Browse recipes

Dried hibiscus steeped briefly, sweetened while hot and chilled hard: tart, cranberry-deep and an almost unreasonable red. The most common agua fresca in Mexico.

The classic dry curry of potato and cauliflower, steamed gently under a lid with turmeric and coriander, then finished uncovered so the edges catch and crisp. The side dish that quietly steals the plate.

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.

A platter of crisp fries buried under a thick lentil-and-tomato chili and a blended cashew cheese sauce, finished with scallions and jalapeños. The messiest, most shareable thing you can put on a table.

Smoky roasted sweet potato, spiced black beans, and enough lime to wake it all up. The roasting tray does most of the work.

Whole carrots roasted buried in salt until they collapse to a silky, translucent texture, then peeled, sliced on a long diagonal and steeped in smoke, oil and vinegar. The salt crust does the work: it seasons and dehydrates at once.

A cheap, batch-friendly workhorse: mixed peppers cooked down until silky with sweet onions and tomato, then folded through chickpeas and finished with red wine vinegar and parsley.

Tamarind loosened in hot water and sweetened into a sour-brown cooler with a long, mouth-watering finish. Sharper and more savory than it looks.

The Punjabi chickpea curry that earns its place in every weeknight rotation: deeply spiced, made almost entirely from the store cupboard, and better on day two.

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.

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.

Cauliflower roasted with curry powder until the edges char, then folded through warm lentils and yogurt. One tray, one can, very little attention.

Two crumbling cornstarch cookies with caramel between them, edges rolled in coconut. They dissolve rather than crumble.

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

A no-cook chickpea chaat that's tangy, fresh and ready in ten minutes. Chickpeas tossed with red onion, cucumber and tomato, brightened with lemon and chaat masala.

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

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

The most shareable thing in the booklet: a tray of tortilla chips scattered with cumin-spiced black beans, drizzled with blender cashew queso, then loaded with salsa, avocado, pickled jalapeños and cilantro.

A crunchy swap for chips: chickpeas dried hard, roasted until deep golden, then tossed hot with smoked paprika, cumin and garlic powder. Protein and fiber for very few calories.

Fakes, the Greek lentil soup that's the gentlest way back to solid food. Brown lentils simmered soft with tomato, oregano and bay, then lifted at the end with a slug of red wine vinegar and good olive oil.

Game-day wings, baked not fried. Cauliflower florets dipped in a simple seasoned batter, baked until crisp, tossed in buffalo sauce and returned to the oven until sticky. Served with celery sticks and vegan ranch.

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

A blender sauce of soaked cashews and nutritional yeast that clings to every elbow of pasta: properly creamy, savory and comforting, with not a plastic slice of vegan cheese in sight.

Soda chanh: lime juice and sugar syrup in a tall glass, topped with soda water and stirred at the table. Three ingredients, correctly assembled.

A silky, gently spiced stew where peanut butter melts into tomato and stock to make something deeply savory. Sweet potato and chickpeas make it a full meal in one pot.

Jackfruit braised in a dark, spiced tomato consomé until it shreds, then folded into tortillas that have been dipped in the braising liquid and griddled until the edges crisp. Serve the consomé alongside for dunking.

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

Raw almonds roasted low until fragrant, then tossed warm with smoked paprika, cumin and a pinch of cayenne. Filling and full of healthy fats. Portion them out.

Carrots grated fine and cooked down slowly in sweetened plant milk until the whole pan turns glossy and orange, with chopped cashews and raisins folded all the way through. Deeply sweet, faintly floral, and better the next day.

Chunks of fresh coconut boiled in ginger sugar until the syrup thickens, then dropped in spoonfuls and left to set hard. Chewy, sticky and very Jamaican.

Chickpeas, tahini, garlic and lemon blended smooth, loosened with aquafaba (the liquid from the chickpea can) so it stays creamy without extra fat. Served with carrot, cucumber and pepper sticks.

Red lentils collapsing into coconut milk with Caribbean curry powder, thyme and sweet potato. Ready in half an hour and thick enough to eat with a fork.

Layers of phyllo and chopped nuts baked until shattering, then flooded with lemon syrup while still hot. The sound when you cut it is the point.

Eggplants burnt black over a flame until the flesh collapses, then beaten with tahini, lemon and garlic. Smoky, loose and nothing like a puree of raw eggplant.

Rice cooked in coconut milk with kidney beans, thyme, allspice and a whole chili left in for perfume rather than heat. The side dish that turns any plate Caribbean.

Egypt's national dish: rice, lentils and pasta layered together under a sharp spiced tomato sauce and a heap of crisp fried onions. Carbohydrate on carbohydrate, and completely justified.

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.

Smoky, garlicky and thick enough to stand a spoon in. Cheap store-cupboard beans turned into something that tastes like it simmered all day.

Chickpea flour whisked into a spiced onion base until it becomes a thick, smoky, deeply savory stew. One of the fastest genuinely great things you can cook from a cupboard.

Choux-style dough piped straight into hot oil, rolled in cinnamon sugar and dipped in thick drinking chocolate. Crisp ridges, soft middle.

Short-grain rice simmered slowly in coconut milk until it collapses into something thick, creamy and barely sweet, scented with cinnamon and vanilla.

Oats, mashed banana and toasted walnuts baked into a soft, sliceable breakfast that keeps all week. Sweet enough from the fruit that it barely needs syrup.

Herby, crisp-edged falafel baked instead of fried, piled into a bowl with salad and a swoosh of tahini. All the flavor, none of the pan of hot oil.

Ripe watermelon blended with water and lime into something lighter and more drinkable than juice. Five minutes of work and it tastes like the middle of summer.

A dense, damp semolina cake soaked in lemon syrup, cut into diamonds with an almond on each. Sweet and grainy in the best way.

Sharp apples baked under a thick, buttery oat rubble until the juices bubble up the sides. The one everybody actually wants.

Collards braised slowly with onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric until they turn silky and sweet. Mild, garlicky and green. The calm dish on an Ethiopian plate.

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

Lemon juice and a whole bunch of mint blitzed with ice into a pale-green frozen slush. The drink of every Levantine summer street.

Griddled corn cakes with a crisp shell and a soft, steamy middle, split open and stuffed with cumin-spiked black beans and mashed avocado.

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.

Gunpowder green tea brewed strong over a fistful of spearmint, sweetened hot and poured over ice. Bracing, fragrant and very sweet, as it should be.

Dried chrysanthemum flowers and goji berries steeped into a pale gold, honeyed-floral tea, served cold with the softened berries still in the glass.

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

Greens stewed down with coconut milk, thyme and okra until soft and glossy. Mellow, rich and green. The Caribbean answer to creamed spinach.

Chewy, dense squares of glutinous rice flour and coconut milk, baked rather than pounded, with a clean bitter edge from good matcha.

Chia seeds left to swell in vanilla-sweetened plant milk until thick and spoonable, layered with crushed berries. Five minutes of work the night before.

Thin, snapping Syrian cookies, sesame-crusted on one face and pistachio on the other. They crisp entirely as they cool.

Chickpea flour toasted in butter until it smells like biscuits, then rolled into sweet cardamom balls. No baking, no setting. Just patience at the pan.

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.

Fudgy, properly dark brownies with ribbons of tahini swirled through the top. The sesame cuts the sweetness and makes them taste grown-up.

Soft yellow lentils finished with a tadka: whole spices bloomed in hot oil and poured over at the last second, so it hits the surface and sizzles.

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

Sweet, slowly-sweated leeks and floury potatoes blended into a thick, comforting soup. No cream needed: the potato does all of it.

Elderflower cordial cut with lemon, cucumber and mint over a lot of ice. Barely a recipe, and the most refreshing thing in the book.

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.

Firm green lentils dressed while warm in a sharp Dijon vinaigrette, with plenty of shallot, herbs and walnuts. Good hot, better after an hour, excellent from the fridge.

Indian lemonade, made savory with black salt and roasted cumin. Sweet, sour, salty and faintly smoky. The fastest cure there is for a hot afternoon.

The Ethiopian red lentil stew. Almost nothing in it, and yet the berbere and a genuinely long onion cook do all the heavy lifting.

Roasted jerk-spiced jackfruit shreds like slow-cooked meat, over coconut rice and black beans. Big flavors, mostly from a jar and a tin.

A plain sponge drenched in three milks until it is barely holding together, topped with whipped cream. Soaked, not soggy. The distinction is everything.

The North Indian kidney bean curry that's built for batch cooking: onions taken deep golden, tomatoes cooked until the oil separates, and a few beans mashed against the pan for a thick, creamy gravy without a drop of cream.

Semolina toasted until it smells nutty, then cooked into a soft savory porridge with mustard seeds, curry leaves, ginger and cashews. It comes together in one pan in under half an hour.

A whole celery root scored deep, rubbed with oil and thyme and roasted slowly until the outside goes mahogany and crackling and the inside turns sweet and custardy. It comes to the table whole and gets carved like a joint.

Curry powder bloomed in oil until it perfumes the whole kitchen, then chickpeas and potato simmered in coconut until soft and golden. Warming, cheap and quietly fiery.

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.

Whole pears simmered in spiced red wine until stained crimson to the core, then served in their own reduced syrup. Almost no work and looks like a great deal of it.

Cannellini or butter beans forked into a chunky, garlicky spread with olive oil and lemon, piled onto good toast and topped with sliced tomato, herbs and chili flakes. Ten minutes, and far more filling than it looks.

Pourable, molten and properly cheesy, with enough jalapeno to keep it interesting. It sets as it cools and loosens again with a splash of water.

A tray of vegetables roasted hard, spooned over shop-bought hummus with lemon and parsley. Assembly more than cooking, and endlessly adaptable.

Tortillas toasted flat until they snap, spread with warm cumin-spiked black beans and topped with avocado, red onion and lime. Fifteen minutes, mostly from the cupboard.

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.

Split mung beans simmered soft, then finished with coconut milk and a little sugar until the whole pot turns creamy. A sweet, gentle breakfast eaten across Southeast Asia, warm or at room temperature.

A spicy vegetable relish of onion, pepper, carrot and beans in a curried tomato base. Served hot or cold alongside almost anything, and better the next day.

A plain, damp cake carried by good olive oil and a lot of orange zest. Keeps for days and is better with coffee than with cream.

Gnamakoudji: raw ginger blended, steeped and strained, then sharpened with lime and sweetened. Sold ice-cold on every roadside from Bamako to Abidjan.

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

Sesame paste and hot sugar syrup worked together until it sets into a dense, flaky slab that melts on the tongue. Three ingredients, one critical temperature.

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

Lentils and rice cooked together under a heap of deeply caramelized onions, warmed with cumin, coriander and a whisper of cinnamon. The most filling plate in the set: the lentils make it stick with you far longer than rice alone.

Spiced vegetables and part-cooked basmati layered in a pot and steamed together so the rice takes on the masala from below while staying separate and fragrant on top.

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

Buttery semolina shortbread stuffed with spiced date paste. Traditionally pressed in carved wooden molds; a fork and a steady hand do fine.

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.

A fragrant tomato, lentil and chickpea soup thick with herbs and finished with lemon. Traditionally eaten to break the fast during Ramadan, and restorative at any time.

A dark, spongy apricot-jam pudding that has hot cream sauce poured over it the moment it leaves the oven and drinks the lot.

Good bread toasted hard, rubbed with a cut clove of garlic, then with the cut face of a ripe tomato until the crumb is stained red. Salt, olive oil, and nothing else.

Chickpeas and sweet potato in a warmly spiced tomato sauce, with dried apricots melting into it for a sweetness that plays against the cumin and cinnamon.

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.

Soft-centered, crisp-edged and rolled in sugar rather than iced, with lemon zest cutting the sweetness. Pale is the point.

A pale, fragrant cordial of lemon, sugar and rose water, diluted to order. Floral and cold and old-fashioned, and it keeps for weeks.

Coffee-soaked sponge layered with whipped cashew cream and a heavy dusting of cocoa. Assembled in twenty minutes, transformed by a night in the fridge.

Glutinous rice dough wrapped around sweet red bean paste, rolled in sesame and fried until they puff hollow and crackle.

A thick, gently spiced lentil stew softened with squash-sweet carrot and finished with a hard squeeze of lime. Everyday Peruvian home cooking: cheap, filling and quietly excellent.

Very ripe plantains fried until the sugars caramelize into dark, sticky edges and the middles turn to custard. Three ingredients and about ten minutes.

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.

Flattened rice rinsed until it softens, then tossed through a quick tempering of mustard seeds, curry leaves and turmeric with onion, potato and peanuts. Light, fast, and the standard weekday breakfast across much of western India.

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

The Provençal summer-vegetable stew, cooked the honest way: each vegetable browned so it keeps its character, then folded together to melt into a glossy, herby whole.

Warm coconut-sweetened glutinous rice with cold ripe mango and a salty coconut sauce poured over. The salt is what makes it.

Thick, orange, deeply cheesy soup with broccoli soft enough to fall apart in it. Cashews and nutritional yeast do the work the cheddar used to.

Greek yeast puffs fried until hollow and crisp, then rolled in syrup, cinnamon and walnuts. Best eaten standing at the stove.

Silky, garlicky and thick enough to coat every strand of pasta. Blended rather than cooked, so it takes about as long as boiling the water.

Cauliflower roasted hard with shawarma spices until the edges blacken, piled into warm pita with pickles, salad and a garlicky tahini sauce.

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.

Medjool dates blitzed to a sticky paste with peanut butter, oats, cocoa and chia, rolled into bites and chilled. Naturally sweet with no added sugar.

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

Strawberries crushed into lemonade with a handful of basil. The basil sounds odd and is the entire reason to make it.

No cooking, one bowl, fifteen minutes. Chickpeas, cucumber, tomato and kalamata olives tossed in a sharp lemon and red wine vinegar dressing, with plenty of parsley and mint. Holds its own as a light lunch or shrinks to a side.

The Egyptian breakfast: fava beans warmed through and crushed roughly in their own liquid, sharpened with lemon and garlic, then flooded with olive oil and scattered with tomato and parsley. Eaten with bread, out of the same bowl.

Dense, short and deeply peanutty, marked with the traditional fork crosshatch. The fastest cookie here: there is no butter to cream.

The Aleppan red pepper and walnut dip. No cooking at all. Everything goes in the food processor, and it tastes better after an hour in the fridge.

A dense, savory loaf of lentils and toasted walnuts under a sticky ketchup glaze that caramelizes at the edges. It slices cleanly, which is most of the battle.

A deep red paprika stew of mushrooms, peppers and potato, finished with a swirl of plant cream. The paprika goes in off the heat, which is the trick nobody mentions.

Rice and cinnamon soaked overnight, blended and strained into a cloudy, faintly sweet, milky drink. Served very cold, it is the standard partner to anything spicy.

Sweet peppers packed with a lemony rice, pine-nut and herb filling and baked until they slump and blister. As good at room temperature as they are hot.

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

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.

Plant milk cooked down with cardamom and pistachio, then frozen hard in molds. Denser and slower-melting than ice cream because it is never churned.

Fresh pineapple blended with ginger and lime into a thick, golden punch. Sweet, sour and hot all at once, and it takes ten minutes.

A tangy green broth built from blistered tomatillos and chilies, poured over chewy hominy and white beans. The raw garnishes (cabbage, radish, lime) are half the dish, not decoration.

Milk-powder dumplings fried dark and drowned in cardamom-rose syrup, served warm so they are still drinking it in. Sticky, floral and completely over the top.

A dark, herby, aggressively savory spiced water: mint, cilantro, tamarind and roasted cumin. Drunk as an appetiser, and it genuinely works as one.

Plaited dough fried gold and plunged straight into ice-cold syrup, so the outside stays crisp while the inside floods sweet.

Ripe mango blended with plant yogurt and a pinch of cardamom into a thick, cold, barely-sweet drink. The traditional partner to anything fiery.

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.

Flaky hand pies filled with deeply browned mushrooms, onion and olives. The filling must be cold and dry before it goes near the pastry, or the parcels burst in the oven.

Oats soaked overnight in plant milk with grated apple, lemon and raisins, then loosened with yogurt in the morning and topped with almonds. Five minutes of work the night before, and breakfast is already made.

Soft olive-oil-poached potatoes and onion set in a chickpea-flour batter, cooked slowly until the middle is just custardy. Good hot, better at room temperature.

Giant white beans baked slowly in a sweet tomato sauce with dill and plenty of olive oil, until the top catches and the beans turn to cream. Greek taverna cooking at its simplest.

Grated sweet potato baked slowly with coconut milk and warm spice into a dense, sliceable pudding with a dark, sticky top.

Indian cardamom shortbread, sandy and crumbling from chickpea flour and semolina, split across the top and studded with pistachio.

A generous vegetable soup with beans and small pasta, built on a slowly softened base of onion, carrot and celery. The kind of pot that improves every time you reheat it.