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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.