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Cooking basics
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Phat Phrik Khing (Dry-Fried Curry with Pork and Long Beans)
A dry Thai curry: the paste is fried in oil, then pork and yardlong beans are stir-fried in it with no liquid added. With no coconut milk poured in it is far drier than red curry, and the paste clings straight to the meat and beans. The "khing" in the name means ginger, though there is no ginger in it.
Tenmusu (Rice Balls with Shrimp Tempura)
Bite-sized rice balls with a small shrimp tempura inside, wrapped in nori. They began in the 1950s as a staff meal at a tempura shop in Tsu, Mie, and became a Nagoya specialty. The tempura is dipped in a soy seasoning or salted while hot before it goes in, and because the flavour holds up when cold they are sold as bento.
Cabidela (Chicken and Rice Finished with Vinegared Blood)
A dish from the Minho in northern Portugal: chicken and rice simmered in broth and finished, almost at the end, with the bird's blood mixed with vinegar. The vinegar goes into the blood as it is collected, to stop it clotting. The blood turns the broth brown and thickens it, and the vinegar leaves a quiet sourness.
Tsukudani (Kombu Simmered Down in Soy and Mirin)
A Japanese relish of kombu, small fish, shellfish or vegetables simmered in soy, mirin and sugar until the liquid is gone. The name comes from Tsukudajima in Edo, where fishermen boiled their catch down salty to eat on bad-weather days and at sea. This recipe uses the kombu left over from making dashi. A spoonful does a bowl of rice.
Torta de Aceite (Crisp Olive Oil Flatbread with Anise)
A Seville pastry: a dough of flour, olive oil, anise and sesame rolled paper-thin, sprinkled with sugar and baked. It has no crumb; the whole thing is crust. In Castile the same name belongs to a thick, soft bread, and the Seville torta became something else by giving up almost all of its thickness.
Tacu-Tacu (Pan-Fried Rice and Bean Cake)
A Peruvian dish of leftover rice and cooked beans fried together and shaped into a flat oval. Part of the beans is mashed into the rice so that it holds as one cake, and the pan gives it a crisp outer crust. It is topped with a fried egg or a thin steak and served with fried plantain.
Sapin-Sapin (Layered Steamed Glutinous Rice Cake)
A Filipino steamed cake: a batter of glutinous rice flour, coconut milk and sugar split three ways, coloured purple, white and yellow, and steamed one layer at a time, each set before the next is poured on. The Tagalog name means "layered". It is topped with latik, the toasted curds of coconut milk.
Mi Krop (Crisp Fried Rice Vermicelli in Sweet-Sour Glaze)
A Bangkok dish of dry rice vermicelli dropped unsoaked into hot oil so it puffs at once, then tossed in a sweet-sour sauce reduced thick. The name means "crisp noodles". The sour note often comes from the peel of som sa, a Thai citrus like citron.
Kembang Goyang (Rice Flour Rosette Fritters)
A Betawi snack from Indonesia: a thin batter of rice flour, egg, sugar and coconut milk, picked up on a flower-shaped iron that has been heated in the oil, then fried and shaken off the iron. The name means "shaking flower". The batter cooks on the outside of the hot iron, not inside it.
İskilip Dolması (Rice Steamed in a Cloth Bag over Lamb Broth)
Rice from İskilip in Çorum, Turkey: fried in animal fat with onion, tied into a cloth bag and set on a trivet inside a pot of simmering lamb broth, where it cooks overnight in the steam alone. The rice never touches the liquid. To serve, the meat goes on top and the broth is poured over. A registered geographical indication and a wedding dish.
Chhena Poda (Baked Fresh Cheese Cake)
A dessert from Odisha in eastern India: fresh chhena, milk curdled with acid and drained, kneaded long with sugar and semolina, then baked for a long time until the outside is deep brown. The Odia name means "burnt cheese", and most of its flavour comes from the caramelised sugar.
Champorado (Chocolate Sticky Rice Porridge)
A Filipino chocolate porridge: sticky rice boiled with tablea, tablets of pure ground roasted cocoa, until thick. Milk or coconut milk goes over the top and sugar goes in to taste. Eaten for breakfast or merienda, and commonly paired with tuyo, small salted dried fish.
That’s every recipe.