Hamam mahshi is one of Egypt’s grand old dishes: squab (young pigeon) stuffed with buttery rice, poached until tender, then roasted until the skin turns golden. In Egypt it is celebration food — the...

Awaze is Ethiopia’s essential hot sauce: a thick, brick-red paste of berbere spices loosened with red wine or tej (Ethiopian honey wine), sharpened with garlic and ginger. One taste at an Ethiopian restaurant in...

I met attiéké at an African restaurant in New York, ordered it out of pure curiosity, and left planning my next visit. It is Ivory Coast’s beloved staple: couscous-like granules of fermented cassava with...

Some recipes come with a story attached, and my passatelli in brodo will always taste like my friend’s kitchen, where her Italian grandmother waved us to the table with a wooden spoon and an...

Peinirli are Greece’s cheese boats: soft yeasted dough shaped into open vessels, loaded with molten kasseri or mozzarella and feta, edges crisped, center gloriously gooey. Greek-Ottoman heritage on full display — the dish sailed...

Tirokroketes are Greece’s golden cheese croquettes: creamy feta and sharp kefalotyri bound with herbs, rolled, breaded and fried until the outside crackles and the inside barely holds itself together. Dangerous knowledge, freely shared. They...

Taramosalata is the blushing star of the Greek meze table: a silky emulsion of salted fish roe (tarama), bread, olive oil and lemon — briny, tangy and impossible to stop scooping once the warm...

Tiropitakia are the little golden triangles that no Greek gathering is complete without: crackling layers of phyllo folded flag-style around a creamy, tangy feta filling. They are to Greece what rissóis are to Portugal...

Tiganites are Greece’s claim to the world’s oldest pancakes — versions appear in texts from ancient Athens, where they were fried in olive oil and finished with honey, exactly as this recipe does twenty-five...

Sautéed calamari is the Mediterranean’s five-minute masterclass: squid rings hit a screaming-hot pan with garlic and olive oil, turn opaque, and come off the heat with lemon and parsley before anyone has set the...