Recipes from people cooking far from home. Every one is a map — what goes in, when, and how much of it is just waiting.
11 recipes, no life stories, no pop-ups. Search by an ingredient you already have, a city, or how long you have got.
Shakshuka
Peppers and tomato cooked down until a spoon leaves a trail, then eggs dropped into wells and covered. Bread is not a side, it is the cutlery.
5 stagesArepas de Queso
Corn flour, warm water, salt and cheese. The dough tells you when it is right and there is nothing else to get wrong.
5 stagesGuiso de Garbanzos
Chickpeas fried hard, then broken down in coconut and turmeric until the broth goes gold and thick enough to stand a spoon in.
6 stages · mostly waitingKhichdi
Rice and split lentils cooked well past the point of separateness, then hit at the table with a spoonful of ghee full of burnt spices.
5 stages · mostly waitingTortilla de Patatas
Potatoes poached slow in olive oil until they fall apart, then set in egg and taken off early. Runny in the middle or you have made an omelette.
6 stagesMujadara
Lentils and rice under a pile of onions fried until they are almost too dark. If the colour does not worry you slightly, keep going.
5 stagesDan Dan Mian
Chili oil, sesame and black vinegar pooled under the noodles, pork and pickle on top. The dish is not assembled until you mix it yourself.
6 stagesEmpanadas de Carne
Knife-cut beef, more onion than you think is reasonable, and a filling that must go into the dough cold. Warm filling tears it every time.
7 stages · mostly waitingPhở Gà
A whole chicken, aromatics burnt black over the flame, and three hours of leaving the pot alone. Clear broth is the only thing being judged.
7 stages · mostly waitingHarira
Lentils, chickpeas and a little lamb under a tomato broth, finished with a flour slurry that turns the whole thing velvet.
7 stages · mostly waitingMilanesas
Thin beef sat in garlic and parsley egg, breaded twice, fried fast. The measure of an Argentine kitchen anywhere in the world.
6 stages