Browse recipes

Everything good about Mexican street corn, taken off the cob and into a bowl: charred kernels, a tangy lime dressing, chili, and a shower of herbs.

Mashed spiced black beans and corn folded into tortillas and pressed in a dry pan until crisp. Fifteen minutes and mostly from the cupboard.

Chickpeas simmered in coconut milk with thyme and allspice, finished with spinach. Mellow, quick, and entirely from cans and a bag of leaves.

A revithada-style chickpea stew: soft, warming and quietly spiced with cumin and smoked paprika. Ready in half an hour and lovely spooned over rice.

Pineapple cut into rings, dried, dusted and dropped through a thin sparkling batter into hot oil, so the outside shatters and the fruit inside turns hot, syrupy and startlingly sharp against the sugar.

Twenty-five minutes, one pan, mostly cupboard. The beans break down just enough to make the sauce creamy without a drop of cream.

Red lentils collapsed into coconut milk with cumin and ginger. No soaking, no technique, and it thickens itself while you set the table.

Green mango simmered soft, pulped, and spiced with cumin and black salt into a pale, tart-savory cooler. Drunk across North India specifically to survive the summer.

Bruised lemongrass and ginger simmered into a fragrant, faintly citrus syrup, then chilled and lengthened with lime. Clean and grassy rather than sweet.

Very ripe bananas mashed into a spiced batter and fried into soft, craggy rounds. Ten minutes, and the blacker the bananas the better.

Crisp at the edge, soft in the middle, with seams of melted dark chocolate. Chopping a bar instead of using chips is what gives you the puddles.

Canned tomatoes and white beans simmered with garlic then blended smooth, so the beans do the work of cream. Fifteen minutes of cooking and almost nothing to chop.

A fierce, unfermented ginger beer: fresh ginger blended, steeped and strained into a syrup, then topped with soda water. All of the heat, none of the waiting.

A crunchy chopped salad of tomato, cucumber and herbs with shards of toasted pita, dressed in lemon, sumac and pomegranate molasses. Sharp and refreshing.

Boricha: roasted barley simmered into a nutty, toasty, faintly sweet brown tea, drunk cold all summer instead of water. No sugar at all.

Tortillas crisped in a pan and then folded through warm salsa verde just long enough to soften at the edges without collapsing. Topped with black beans, avocado, onion and lime.

Hibiscus steeped with ginger, clove and orange peel. The Caribbean Christmas drink, deep red and warmly spiced rather than simply tart.

Couscous steamed in a spiced tomato and chickpea broth in the same pot. No draining, no timing, and it is done in twenty minutes.

Shan tofu: chickpea flour whisked into water, cooked until it thickens like polenta, then poured out to set into a silken, faintly yellow block. No soy, no coagulant, no pressing. Sliced and dressed, it is nothing like the tofu you know.

A parsley salad first and a grain salad second: bright, lemony and green, with just enough bulgur to give it body. The kind of thing that makes everything else on the table taste better.

Watermelon and mango cut small and salted early so they give up their water in a colander rather than in the bowl, then tossed with red onion, chili, lime and cilantro. Sweet, sharp and hot at once, and it stays a salsa instead of collapsing into juice.

Thin, lacy gram-flour pancakes studded with onion, tomato, chili and cilantro. High-protein, naturally gluten-free, and on the plate in twenty-five minutes.

Chewy, hearty and heavily cinnamoned, with the oats left whole so they keep their bite. Better on the second day.

A hearty one-skillet breakfast: sweet potato diced small and browned until tender, then folded through smoky paprika, cumin and black beans. High-fiber, high-protein, and it holds you well into the afternoon.

Shop-bought gnocchi roasted straight from the packet with cherry tomatoes until the gnocchi crisp at the edges and the tomatoes burst into a sauce. One tray, no boiling.

Bananas simmered in coconut milk with palm sugar and pandan until the syrup goes thick and caramel-brown. A bowlful of warm comfort.

Orzo cooked risotto-style in stock so it comes out creamy without cream, finished with frozen peas, lemon and a lot of mint. One pot, twenty minutes.

Garlicky white beans wilted down with kale and lemon in a single pan. Substantial, cheap, and on the table in twenty minutes.

Peppers and onions softened down with harissa and white beans until jammy. One pan, big flavor, and almost entirely from cupboard and freezer.