Browse recipes

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Five minutes, one blender, no cooking. Ripe avocado and cocoa whipped into a mousse so dark and silky nobody will guess the base. Chill it and it sets like the real thing.

Frozen edamame pods boiled for five minutes and tossed with flaky salt, chili flakes and a little toasted sesame oil. One of the highest-protein snacks you can make from a freezer bag.

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

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

Green beans blistered in a hot pan until they wrinkle and char in places, then tossed with garlic, soy and sesame. Ten minutes, one pan, and they disappear.

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 five-minute-tonight, grab-and-go-tomorrow breakfast. Oats soften in the fridge overnight into a creamy, spoonable pot that tastes like a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

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.

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

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

Smoky, garlicky and the color of terracotta. Five minutes of work that makes fries, burgers and roast vegetables taste like somebody planned ahead.

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.

A clear, savory broth with silken tofu, shiitake and seaweed. The one rule is never to boil it once the miso goes in: that is what turns it flat and grainy.

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

A no-cook peanut, lime and soy sauce whisked in the bowl, tossed through noodles with cold cucumber ribbons. Fifteen minutes, and better slightly under-dressed than over.

Maple syrup infused with chili and a little vinegar until it is sweet, hot and sharp all at once. The vegan answer to hot honey, and it goes on everything.

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

Salty, sour, sweet and hot in roughly equal measure, loosened to a pourable cream. It takes five minutes and improves almost anything it lands on.

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.

Cool, herby and thick enough to cling, with the sharpness that makes ranch worth having. Better after an hour in the fridge, and better still the next day.

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.

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.

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

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 block of chilled silken tofu turned out whole and dressed with soy, sesame oil, ginger and scallion. No cooking at all, and on the table in five minutes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.