Iran. This bread is specially nostalgic for Iranian people who live abroad. The recipe is so simple but it is very difficult to bake it without the right means: a traditional oven for baking bread. The oven is filled with pebbles and small stones on which the dough is spread out to bake. Sangak is served along with many traditional Persian recipes such as Abgoosht (lamb, gravy, chick peas, potatoes), Halim (a type of wheat porridge served for breakfast), Kalle Pache (lamb head and leg), Kabab Koobideh (minced beef kebab) etc. In Iran people eat Sangak very simply, with some cheese and vegetables as a popular snack. Iranian people eat lots of bread with their meals and Sangak is very vital. I came to London in September 2008 to work at BBC Persian TV. For the first few months I searched everywhere in London for Sangak. I visited many Iranian grocery stores in the city. I found other types of bread such as Lavash and Barbary but no Sangak. While travelling around the UK I was always looking for Sangak. No chance! I even asked my friends around Europe to see if they could find any in their cities. No luck. There was no Sangak anywhere in Europe. Almost a year passed and I was desperate to taste our beloved Sangak again. Even a mouthful would quench my thirst for this delicious bread. But as necessity is the mother of invention, I decided to bake my own bread here in London.

Ingredients: 1kg wholemeal flour 100g yeast (fresh or dried) 4 glasses water 100g sesame seeds (optional)

Method: **

First I made Maye Khamir (sourdough). I needed to do this 24 hours before the actual bake. I mixed 150 grams of the flour with one glass of water. Then I added yeast and combined it with a mixer. I poured the mixture in to a large bowl and covered it with a clean film. I put the bowl in the fridge for 24 hours. Note: the bowl should be large because the dough will puff and increase its size overnight.

When the Maye Khamir was ready, I mixed the remaining 750 grams of wholemeal flour with 2 glasses of water. The dough had to be a bit thinner. I mixed this dough with the Maye Khamir and placed it in a cool place for one hour. Then the dough was ready for baking.

But the problem was lack of a traditional oven filled with pebbles. In Iran they fill the bakery oven with round and soft pebbles. The baker uses three pieces of wood; each piece is like an oar. The first one, which is heavier, is used to even up the surface of the pebbles inside the oven. The baker flattens the surface every few minutes. This helps the dough not to not stick to the pebbles while baking.

The second oar is used to spread the dough in the oven and the third one is a thinner stick which is used to turn the dough over and also for bringing the bread out of the oven.

Instead of the traditional oven I decided to use the oven grill in the kitchen. I searched everywhere to find pebbles. Finally I bought some at a garden centre. I filled the oven tray with pebbles. I also found an oarlike piece of wood for spreading the dough on the pebbles.

The temperature of the oven grill needed to be at medium. First I put the tray of pebbles inside the oven grill to get hot. I preheated the oven grill for 15 minutes. Then I took the oar and moistened it with water. After that I took a handful of dough and spread it on the oar surface. The dough needed be thin but not too thin.

When it was done, I saturated my hands with water and started tapping the dough. While tapping, I remembered my childhood. I liked watching Iranian Sangak bakers while queuing to buy bread in Iran. They used to do this with a special body movement: their behinds kept moving a lot. It was like a dance.

175

Sangak – Mehdi Beigi - Iran

I don’t know the reason but that might have been essential! **

I brought the tray of pebbles out of the oven. Smoothly and slowly I spread the dough with the oar on the pebbles. I started from one end of the tray and moved my hands towards the other end. I had to be mindful of the size of the tray. This part was the most difficult.

When done, I sprinkled some sesame seeds on the dough. Then I placed the tray back in the oven grill and waited for two to three minutes until the surface of the dough became light brown. Then I took the tray out of the oven grill and turned the dough over. At this point I saw pebbles stuck to the dough! I panicked but decided to go on.

I put the tray back in the oven grill and waited for another 3 minutes. My lovely bread was ready. I took it out of the oven grill and needed to clear the pebbles off the bread. I let it cool a little and then removed the pebbles. My wife was the first Iranian to try it. She had cooked Halim (aka Haleem, a stew of wheat, barley, meat and spices) and we had the loveliest breakfast ever.

177 Photo by Mehdi Beigi

Cheese Fatayer – Hamzeh Al Agha – Palestine

Fatayer is a traditional snack in the Middle Eastern kitchen. Families bake Fatayer usually when there is big occasion, such as a family lunch or dinner, or if people are getting together to celebrate a specific occasion. It can be used as starter or as a main course. It can be made with several fillings, such as Zaa’tar (oregano with sesame seed), minced beef and peppers, spinach or even mashed potatoes. One of things I like about Fatayer is that you can freeze them for up to 6 months. Once you want to eat them, just take them out of the freezer and leave them at room temperature for a couple of hours or longer if you are not in a hurry. Then heat them in the oven on a low heat for few minutes ONLY or they will go hard. Alternatively, heat them in the microwave using wax paper to keep them fresh.

Ingredients: Dough 3 cups strong white flour 1 large egg, room temperature ¾ cup warm water (or more if needed) 1 tbsp white sugar 1 tbsp instant dry yeast 1 tsp salt 3/1 cup vegetable or sunflower oil 3/1 cup powdered whole dry milk Filling: 200g strong cheddar cheese 200g mozzarella cheese 1 tbsp olive oil

Method: **

Make the dough.

In a mixer bowl, mix the dry ingredients: flour, salt, powdered milk, yeast and sugar.

Start the mixer on a low speed, add the water, vegetable oil and egg then knead until you get a soft dough but not sticky.

Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for at least an hour or until doubled in size.

Make the filling

Mix the two cheeses and the tablespoon of olive oil and set aside.

Form the fatayer.

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and place one rack in the middle of the oven.

Divide the dough, after punching it to release the air, into about 16 balls and let them rest on a floured counter for 10 minutes (covered with a kitchen towel).

Take one ball of dough and roll it into a 5 inch circle. Spread a heaped tablespoon of cheese mix in the middle, then you can either leave it flat or fold each third of the circle towards the centre, exposing the cheese and fold the two ends to form a boat shaped pie. Press on the pie to flatten it.

Place the fatayer on a cookie sheet lined with parchment.

Bake the fatayer in the oven for about 10 minutes or until golden in colour from the top to the bottom.

Serve them while still warm and enjoy!

179 Photo by Hamzeh Al Agha

Bric –

Wafa Zaiane – Tunisia Fatayer is a traditional snack in the Middle Eastern kitchen. Families bake Fatayer usually when there is big occasion, such as a family lunch or dinner, or if people are getting together to celebrate a specific occasion. It can be used as starter or as a main course. It can be made with several fillings, such as Zaa’tar (oregano with sesame seed), minced beef and peppers, spinach or even mashed potatoes. One of things I like about Fatayer is that you can freeze them for up to 6 months. Once you want to eat them, just take them out of the freezer and leave them at room temperature for a couple of hours or longer if you are not in a hurry. Then heat them in the oven on a low heat for few minutes ONLY or they will go hard. Alternatively, heat them in the microwave using wax paper to keep them fresh.

Method:

Ingredients: 4 sheets of malsouka or spring roll sheets 4 eggs Chopped onion Chopped parsley Tinned tuna Capers Lemon Salt and pepper Diced potatoes (optional)

Spread the sheet of pastry on a flat plate.

You can leave it round or fold the ends to make it square depending on the shape you want to obtain.

Add the chopped parsley, onions and potatoes (if you’re using them), then crack open an egg and drop it on the mixture. Important: be careful not break the yolk throughout.

Add a teaspoon of tuna and a few capers on top.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Now that it’s full, there are different ways to fold the sheet depending on your preference and whether it will be eaten on a plate or ‘on the go’, like a rolled pancake or a triangular samosa.

The bric sheets usually show instructions on the back of the packaging for folding or rolling into different shapes.

The half-moon shape is the most common and the easiest, produced by folding the round sheet in two.

Shallow fry it in hot oil for a few seconds, then turn the heat down and continue frying until golden brown.

Once ready, adorn with salad and don’t forget to drizzle lemon juice into the brica (singular of bric) before each mouthful.

Presentations of side dishes such as bric are important

to many in Tunisia. A traditional way to present it is to place a half-moon brica in the middle of a whole lemon! To balance the lemon, slice a cap on its bottom end so it can hold still as a support. Cut a dent in the top of the lemon and wedge the brica in it. **â&#x20AC;&#x2030;

Enjoy!

181 Photo by Wafa Zaiane

Chicken Kebab & Afghan Rice – Hameed Noor – Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, usually the women do the cooking but since I came to the UK I’ve learnt to cook. I have to cook for myself because I don’t want to always have ready meals; it’s not really healthy so I prefer to cook my own food. I enjoy making this Afghan dish; I find it very tasty and delicious compared to fast food and by cooking for ourselves we will save a lot of money over a lifetime too!

Ingredients: (Chicken Kebab) 2 chicken legs 1 tbsp oil ½ tsp haldi (turmeric) Salt

Method: **

Wash chicken legs and place them on a baking tray.

Pre-heat the oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.

Prepare a mix of the oil, haldi and a bit of salt and rub it into the chicken (you might want to wear gloves as it stains your hands).

Boil water and pour it into the baking tray, ensuring that 3/1 of chicken is immersed in water.

Cover it with foil to keep the steam in and cook for about 45 minutes. Then take the foil off and cook it for further 30 minutes or until roasted.

Ingredients: (Afghan Rice) 450g rice Jeera (cumin seed) Oil

Method: **

Wash the rice until you get rid of the starch. Leave the rice in a bowl covered in water.

Meanwhile, boil 4 cups of water in a pot and add a little bit of salt (at least one teaspoon).

Let the water boil for a while and then add the rice. Leave it for about 10 or 15 minutes until the rice has softened.

Put the rice into a sieve to get rid of all the water and then put the rice back in the pot.

Place the pot back onto the cooker; add a little bit of jeera and 2 or 3 tablespoons of oil.

Mix it together and cook it on a low heat for about 20 minutes.

183 Photo by Hameed Noor

Musakhan -

Samah Hanaysha – Palestine This is a traditional Palestinian dish made with lots of onion, olive oil and chicken and a special red spice called sumac, which tastes sour. All these ingredients go on top of the Palestinian bread that is baked in a very traditional way in a Taboun oven. This meal is always linked in my mind with extended family gatherings, especially when other relatives used to come from abroad and my mum cooked for everyone. Whenever I remember that dish, I go back in my memory to my happy childhood days and the holiday time where you have nothing to do but to chill out with family members, have good food and play around. I miss those days; that is why this dish is even more special for me.

Method:

Ingredients: **

Stew the finely chopped half onion with a small amount of olive oil, and then add the chicken pieces.

Add the spices, mix well, then add the boiling water and leave it to cook on a low heat for half an hour.

Take a big frying pan and add the kilo of chopped onion to a cup of olive oil. Heat and stir it until the onion starts getting juicy.

When the chicken is ready take it out of the soup and add that soup to the onion. (It shouldn’t be a big quantity so we can keep the mixture quite thick.)

Place the chicken pieces on an oven tray and grill until golden.

Ingredients:

For cooking the chicken: ½ onion, finely chopped 1 tsp mixed spice 1 tsp salt 3 bay leaves 3 cardamoms 2 garlic cloves 1 litre boiling water

In another pan fry the almonds until golden and keep aside to spread over the bread later.

Take the tandoori bread and dip each of them in the onion sauce, then take a flat rounded baking tray and place the bread on it.

Take some onion from the sauce and spread it over the bread, then spread some sumac spice on top of it.

Distribute a couple of chicken pieces on the bread and finally spread some fried almond on top.

Repeat the process with the other pieces of bread.

Place the tray in the oven for a couple of minutes until the bread becomes a bit crunchy.

Take it out and cut into four pieces.

Serve on four flat plates with a side dish of yoghurt and a mixed salad.

1kg chopped onion 2 chickens cut into four pieces each 1 litre olive oil 3 tandoori breads (or pitta breads) 250ml almonds 250ml sumac spice Yoghurt

185 Photo by Hannan Rais

Sitti’s Bamia (lamb and okra stew) Hannah Khalil – Palestine

My grandmother was an amazing cook despite having a limited kitchen. Most of my father’s stories about her involve food: he claims that when Sitti went into labour with him she was out in the fields picking the spoils of the season. She simply walked home, gave birth, handed him to her own mother and went back out to finish her work. I like to think that she was harvesting bamia (okra) at the time. I remember when we visited her in our home-town, Yassouf in the West Bank in the late-Eighties; on our first morning she cooked the most incredible banquet breakfast: halloumi, hummus, eggs with za’atar, you name it. But it was too early for me and I had no appetite. She tried to coax me to eat, and when I wouldn’t she disappeared, returning with a pot of bamia. She knew it was my favourite, and thought I wasn’t eating because I didn’t like anything else there. I can’t remember if I managed to eat any for breakfast and I don’t think I’d recommend this hearty lamb and okra stew that early in the day, but as a homely and warming dish I can think of no better comfort food. I remember Sitti every time I make it.

Ingredients: 400g diced lamb (neck or shoulder) 300g bamia/okra/ladies fingers 2 tins chopped tomatoes 2 garlic cloves 1 large onion Olive oil ½ lemon Bread and rice (to serve)

Method: **

Wash the bamia well and cut the tiniest amount off the top and tail (not enough to expose the insides just to take off the hard tips).

Dry it and flash fry to soften slightly. Put the bamia on a plate and keep on the side for later.

Dice the onion, then fry over a medium heat until soft.

Now turn up the heat and add the lamb, colouring it on all sides.

Crush the garlic and add to the pan, stirring everything well for a moment until you can smell garlic in the air.

Now throw in the two tins of tomatoes and bring the mixture to a boil.

Season with salt and pepper and add a third of the bamia. Now turn the heat down to let it simmer gently for an hour.

After the meat has been cooking for an hour add the remaining bamia and leave to simmer for another 45 minutes to an hour.

Just before serving squeeze over the juice of ½ a lemon and add a splash of Palestinian olive oil, plate up with rice and khoubbez (if you can’t get khoubbez, pitta bread works too).

Tips: **

The best bamia are the small ones as these are sweeter – but they can be hard to find in the UK. If you are lucky enough to get some, they will cook much more quickly than the larger ones you find in a supermarket, so only give them 30 minutes in the stew.

I like to add some of the bamia early so it gets soft and all the lovely thick juices go in to the sauce. If you prefer your bamia intact don’t add any until the final stage of cooking the meat.

187 Photo by Hannah Khalil

Chicken Bayuti of Iraqi Jews Diloram Ibrahimova – Iraq

My mother in-law, originally born in Baghdad, treats us to a different type of Sunday lunch. She cooks wonderful Iraqi meals, one of them she calls chicken bayuti. I know that when she came to Britain she could only bring a few possessions, and one of these was her treasured cookbook that she has been using since 1960. The book is full of Iraqi recipes written in Arabic and was very popular among Iraqi housewives of that era. It has more than 200 recipes and was compiled by the Headmistress of a Baghdad girls’ school for elite housewives. Occasionally, she still consults it to remind herself, especially of very traditional Iraqi dishes unknown to her but remembered and missed by either a family member or a friend abroad. One recipe is not in this cookbook, but she remembers it by heart. It’s the dish that Iraqi Jews used to cook on Fridays. My mother in-law had a Jewish neighbour called Umm Eddie, “Habbuba” she says when she remembers her. Umm Eddie had a big family of ten children. The Jewish community was very integrated into Iraqi society; between themselves they spoke Arabic, they cooked Iraqi food and their kids attended the same schools alongside their Iraqi friends. Iraq before the mid-70s was a cosmopolitan country with Christians, Jews, Sunni and Shia Muslims living in a relative harmony. At the same time, all of them had the freedom to practice their religious traditions, so the Jews were very strict in observing Shabbat. In full accordance with their faith they would not light a fire on Saturdays, and the food would be prepared the day before. For this reason, Jewish women always cooked food on Friday so that it could rest overnight and be eaten cold on Saturday. From Arabic, bayuti is translated as ‘left from night before’.

My mother in-law still cherishes fond memories of her neighbour. When Umm Eddie cooked chicken bayuti she would make sure that one pot would go to her neighbours. Umm Eddie was a hard-working, funny and eager-to-help type. In our family she is remembered as a peaceful and gentle soul. In the 1970s, when Saddam Hussein’s grip on power tightened in Iraq, all Jews had to leave, including Umm Eddie with her big family. My mother in law says they went to Israel and it was a very sad occasion for everyone. The last meal Umm Eddie cooked before her departure was chicken bayuti. Nowadays, when my mother in-law cooks the dish, she says that she does exactly as Umm Eddie taught her. Umm Eddie used to put the whole chicken into the pot and cover with water that reaches half-way up the sides of the bird. Before that she fried onions in baharat (traditional Iraqi spices) adding majoon (tomato paste), and simmered it until the chicken is ready. Carefully she would put the rice into the chicken bouillon and keep it on a low heat throughout the night. The next day, during the observance of Shabbat, Umm Eddie would serve the warm red-coloured rice on a big plate with the chicken on the top. The rice would taste heavenly because of all the flavours in the soup that it absorbed. My mother-in-law, our beloved Bebe, modified this recipe reducing the time and enhancing it in her own way, as many other Iraqi grandmothers have done. When Bebe dishes up her bayuti she makes sure that the rice is buried under chunks of crusty rice pieces called haqaqa. Then she puts the golden chicken on the top of it and decorates the plate with boiled eggs (or quails eggs) cut into halves.

189

Method: **

Fry two medium onions cut in rings with six garlic cloves in two spoons of vegetable oil.

Ingredients:

Add to it baharat- cardamon, cinnamon, cumin, coriander seeds and pepper.

Whole chicken 2 medium onions 6 garlic gloves Rice (750g) Tomato paste Olive oil Baharat – spices Boiled eggs (for decoration)

Take out some fried onions for later decoration of the dish.

Put the whole chicken into the pot that was rubbed with lemon and cook until it’s red on both sides.

Add cold water with tomato paste, add some salt and lower the heat.

After a while (depending on the size of the chicken) add pre-washed rice (750 g), bring it to the boil and leave it uncovered.

After the rice absorbed the water, cover it with a lid wrapped in a kitchen towel and transfer the pot into the pre-heated oven for another 20 min.

Once it’s ready dish out the rice on a big plate, not forgetting haqaqa, then put the chicken on top, decorate with fried onions and hard boiled quails eggs.

Serve it with amba- pickled mango pieces or pomegranate seeds.

191 Photo by Diloram Ibrahimova

Basbousa / Namora – Hamzeh Al Agha – Palestine

In the Middle East, in Palestine, families rely on home-cooked food. It’s part of the culture that there is competition between neighbours as to who is the best cook. For afternoon tea, the neighbours come over and the host serves a huge amount of food – starters, main course and desserts – to impress their guests. In the last few weeks of Ramadan, neighbours gather in each house to help make sweets for Eid. As a child, when it was our turn, we had fifteen women from neighbouring families in our house, they would come, sit around the kitchen table and within two hours they had finished the job. They used around fifteen kilograms of semolina flour for the deserts! After my older sister got married my mother would ask for help in the kitchen. My older brother wasn’t interested and I said ‘Why should I be in the kitchen – I’m a man, not a woman.’ My mother said ‘Don’t complain, you never know where you will end up when you’re older. I’m sure this will help you later in life.’ I moved to the UK in 2005 and I found it difficult to feed myself – I was eating out at restaurants. I started calling my mother, asking her how to cook. From that point on I had a passion for cooking - my skills have improved and they are still improving! When I was cooking I would imagine my mum standing in the kitchen next to me. It is part of the Arab culture that food gathers people together and there are conversations going on. I pictured my mother in front of me, cooking and talking to me and that helped me a lot. In my mum’s kitchen it would be a big mess because mum never cooks one dish only. She cooks three or four main courses together or at least two mains and two appetisers. We had two live-in housekeepers who helped with the chopping and dicing but my Mum is the only one who would touch the food on the stove. She would be running from corner to corner of our massive kitchen, racing to get everything cooked and ready to eat at the same time. My mum always wears a very big smile in the kitchen, even when she’s stressed and under pressure. She’s never upset in the kitchen. Now, when I go back to visit my family, we all still gather together in the kitchen and I cook to give mum a break. And she actually asks me for recipes now, so I’m returning the favour. She’s the only one that I will give all my recipes to, and all my secrets.

193

Photo by Hamzeh Al Agha

Ingredients: 1 ¼ cups butter at room temperature ¾ cup plain yoghurt 1 large egg 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 ½ cups fine semolina 1 ½ cups coarse semolina 1 cup granulated sugar 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda ¼ tsp salt ¼ cup fine grated coconut (optional – alternative is sliced almonds) 1 tbsp orange blossom water or rose water Sugar syrup: 3 cups granulated sugar 2 cups water 1 tbsp lemon juice

Method: **

Brush a 13 x 9 inch pan with butter.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until just melted. Do not over heat.

In a stand mixer bowl put the butter mixture. Fit the balloon whisk. Beat on a low speed and add the yogurt, egg, vanilla extract, semolina, baking powder, baking soda, salt, coconut and orange blossom water. Beat for 2 - 1 minutes. You can mix it by hand if you don’t have a stand mixer.

Spread the mixture in the pan and level the top. Cover the pan with a sheet of a cling film and set aside for 30 minutes.

Prepare the syrup: mix the water with the sugar in a medium-sized saucepan over a medium heat and stir it until the sugar melts completely and the water boils. Bring the heat down low and let the mixture boil for 10 minutes. After that add the lemon juice, stir it for 1 minute and then switch the heat off.

Put the cake mixture on the middle rack in the oven, and bake for 40 - 35 minutes or until the top has turned a golden colour.

Remove from the oven and pour the room temperature syrup directly on top.

Leave to cool completely on the counter top in the kitchen.

Cut as desired and decorate with coconut or almonds.

You may, if you wish, put the basbousa in the fridge or you can leave it at room temperature but make sure you cover it.

195

Harrissat el louz (Aristilós) Constanza Hola – Syria

I have to confess I’ve only baked Harrissat el louz – or Aristilós, its adaptation in Spanish - a couple of times in my life. Successfully, at least. The current expert in making these sweet, guilty pleasures is my 18-year-old niece, Renée, who learnt the recipe by spending hours with my mum in the kitchen. She paid attention to every detail and measured the ingredients that my mum – and myself as well - put through into the mix by instinct. My mum learnt it from her grandma, who left Syria at the beginning of the 20th century and got to Chile with no knowledge of Spanish, but she was a terrific cook. My mum’s mum died when she was only two, so she grew up with her grandma and was brought up instead by a young maid who practically became her mother and whom I recognised as my own grandma; Viejita (‘little old lady’ in Spanish). I still remember when she cooked Harrissat el louz; the whole house was covered in this lovely, sweet, almond smell. Quite simple, without a lot of ingredients, Harrissat el louz was the favourite sweet at home. Nothing was better than having one of these squares with a coffee after a big-fatSyrian-style lunch. Or even for tea time, the table was covered in them. It is a sweet taste – and the recipe - passed from generation to generation is now shared with you.

Ingredients: 6 cups semolina 6 cups sugar 188g butter 1 cup milk 1 cup water 1 lemon Almonds

Method: **

Mix the semolina with half the sugar and add warm not hot - melted butter, warm milk and warm water.

Put the mix in a tray and score into squares. Put a peeled almond on the top of each one.

Leave it to rest for six hours.

With a sharp knife cut into squares in the tray and put into the oven (pre-heated at 250C/475F/Gas Mark 9).

Leave it at that temperature for 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2 for an hour.

In the meantime put together 3 cups water with 3 cups of sugar over a low heat.

Leave it boiling for five minutes and then add the juice of one lemon.

Leave it to boil for another 5 minutes and take the syrup off the heat.

Take the tray out of the oven and mark the squares again.

Pour on the syrup.

Wait until cool enough to remove the squares from the tray.

197 Photo by Renée Hola Carrasco

South Asia Many South Asian dishes go back thousands of years and of course widespread migration and intermingling of cultures has influenced the cuisine throughout the region and the diasporas. However, food also has the ability to become a marker of religious and social identity, separating one minority or culture from another and giving it its distinctiveness. So while one journalist gives us a dish that’s a reminder of her humble roots, another gives us an insight into the world of the ‘Dilliwallahs’ or ‘Delhites’ and their notorious food snobbery. Whatever takes your fancy, we are sure you’ll enjoy this selection of dishes from our colleagues working in the South Asia region.

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Akoori Omelette – Joanne Episcopo - India

My father’s family is Italian and in the late 1920s and 1930s, when Italians were emigrating en masse, mainly to the US and northern Europe, my father’s family unusually headed east to India. They moved to Bombay, now Mumbai, where a small community of Italians lived, including an Italian uncle who had married into a Parsi family. My dad and aunt grew up there until they later moved to the UK. This recipe is from my aunt Sandra Kendall who says: “When growing up in India I used to be very fond of a Parsi version of scrambled eggs called ‘Akoori on Toast’. I used to love the smell from the kitchen, and when my children were small this used to be a favourite meal after school. It was a very comforting dish. I have adapted it as an omelette/tortilla, so it can be made in advance and eaten cold as a light supper, or even as a sandwich, although it is delicious warm, too.

Ingredients: 4 eggs, separated 20g butter 4 - 3 spring or salad onions, finely sliced 1 red chilli, de-seeded, finely sliced 20g peeled ginger 1 fat garlic clove 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered 2 tsp coriander powder 2 tsp cumin powder 20g fresh coriander, finely chopped Salt to taste

Method: **

Make a paste of ginger and garlic, either grating on a very fine grater, or blending in a spice blender.

Beat egg whites until frothy.

Melt butter in large (24cm) non-stick frying pan.

Gently fry spring onions over low heat until they are turning transparent.

Add ginger/garlic and mix.

After a few minutes, add sliced chilli.

When softened, add chopped tomatoes and mix.

As tomatoes become mushy, add coriander & cumin powders.

Mix well.

Meanwhile add egg yolks to frothed whites and mix.

Then pour onto mixture in pan, mixing a little to evenly spread.

Cook on low heat, lifting edges a little with non-stick slice or turner.

Add the chopped fresh coriander.

As mixture becomes less runny, cover pan with lid, let it cook slowly until it starts looking firmer.

With wide slice fold the mix over in half (the top will still be quite runny), cover with lid and turn the heat off.

Turn onto plate and eat with chunky granary bread, or can be eaten cold in a sandwich.

201 Photo by Joanne Episcopo

Dahi Baingan

(Stuffed Aubergine in

Yogurt) – Khadeeja Arif – India

In an overwhelmingly vegetarian country like India, aubergine is a relatively underrated vegetable. And among non-vegetarians aubergine is often mocked as a vegetable with little or no taste. In Hindi and Urdu, aubergine is called ‘began’ or ‘begun’. ‘Be’ is roughly translated as ‘without’ and ‘gun’ as ‘quality’ or ‘taste’ so it becomes ‘a vegetable without any taste’. This was the case at least in my family. My father didn’t like aubergine. My grandfather hated it. Strangely, all the women in the family like the vegetable - for reasons unknown. When I got married and I started cooking in my new home, I cooked aubergine and my husband, who is generally not finicky about food, pushed away the aubergine bowl gently with a look of almost ‘thanks but no thanks’. I asked him whether he did not like aubergine and he said “Yes”, shyly. “Oh my God, what’s wrong with these men?”, I thought. In India, It is generally cooked with potatoes. However, I discovered that in Hyderabad in south India and in Turkey, aubergine is not cooked as a simple curry but as a special dish. I observed closely how it is cooked in many different ways in these places and one day, while cutting aubergine once again to be cooked with potatoes and to be eaten all by myself or my daughter’s nanny, I thought of experimenting with it and I ended up cooking it with yogurt. I cooked this dish in Delhi first for my husband, then for my family and then here in London for friends and it has proved to be hit. My friends like it, and my husband loves it. 203

Method: Wash the fresh aubergines properly and keep them in a colander till the water dries up completely.

Ingredients:

Cut aubergines in four halves in a way that the aubergine remains attached to the stem.

½ tsp red chilli powder ½ tsp coriander powder ½ tsp fenugreek seeds ½ tsp kalonji or nigella sativa 2 tsp fresh lime juice 2 tsp ginger garlic paste 250g low fat yogurt 1 tbsp cooking oil Salt according to taste

Mix ginger garlic paste, chilli powder, coriander powder, fenugreek seeds, kalonji, salt and fresh lime juice together in a bowl till it becomes a thick paste. If you need to add a bit of water to the paste, do that but make sure it is not too runny.

Take this paste in a spoon and fill each aubergine.

Keep the filled aubergine in the fridge to marinate for fifteen minutes.

Now take the cooking oil and heat it up in a non-stick pan. Put the aubergines in the frying pan and cover it.

Cook the eggplant on a very low heat for about ten minutes. Once you see they are slightly softer, fry them on a high heat until they are properly roasted and appear black in colour.

Now put the sizzling aubergines in a serving bowl and pour the yogurt on top in a way that it covers all of them.

Pour a bit of olive oil on the yoghurt for that extra aroma. Keep it for five minutes so that the yoghurt takes the taste of the smoky eggplants.

Garnish it with fresh coriander leaves.

Best served with steaming hot plain rice or Indian bread.

Dahi Baingan (Stuffed Aubergine in Yogurt) – Khadeeja Arif – India

205 Photo by Khadeeja Arif

Kaddu (Butternut Squash) -

Neha Bhatnagar – India

This is something I grew up with, at every single big occasion there has to be butternut squash. When I was a child I wasn’t that much into it because it just looked like some gooey food, but as I grew up I started absolutely loving it. It has a bit of sourness and sweetness about it and it’s so easy to make. One time my mother-in-law was having a party and she wanted me to cook something. I thought of this as the easiest thing and I called up my mum to check how to make it. People made fun of me, saying my cooking is very expensive because I always cook over an international line, consulting my mum! The dish turned out to be really good and lots of people asked for the recipe, including my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. It’s sort of my claim to fame! I told my mum and she was absolutely thrilled that her recipe is so popular. And when I fly back to London from Delhi, she always packs this butternut squash with pooris (fried bread) for me. We have a festival called Karwachauth where, if you’re married, the wife will fast without water or food for the whole day. In the evening you look at the moon through a sieve and then from that sieve you look at your husband’s face; it’s for your husband’s long life. So on that day (at the end of the fast) my husband cooked kaddu for me.

Ingredients: Butternut squash Just under 1 tsp methi dana (fenugreek seeds) 2 tsp dried red chilli Turmeric Salt, to taste Brown mango powder Less than ½ tsp sugar

Method: **

If the butternut squash is already peeled and cored that’s good. You just chop it in cubes of about 1 inch.

Then in a pan or wok you put a bit of oil and a bit of methi dana (fenugreek seeds), just under one teaspoon. You heat up the oil and as soon as it starts to crackle, put in dried red chillis, maybe a couple of those.

When it starts to crackle you put in some turmeric – this is quite big in Indian cooking because we think, and there is scientific proof, that it is very good for healing.

Then you put in the butternut squash. You mix up everything and add salt according to taste; I would say about one teaspoon or so.

Then you put the lid on and let it cook in its own steam for some time. Open it to check and mix now and then.

When you think that the butternut squash is getting

a little bit soft, after 12 – 10 minutes or so, put in some brown mango powder in (which is quite easily available from any Indian store) and spread it. It gives a savoury taste. **

Put just a little bit, less than half a teaspoon, of sugar which will give it that very nice caramelised and savoury texture.

Then you just mix it and put the lid on and it’s done.

What we love to eat it with is fried bread. To make this you would mix some flour (not strong bread flour but something like chapatti flour) and water. You knead it and add a little bit of oil while you’re doing that.

Then you make small balls out of it, flatten them out using a rolling pin and then deep-fry them, one after the other. They’re called pooris and we usually eat them with kaddu.

207 Photo by Neha Bhatnagar

Muttar Chawal

(aka Mattar Pulao)

Umber Khairi – Pakistan

–

Muttar chawal or pilau rice made with peas was always a great treat in our childhood. Fresh peas had such a short season and we never seemed to be able to have enough - the muttar chawal would make the peas we shelled go further than any other dish! Because it was such a warming winter dish, it is real comfort food for me. The traditional pilau recipe is tricky to cook because you need to get the ratio of water to rice exactly right, so I have developed this short-cut recipe which is very easy. It’s a quickie imitation of the original pilau but it’s still lovely and comforting. This rice dish combines well with most curries and vegetable dishes. But do NOT combine this with any daal or lentil dish. Daal should be eaten with plain boiled rice.

Ingredients: 1 cup basmati rice 1 or 2 cinnamon sticks 4 cloves 6 - 4 black peppercorns 1teaspoon cumin seeds ½ cup frozen peas ½ onion, thinly sliced

Method: **

Wash the basmati rice in cold water. Let the rice soak in a large cooking pan in some cold water for 25-15 minutes.

Top up the cold water so that there is more than twice as much water as there is rice.

Add cinnamon sticks, cloves, peppercorns and cumin seeds and ½ teaspoon salt.

Cook on a high flame until the water boils up almost to the top of the pan.

Turn flame down and give the rice a stir.

This should cook for about another 15-10 minutes (you will need to check the rice for tenderness; it should feel cooked but firm, not mushy).

Drain in a colander.

Put frozen peas in the microwave for a minute or two (do not overcook, as they will also soften in the steam from the rice).

Add peas to rice in colander. Mix so that they are evenly distributed throughout the rice.

In a frying pan heat about ¼ cup of oil; add half a thinly sliced onion.

Fry till brown (but not black and crispy!).

Transfer rice from colander to serving dish.

Garnish with fried onions and drizzle any excess oil over the rice.

This should be served with raita (whipped yogurt with grated cucumber, or tomato and onion and fresh coriander leaves, or chopped boiled potato, mixed with cumin powder, chilli and salt) and mango pickle or green chutney.

209 Photo by Umber Khairi

Pongal -

Thirumalai Manivannan – India Pongal means ‘the boiled food’ in Tamil. A rice and lentil preparation, the Pongal is a comfort food. You can have it for breakfast, you can have it for dinner, and some have it for lunch too! The origins of Pongal are quite ancient. The dish has been in many variations associated with the eponymous harvest festival of Tamils, which happens on the first day of the Tamil month of ‘Thai’ (mid Jan). But Pongal has evolved from its humble, rural, peasant food origins, and has now found its place in the pantheon of Indian delicacies, to be found in all eateries; from a street food joint, to classy restaurants, to five star hotels in India. Easy to cook and easier to eat, Pongal goes well with the fried doughnutty dish called ‘Vadai’ and coconut chutney and a cup of sambar (spicy gravy). I started making Pongal under compulsion. When my wife was working as a judge in India and I was working as a journalist with a newspaper, professional commitments meant we could meet only once in a fortnight. This meant I had to either learn to cook or burn all my hard earned wages (not very much in this profession!) on hotel food. Pongal is a health food too, as it contains herbs and spices like ginger and pepper, which are supposedly good for a range of ailments starting from the common cold to indigestion. But don’t overdo it, as the rice and melted butter combination can be adding a few pounds to your waistline!

Photo by Emma Wilson

Ingredients:

Method:

150g raw rice 50g green gram (lentils), skinned (in Indian grocers, it is called moong dhal or pasi paruppu) ¼ tbsp asafoetida powder ½ tsp salt Pinch of turmeric (optional) 7 tsp sunflower oil 3 small pieces fresh ginger (5cm each), grated 10 curry leaves ¾ tbsp black pepper 1 ¼ tbsp cumin seeds 10 cashew nuts 3 tsp ghee

Wash the rice and the green gram lentils.

Add 3 measures of water and the asafoetida and salt.

If you want a yellow looking Pongal, you can add a small pinch of turmeric powder.

Put it in the pressure cooker.

After the first whistle, simmer for five minutes. Then raise the flame and wait till you get the whistle again. Close the burner.

Wait until the steam cools down and it’s safe enough to open the cooker lid.

Mash the rice gently once or twice with a ladle.

Fry the grated fresh ginger till you smell the aroma; add curry leaves and then the crushed pepper and cumin seed (less than a minute).

Add this to the boiled rice and lentil mixture.

Fry the cashew nuts in the ghee, add it to the above mixture and decorate.

When serving, serve hot, and dribble a spoon of melted butter on the dish, to make it even richer!

Side dish: Coconut Chutney Ingredients:

Method:

About 250g grated coconut 2 or 3 green chillies (if you want to make it hot, make it about 8 chillies) ½ tsp channa dal, fried 1 tsp brown mustard seeds 1 tsp black gram lentils (skinned) 3 or 4 curry leaves Salt to taste Small bunch of fresh coriander leaves (maybe 5 or 6 leaves)

Grind the coconut, fried channa dal and green chillies in a food processor until it has formed a paste.

In a small pan, fry the mustard seeds and black gram lentils with curry leaves on a low heat. The lentils should be golden brown; don’t over heat them.

Add the paste of coconut chilli combination to the fried lentils and mustard, mix in a dash of salt.

Add a small bunch of chopped coriander leaves to decorate.

The side dish is ready. Bon Appetit!

211

Gaja Ka Halwa, Dam Allo & Salted Pancakes – Tabinda Kaukab Gillani – Pakistan I am from the lower middle class of Pakistani society, so there was no charm in food and cooking for me. We used to cook simple curries with almost every type of food, whether it was grains, vegetable or meat. In our society, girls have to learn cooking from an early age. They are warned they will need this skill for their married life as they will have to cook for a large number of in-laws. I always replied to my family that I will marry a person who will cook for me. I was in the kitchen from the age of seven but with very reluctantly. Carrot was the first thing which caught my interest. I made a sweet dish made of carrot, rice, milk and sugar called ‘Gajar ki kheer’. I still remember that my mother and my sisters had a feeling that I had ruined all the ingredients, and only my father was happy to see it. Even though he is allergic to sweet things, nevertheless he encouraged me and ate. Every year in the carrot season, I cooked the same dish until I become expert in it. Life gave me the opportunity to go out and eat different types of food but it was hard for me to eat expensive food in restaurants all the time. So I tried to make them at home with existing resources. The year I spent in London was a confidenceboosting time for my cooking. After work I had nothing to do so I spent all the time in my kitchen. I made a Facebook album to share my cooking through photos with my family back in Pakistan.

Ingredients:

Method:

Grind the coconut, fried channa dal and green chillies in a food processor until it has formed a paste.

In a small pan, fry the mustard seeds and black gram lentils with curry leaves on a low heat. The lentils should be golden brown; don’t over heat them.

Add the paste of coconut chilli combination to the fried lentils and mustard, mix in a dash of salt.

Add a small bunch of chopped coriander leaves to decorate.

The side dish is ready. Bon Appetit!

213 Photos by Tabinda Kaukab Gillani

Ingredients:

Method: **

Put oil in a pan and put all the thin slices of potato in it.

Fry them on high heat for 3 minutes; add cumin during frying.

Then add black pepper and salt and turn the heat down very low.

Cover the pan and cook potatoes until they become soft, turning after every 3 mins.

When it’s done, dish out and sprinkle coriander on it.

Ingredients:

Method:

250g plain flour ¼ tsp salt (or according to taste) ½ cup milk 1 egg

Gaja Ka Halwa, Dam Allo & Salted Pancakes – Tabinda Kaukab Gillani – Pakistan

½ kg potatoes (very small size, not more than 2 inches), cut into thin slices ½ tsp black pepper (according to taste) Salt (to taste) ½ tsp crushed cumin 1 tbsp oil Small bunch of chopped coriander

Add salt and egg to flour and mix them well.

Then add milk until it becomes of pouring texture but not too thin. Try to make it lump free.

Add more milk if the half cup is not enough.

Take a non-stick pan and add two tablespoons of the mixture, spreading it with a spoon in the pan.

Add few drops of oil if you want some golden colour on it, otherwise you can cook it without oil.

You can serve these pancakes separately or you can add potatoes and roll them.

215 Photos by Tabinda Kaukab Gillani

Kerela Qeema (Bitter Gourd with Minced Meat) – Khadeeja Arif – India Whatever we eat and whatever we cook has a little history attached to it - be it social, cultural, territorial or personal. For me the dishes that I have learnt from someone rather than from books remain with me forever and I cook them more often, perhaps as a way to remember that person - not so much in words but in my mind. I had seen my naani or my maternal grandmother cooking bitter gourd with minced meat as a kid and just the unique aroma of it while it was being cooked in our ancestral house was enough to arrest my senses and attention. I don’t remember whether I had tasted it as a child or not; all I remember is that aroma which lingers in my imagination to this day. There are obviously various ways of cooking bitter gourd with minced meat but the one that I cook today, and which my naani cooked all her life, has a unique aroma by virtue of a strange mix of the Indian curry spices and what we call ‘aachar masalas’ or pickle spices - a combination of fenugreek seeds and nigella sativa or kalonji. My naani had learnt it from her mother. And my mother had learnt it from her mother and perhaps I have learnt it from both. Now it’s not just my family that cooks bitter gourd in this way but my father’s, my husband’s and my sister’s husband’s families have started cooking it in our style. And it makes me happy as I quietly see my naani being alive through such subtle ways and means….

Ingredients:

Method:

250g bitter gourd 250g minced meat 250g onion ½ tsp fenugreek seeds ½ tsp nigella sativa ½ tsp red chillies (or 1 tsp if you want it spicy) 2 ½ tsp coriander powder ½ tsp turmeric powder 100g yoghurt Salt according to taste

Wash the bitter gourd properly. Slice in a circular way. Put some salt on it and leave it in a colander for at least fifteen minutes.

Now take the onions and cut them sideways in thin slices.

After fifteen minutes, wash the bitter gourd once again so that all the salt gets washed away.

Now heat the oil in two separate frying pans: in one pan fry the bitter gourd and in the other fry the onion, till they are lightly brown.

Take minced meat and wash it properly. Let it dry for five minutes. Fry minced meat then mix it with the onion and fry it a bit further.

Once the onion and minced meat have been fried for 3 minutes at least, add the fried bitter gourd in the same pan and now fry all three of them together.

** **

Add all the spices and let it cook for at least 15 minutes. Once you see it is partially cooked, mix in the yogurt very well and let it cook for at least half an hour on a very slow heat till you can see the oil coming up and all the water is gone.

Once it is cooked, garnish it with green coriander leaves and serve it either with plain rice or Indian bread.

217 Photo by Khadeeja Arif

Chicken Qorma – Umber Khairi – Pakistan

As my father’s family is from Delhi, food has always had a rather exalted status in our life. ‘Dilli-wallahs’ are notorious food snobs: they are such food purists that an inappropriately cooked curry or the wrong sauté on a lentil dish can cause serious rifts and destroy close relationships. Dilli-wallahs are highly discerning and fairly inflexible where traditional foods are concerned. They are also very keen on their curries, eschewing any bland, watery ones and only settling for the rich, spicy versions epitomised by their traditional ‘qorma’ - made either of mutton or chicken. When my parents would visit us here in the UK, my mother would always make sure a suitable curry was available for my Dad to eat at lunchtime. She developed various shortcut recipes for traditional curries including one for chicken qorma which I have, over the years, found very handy. It is cheating, but it does do the trick.

Ingredients:

Method:

1 chicken, cut into about eight pieces ½ cup vegetable oil ½ large onion, thinly sliced 1 cinnamon stick 3 cardamoms 2 cloves 2 black peppercorns 1 tsp garlic powder (or garlic paste or frozen cubes) 1 tsp crushed red chilli powder 2 tsp coriander powder 2 tsp plain yogurt 1 tsp cumin powder Whole skinned almonds or flaked almonds (optional)

Heat oil in large saucepan.

Add onions, cinnamon stick, split cardamoms, cloves and peppercorns.

Fry and let the flavours sizzle and mingle.

Once the onions start turning brown add the chilli powder, garlic powder and coriander powder which have all been dissolved together as a paste in some boiling water.

Fry everything together then keeping the flame quite high add the chicken.

Keep frying the chicken till it looks brown and sealed on both sides.

Keep the flame high and add the yogurt and cumin powder.

Keep stirring as it cooks on a high flame (10-5 minutes).

This stirring/moving around of the chicken in the spices on a high flame is somewhat tedious and extended but is a key stage in the recipe.

The chicken should be quite brown.

Add about half a cup of boiling water and salt to taste, then lower flame and put the lid on the saucepan.

At this stage add about 10 whole skinned almonds if desired, or add flaked almonds later.

Cook till tender. If it looks too dry you can add a bit more boiling water and let it simmer.

Serve with hot naan, chappati or pitta bread.

219 Photo by Umber Khairi

Fresh Quince curried with lamb – Aliya Nazki–Kashmir

Quince is one of those things that are inextricably linked to my childhood. My mum always loved quince. So it was always a happy day when she made the first quince curry of the season. Fresh Quince curried with lamb, with lots of fluffy white rice. In my head that’s the taste of Autumn. And then as the winter set in, dried quince with lamb, or on its own. Beauty itself. This is my mum’s recipe –which means it’s awesome. Just like my mum.

Ingredients:

Method:

1 kg of lamb. Any cut will do, but a bit of fat on the meat does take this up a notch 700-500 gms of quince. (About 7-6 apples. Are they called apples? Kashmiris call them apples, so I’m going to call them apples. Yep.) These you’ll need to wash, peel, core and chop. But more on that later 4-3 medium sized shallots, sliced 4-3 fat cloves of garlic.

Whole spices (Kashmiri cooking is all about whole spices. I tend to dry roast and grind some of mine purely because my five year old is a drama-queen + pea prince rolled into one, and hates ‘seeds’ in his food.): 7 black cardamom pods 11 green cardamom pods 2-2201 sticks of cinnamon 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds

First things first, let’s get the lamb started. So you basically wash the meat and put it in a big enough pan. Add all the whole spices, garlic, fennel powder and salt. Pour in enough water to cover the meat. Bring to boil. Cover. Simmer. And forget about it for about 2-1 hours till the meat is incredibly soft and tender. Ah, yes, Kashmiris are the undisputed Kings And Queens of over-cooking. *Deep bow*. So while the lamb is doing its thing, let’s prepare the quince. Now this, as far as I’m concerned is the hardest part of this recipe. And having a good, sharp knife will make it a *lot* easier. So, wash and peel the quince. Easy enough. Then you want to core each fruit and chop it into 10-8 chunks. Which sounds fairly straightforward till you realise how unbelievably hard the core of these fruits is. *Good lord in heavens above!* So remember a good, sharp knife is critical to this step. There. That’s the most labour intensive bit done. Promise.

Now, take another pan, wide-bottomed and shallow. Pour in a generous amount of oil. Once the oil is hot carefully place your quince chunks in a single layer, in the pan. What you want to do is fry them, like you would say, pieces of chicken —in batches. Don’t put them all in and go stir-crazy. Just don’t.

Ground spices

What you’re looking for is a nice golden reddish brown hue. (What? There is such a hue. It exists. Fry. You’ll see.) Use a slotted spoon to take take the quince out. Once you’re done frying, put your shallots into the same pan and fry till soft and translucent. Add the turmeric and chili powder, and fry till fragrant –30secs to a 221minute. And then add the fried quince. Give it all a good stir to make sure the spices coat the quince. Fry for a minute or two, and then add the meat, which

2-1 teaspoons of turmeric 2-3 teaspoons of fennel powder 1 teaspoon of Kashmiri red chili powder Salt Oil

by now is hopefully all done. Add the pieces of meat first, and stir everything carefully. **

Once all the meat and quince and spices are well mixed, add the stock that you cooked the lamb in –not too much though, just enough to nearly cover everything. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for another 15-10 minutes, or till the quince is soft. There. You’re done. Autumn and love, all in one dish.

221 Photo by Umber Khairi

Pasanday –

Amber Shamsi – Pakistan Captain Usman was a lean, rugged doctor in the British Army with a wicked sense of humour and a Clark Gable air about him. In the tradition of the time, he had not seen the girl he had got engaged to. When her family asked for a picture of him, mischief prompted Usman to send a photograph of himself disguised as an old man for a college play. The girl – eighteen years old and peachy skinned – was devastated. The night before her wedding, she cried copiously. There are no pictures of the wedding, none of the minutely documented, professionally photographed Bollywood-style extravaganzas associated with weddings today. If there were any, the photos were lost when my grandparents migrated from India to Pakistan. Captain Usman passed away 30 years ago, leaving the shy, quiet Razia Usman a little adrift. The story of their wedding is one I have heard several times, but my grandmother never tires of telling it. With her papery skin, white cotton hair and stumbling gait, it is as if she has been erased little by little in reaching the present. But when I talk to her about her life as a young girl, spots of colour bloom on her cheeks, her eyes twinkle. And for a few moments, I see this old, fading woman as a young girl. She speaks fondly of her occupations, so different from mine. I get a picture of a girlhood in Lucknow in Northern India, protected from the political winds of the time; of innocence, of stillness, as if preserved in sepia. She seldom went out and her best friend was her younger sister. They would read women’s digests in Urdu, eagerly devouring romantic short stories, beauty tips and recipes. My grandmother was an accomplished cook, and is often unhappy with the fare served up these days. Today’s meatballs, she says in that crotchety way of the elderly, are quickly blitzed in an electronic grinder; they are not made with the love and care of yesteryear when they were hand-ground on large stone slabs. They had no fridges or ice-boxes either and fresh meat was delivered every day, cooked twice a day before lunch and dinner. As a treat, when their parents were away, their manservant would buy naan bread with kebabs and thick cream. I suppose it was the 1920s version of takeaway. Her memories come in random bursts, laced with sighs of a life past and perhaps lost. She passed away this October, taking nearly a century of stories with her. I loved hearing them, for they breathed life back into her. My nine and five year old daughters - whose idea of takeaway is pizza and nuggets - don’t yet understand them. But I hope to pass on at least this recipe of my grandmother’s to them. It is of pasanday or tender beef steaks made with smoky, toasted spices, sweet, lightly caramelised onions and a thick, slightly tart yoghurt gravy. My grandmother got it from her Bee Jee or her mother, and I got it from mine. I like to see it as an intangible inheritance from a culture which has past, as a preservation of one page of my grandmother’s story. 223

Method: **

Tenderise the beef steaks with a cup of water, the peeled ginger and garlic, salt and the whole spices in a pressure cooker for 45 minutes to an hour.

While the meat is cooking, toast the coriander seeds and dried red chillies and grind coarsely with a pinch of salt.

Fry the onions until they are golden brown.

Remove the steaks, ginger and garlic with a slotted spoon and keep the stock.

Grind the ginger and garlic to a fine paste.

Fry meat until brown and add the ginger/garlic paste.

When the paste also starts to caramelise, add the yoghurt and stock then cook until the gravy separates from the oil.

Add the toasted and ground coriander and chilli spices.

Allow the flavours to come together for a minute and add the onions.

Best eaten with naan.

Ingredients: 1kg beef steaks 1 whole bulb of garlic 1 whole ginger Salt to taste 1 tbsp vegetable oil or mustard oil

Pasanday – Amber Shamsi – India

(Whole spices or sabut garam masala) 3 black cardamom 1 tsp whole black pepper 3 cloves 1 tsp cumin ¾ cup of coriander seeds and dried red chillies (to make it less spicy, you could use less of the chillies) 1 bowl Greek/unsweetened yoghurt 3 large medium white onions, thickly sliced

225 Photo by Amber Shamsi

Sri Lankan Fish Buns – Radha Satkunam

This was an old favourite when I was a child in Sri Lanka. I associate it with happy memories of train journeys between Jaffna and Colombo. My favourite part of the journey would be when my mother would hand out food parcels wrapped in banana leaf and then in newspaper. Inside would be many Sri Lankan delicacies like string hoppers (steamed rice noodles), sothy (milky soup often with boiled eggs) and a fish or vegetable curry. I would look forward most to the fish bun which always featured in our food parcel. We would eat the fish bun as a starter before the main meal.

Ingredients: 500g strong bread flour 10fl oz hot water 2 tbsp butter 1 ½ tsp yeast ½ tsp sugar ½ tsp of salt

Method: **

Heat oil in a pan, add onion and fry till soft and light brown in colour.

Add fish (do not put any of the tomato sauce from the tin for now) and break the fish up.

Cook for 5 minutes on medium heat. Then add salt, chilli powder, a quarter of the tomato sauce from the tin of fish and the potatoes to the pan.

Heat thoroughly on low heat and ensure all the ingredients are mixed through. Allow filling to cool down before making the buns.

Line a baking tray with foil and spread some butter on the foil to stop buns sticking to it.

Preheat oven to 220C/425F/Gas Mark 7.

Take a small plate and grease the base so the dough does not stick. Make the dough into small balls. Place a ball of dough on the plate and with your fingers spread out the dough into a large round.

Place a teaspoon of fish filling in the centre and close the dough around it.

Place each bun on the baking tray and brush with egg before placing in the oven for 15 minutes. The higher the heat and shorter the time in the oven the better as it helps keep the bun soft.

Ingredients: Filling 1 large tin of fish in tomato sauce - I use pilchards 1 small tin of tuna (can be in brine or water – it gets discarded anyway so doesn’t matter) 1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped 2 tbsp olive oil ¼ tsp chilli powder 4 large potatoes, boiled, peeled and chopped into small cubes - do not over boil as it makes the filling runny and it’s nice to have a bit of bite.

227 Photo by Radha Satkunam

Leek Chingri Manoshi Barua –India

This was an old favourite when I was a child in Sri Lanka. I associate it with happy When I first came to London, I missed my mum’s cooking. Amongst many of her specialties was a lovely dish made with a vegetable called gourd with coconut and prawns. I had some idea about the recipe and thought I would try to make this delicious dish myself, which we called ‘Lau Chingri’ – Lau meaning gourd and Chingri meaning prawns. But the first obstacle was the unavailability of gourds in London. During the mid-1970s, there were not many Asian shops which sold imported fresh Asian vegetables. There was one Bangladeshi grocer in Fashion Street in the East End of London. They used to bring some vegetables from Bangladesh, but the demand far exceeded the supply and it was basically first come, first served. I failed in my attempts to get the gourd. So I started to look for something which could replace gourd and found leeks to be a suitable alternative. I improvised the recipe a bit and many of my friends and family like my preparations. I call it ‘Leek Chingri’ and it is a tasty side dish which can be served with boiled rice.

Ingredients:

Method:

3 leeks, finely chopped and washed 250g prawns, cooked and peeled ¾ tsp kala jeera (black cumin seeds) 1 tbsp cooking oil (for cooking plus more oil for frying the prawns) 1 large garlic clove, finely chopped 1 green chilli (optional), slit in the middle 110g desiccated coconut (finely ground) – if you buy the packet stuff you can use a grinder ¼ inch ginger stem, grated Coriander leaves (to garnish) Salt

Lightly fry the prawns and set aside. Also fry one tablespoon of coconut and grated ginger lightly till golden brown and set aside.

Put oil in a cooking pan. When the oil is hot, put in the kala jeera seeds. Then add the green chilli and chopped garlic; fry a little. Then add the ground coconut.

When the coconut starts to turn golden brown, put in the chopped leek and add salt. Cover the pan and cook until the leek is soft; it doesn’t take long. You will find that quite a bit of juice will come out of the leek.

Add fried prawns at this point and increase the heat to reduce the juices. When the liquid is evaporated, your dish is ready.

Pour into the serving bowl and garnish with coriander leaves and the coconut and grated ginger fried earlier.

Serve with boiled rice.

229 Photo by Manoshi Barua

Editor’s note With the movement of people and cultures around the world, food also goes on a journey and allows people be ‘transported’ back home. World Service Languages, with its many different languages, is known for its diversity and producing this cookbook was one way of showcasing just how unique this department is. It also gave us a chance to meet the producers, editors, presenters, and all our colleagues who work at the World Service in London and around the world, to hear their stories, the history and personal memories behind the recipes they’ve included in the book. These recipes are more than just a set of ingredients with a methodology: they come with their own personal story. On a practical note, we have used different measuring systems, ie cups or pounds and ounces, grammes as supplied by the cook. We didn’t want to tamper with the measurements for fear of spoiling the result, so tried to keep the recipes true to how the chefs cook the dish. This book wouldn’t have happened but for the determination of Paula Moio, the brilliant work of Sarah Lee, the genius of Mohammed Abdul Qader and the support of the cookbook group (Rose Kudabaeva, Elena Varela, Li Yang and Sarah Gibson). And a huge thank you to Katayoon Forouhesh (NimKat publishing) for the beautiful art and design work and for putting the book together. We have enjoyed editing the book, and testing out some of the recipes, and look forward to trying out more. Thanks to all the contributors for their patience in getting this book to press, their willingness to supply, and resupply photos of their dishes, and most of all for their passion and commitment to cooking and for sharing that passion with us. Lara Owen and Anna Horsbrugh-Porter

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