• ½ cup (125 ml) good olive oil
• 350 g boneless chicken breast, cut into cubes
• 300 g fresh okra
• 1 medium-sized onion, chopped
• 400 g tomatoes, skinned and chopped (or a can of polpa)
• juice of 1 lemon
• salt, pepper

Do not use canned okra. They have a very different taste and will disintegrate if used with this recipe.

Remove the tips and caps from the okra. If they are too large, cut them in half. Put in a bowl, add the lemon juice and fill the bowl with water until the okra are covered. Ideally, let the okra soak for about two to three hours. As a minimum, lert them soak for 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan, but don't let it get too hot or it'll lose its taste. Add the chopped onion and chicken pieces and fry until meat and onions have a brownish tint. Add the chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper, stir well, then reduce heat, cover with a lid and let everything simmer over low heat for about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the chicken from the sauce and put it aside. Drain the okra and put them into the sauce. Cover and let simmer over low heat for about 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Then add in the chicken pieces, let boil very briefly just to make sure the chicken is warm; then serve immediately, preferably with rice.

The idea behind cooking chicken and okra separately is that the okra and tomatoes get a fruity, slightly lemony taste, whereas the chicken does not. This contrast is essential, and you should not spoil it by cooking okra and chicken together.

Update: At the request of a reader, here is some more information about okra: [1] [2] [3].

I took some clues from vague descriptions of a Phall that I found online and improvised this dish. It may need some adjustments, but the first try turned out tasty and very hot. Serves 2, or one very hungry person.

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 350g boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 cloves garlic
• a 2.5" (6-7cm) piece of ginger
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• ½ tsp cumin powder
• 2 tsp ground fennel seeds
• 2 fresh habanero chilies
• ½ bhut jolokia chili
• 8 very hot dried red chilies
• juice of ½ lemon
• 1 can tomatoes and their juice
• salt
• ½ tsp extra hot chili powder
• ½ tsp garam masala
• 1 tbsp chopped green coriander leaves

Squeeze the garlic cloves through a garlic press and grate the ginger finely, then put both into a blender. Put on protective gloves. Chop the chilies and put into the blender. Add the turmeric, coriander, cumin, fennel and lemon juice. Add a little bit of water. Whizz. The resulting paste should be thick and just barely liquid. Add some more water if necessary. Whizz until very smooth.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the chicken cubes. Stir fry until the meat is white on the outside. Open the windows and/or put the fume hood on full blast. Add the spice paste from the blender, keep stirring on high heat until the liquid has evaporated. Try not to inhale the chili fumes.

Put the can of tomatoes and their juice intio the blender and whizz until smooth. Add the tomatoes into the pan. The meat should be about covered. If not, add some water.

Salt to taste, then reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. You can now take off the gloves and turn down the fume hood.

Turn off the heat, add the chili powder, garam masala and coriander leaves. Stir, then cover with a lid and let stand for 3-5 minutes. Serve with lots of rice.

This is very hot, but I managed to eat a portion. If you find this insufficiently challenging, use a whole bhut jolokia chili. If you find it too hot, check out one of the milder curry recipes.

The taste depends very much on the tomatoes, which is why you should use aromatic cherry tomatoes rather than regular ones.

• 1 tbsp good olive oil
• 1 smallish onion, finely chopped
• ½ yellow bell pepper, deseeded and cut in small (¼") pieces
• 1-2 dried chilies, crushed
• 300g (10oz) cherry tomatoes, San Marzano or similar, halved or quartered depending on size
• salt
• pepper
• 8-10 basil leaves, cut in stripes
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and fry at moderate heat until slightly yellowish. Add the crushed chilies and chopped bell peppers, stir-fry for 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper. Stir carefully so that the tomatoes. The tomatoes don't need to be fried, they just need to be heated up, and they shouldn't fall apart. 1-2 minutes should be enough. The skin should not wrinkle and not come off.

Turn off the heat, add the basil leaves and lemon juice. Stir carefully. Let stand for 1-2 minutes, then serve.

• 2 large eggplants
• 2 medium-sized courgettes
• 1-2 red bell peppers, depending on the size
• 2 cans of tomatoes with juice
• 1 large onion, chopped
• ½ cup (125ml) French or Greek olive oil
• 1 bouquet garni (a few twigs of parsley and thyme, and a bay leaf bound together)
• salt
• pepper

Cut the eggplants and courgettes into small (1/4"-½") cubes, remove the seeds from the bell peppers and cut them into similar-sized bits. Put the tomatoes and their juice into a blender and whizz until smooth.

In a large pot, bring the oil to medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until transparent.

Add the eggplant cubes and stir well. They will very likely absorb most of the olive oil. That's okay. Add the courgettes and bell peppers and stir for another minute or so.

Add the tomato sauce from the blender, season with salt and pepper. Stir. Add the bouquet garni and make sure it is well immersed in the sauce. Bring to boil.

Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and let simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the bouquet garni, then serve as a main or side dish.

• 1 large cauliflower
• 3 potatoes
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 small piece fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 can peeled tomatoes
• 3-4 fresh green chilies, chopped
• 3-4 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
• 1 large bunch green coriander, stalks and leaves chopped separately
• 1 ½ teaspoons garam masala
• salt

Quarter the cauliflower, remove the trunk, then cut or pluck into smaller pieces. Peel the potatoes and cut into small pieces.

Put the tomatoes and their juice into a blender, whizz briefly until semi-smooth.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan or wok, then add the cumin and chopped onions and fry until yellowish-golden, but not brown. Add the ginger, chilies and coriander stalks, stir well and fry for another minute. Add the turmeric powder and stir well. Add the tomatoes and cook for 3-5 minutes.

Reduce heat, then add the cauliflower and potatoes. Add salt and stir well.

Cover and let simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes, stirring ocasionally, until the potatoes are done and most of the liquid has evaporated.

Turn off the heat, add the chopped coriander leaves and garam masala; stir carefully, then cover and let stand for at least 5 minutes. Serve with rice and/or chapatis.

Here is the recipe:

• 750g floury potatoes
• 250g lightly smoked, dried sausage (Wiesbauer Bergsteiger or similar)
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 300ml beef stock (or water + ½ beef stock cube)
• 20g sweet paprika powder
• 2 tbsp oil (rapeseed or a mild olive oil work best)
• 3-5 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp caraway seeds
• 2 tsp marjoram
• salt
• crushed black pepper
• optional: 1/4 tsp hot chili powder

Peel the potatoes and cut into quarters (or smaller, if potatoes are very big).
Heat the oil, then fry the onions over moderate heat until golden.
Reduce heat to minimum, then add paprika and mix thoroughly for a few seconds.
Add vinegar, mix for a few seconds more.
Add beef stock, stir well.
Add crushed garlic, potatoes, and all herbs and spices.
Cover pot, bring to boil, then reduce heat and let simmer over moderate heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the potatoes are simmering, cut the sausage into bite-sized cubes.
When potatoes are done, remove pot from heat and add the cut sausage.
Stir carefully to make sure potatoes don't break, let rest for about 5 minutes, then serve.

Immediately after serving, however, you or your guests take a good look at it and enjoy the colourful appearance, after which you take a spoon and mix everything into a moderately undefinable mixture. "Bibimbap" apparently means "mixed meal".

Here is a simple Bibimbap recipe. The ingredients are per person.

• 1 cup rice
• 1 tablespoon dried seaweed
• 3 mushrooms, sliced
• 1-2 tablespoons beansprouts
• 1 small carrot
• 50g beef, cut in thin stripes
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon gochujang (Korean fermented hot pepper paste)
• 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• ½ tbsp sesame oil

Boil the rice.
Soak the seaweed in some water, (optionally) season with hoisin sauce and rice vinegar.
Cut the carrot into thin stripes (julienne).
Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan or wok. Sauté the mushrooms. Remove from the pan.
Sauté the beansprouts. Remove from the pan.
Add some vegetable oil if necessary. Fry the egg. Remove from the pan.
Stir fry the beef briefly over high heat, (optionally) season with bean paste.

Put the rice in a bowl. Put the gochujang in the middle. Place the egg on the gochujang. Arrange the drained seaweed, mushrooms, beef, carrot stripes, beansprouts and pepper paste around the egg.

Season with sesame oil and serve immediately.
Look at it.
Take a big spoon and mix everything, then eat.

• 3 eggplants
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• a few parsley sprigs
• salt
• ground black pepper
• 3 tbsp good Greek olive oil
• 1-2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 50 g feta cheese

Preheat oven to 180°C/360°F. Pierce the eggplants several times with a fork and place in oven. Bake for approx. one hour until the eggplants are all soft and the skin is slightly burned.

Cut the eggplants in half and scrape the pulp from the skin using a large spoon, then chop the pulp into very small pieces. Place in a bowl, add garlic, finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.

Add one tablespoon of olive oil at a time, keep stirring. Add vinegar to taste. The salad should have a texture that is about half way between smooth and chunky. You may want to use a blender to get the texture right.

Once you have the desired texture, break the feta cheese into crumbs and stir it into the salad.

Serve cold.

• 500g potatoes, peeled & diced
• 1 large leek
• 3 carrots
• 3 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup chicken stock
• ½ cup milk
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg
• 2 bratwursts (roast sausages, preferably of Belgian origin)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Boil the potatoes in plenty of salted water until they're soft.

While the potatoes are cooking, remove the hard outer leaves from the leek, rinse it well, then chop it. Grate the carrots.

Melt the butter in a pan, then add the leek and carrots. Simmer for about 5 minutes over low heat, make sure that they don't brown.

Add the chicken stock, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and roast the bratwursts.

Mash the potatoes or squeeze them through a potato press.
Drain the vegetables, but keep the liquid.
Put the liquid back in the pan, let boil over high heat until it has been reduced to about half.
Mix the potatoes and vegetables with a wooden spoon. Keep stirring and slowly add the liquid from the pan to give the stoemp a softer texture.

Per plate, use half of the stoemp and one bratwurst. First put the stoemp on the plate, then the bratwurst on top of it.

Veggie option: Eat the stoemp without the bratwurst.

Here's the recipe. If you want to cook it, BEWARE: this is by definition a very hot dish: most of the taste and aroma comes from the green chilies; so if you use fewer chilies in an attempt to make a milder dish, most of the taste goes missing - you need all those chilies for the taste. This recipe serves 2-3. Here we go:

• 750 grams of chicken breast, cut into 2 inch cubes
• 1 medium-sized onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 piece of ginger (slightly less than 1 inch), chopped
• 1 green capsicum (bell pepper), deseeded and cut into biggish pieces
• 15 (sic!) green chilies, coarsely chopped
• 2-3 tablespoons green coriander, chopped
• 1 tablespoon dried methi (fenugreek) leaves
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• a few (max. ½ teaspoon) cardamom seeds
• salt

Chop one of the garlic cloves. In a large pan or wok, fry the onions in 2 tablespoons of oil until they become yellowish. Add the chopped ginger and the chopped garlic clove and fry 1 minute more.

Put the fried onions, ginger and garlic plus the green chilies, green coriander, methi leaves and ½ cup (125ml) of water in a blender and whizz until very smooth.

Put the chicken pieces and capsicum pieces into the frying pan (you may want to add a little bit of oil) and fry until the meat has turned white on the outside. Add the mixture from the blender, the cardamom seeds, the turmeric powder and some salt, then add some water until the meat is covered. Bring to boil.

After a while, squeeze in the remaining garlic clove with a garlic press and add the coriander powder. Cook until the meat is well done and at least half the water has evaporated from the sauce. Serve with lots of rice.

If you want a milder taste, the correct way is not to use fewer chilies - as I said, this will affect the taste - but you can try to let it cook a bit longer, as the chilies become "milder" the longer they cook. You may have to add some more water in that case. However, there's no way of turning this into a "mild" or "medium" dish. At its mildest, it'll still be "fairly hot".

But now, without further ado, here's my favourite pasta recipe, and a fairly simple one at that. Serves 4, I think.

• 500g Penne Rigate
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 small or medium-sized onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1 can peeled tomatoes
• 3 peperoncini or dried red chilies
• salt
• optional: 20g smoked bacon slices, chopped
• optional: finely grated parmesan cheese

Bring a pot of well-salted water plus one tablespoon olive oil to the boil, add pasta and cook until al dente (usually, you'll find cooking times on the pasta box).

Option: if you like your pasta with meat, roast the bacon in a pan, then cut into tiny cubes.

In a pot, heat one tablespoon olive oil (careful, not too hot, or it will become bitter!). Add the chopped onion and fry until transparent; then add the chopped clove garlicand fry until the onion is yellowish.

Put the peeled tomatoes, peperoncini, onion and garlic in a blender and whizz until smooth. Put the sauce back into the pot and let simmer for at least ten minutes. Salt to taste.

When the pasta is cooked, strain in a sieve, then add to the sauce. Add the bacon if you wish (I prefer my penne meatless). Stir well, mixing sauce and pasta.

Serve immediately. Penne all'arrabiata is usually NOT served with basil or oregano, but parmesan cheese is okay if you like it.

Serves two.

For the fish:

• 2 pike-perch fillets (or other mild white fish), about 250g each
• 4 teaspoons lemon juice
• salt
• pepper
• 2 teaspoons wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

For the okra sauce:

• 200g fresh green okra (ladyfingers)*
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 large onions, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 small(!) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped (should be less than half the amount of garlic)
• ½ teaspoon hot red chili powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 tablespoon coriander powder
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• 200ml coconut milk
• 220ml water
• salt

*) The 200g are actually a guess. I have no idea how many okras I actually used. Pick what seems to be a generous amount for one person or a good side portion for two persons.

Season the fish fillets with lemon juice, salt and pepper and apply a thin(!) layer of the flour.

Rinse the okra well and remove the hard stems, but not the caps.

In a large wok or pan, heat 2 tablespoons oil and add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds. As soon as they begin to pop, add the onion slices. Fry until the onions are soft and transparent. Then add the garlic slices and ginger pieces. Fry for 2-3 minutes. The onions should become yellowy, but not brown.

Add the turmeric, coriander powder, chili powder and cumin powder and fry briefly, stirring well. Then add coconut milk, water, salt and the okra. Put the lid on and bring to boil; then let simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes until the okra are soft, stirring occasionally.

While the okra are simmering, heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large pan and fry the fish fillets over low to medium heat on both sides until golden brown.

To serve, put each fish fillet on a plate and cover with the okra and the sauce. Serve with rice.

• 1 large eggplant (about 300 grams), cut into small cubes
• 1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped
• ½ cup (~125ml) olive oil
• 250 grams pureed tomatoes or passata
• 1 cup rice
• 3 cups water
• salt
• ground black pepper

In a large pot, heat the olive oil and fry the onions until they have become transparent. Add the eggplant cubes and fry some more. Then add the pureed tomatoes, cover the pot and let cook for about 15 minutes over low heat, stirring from time to time.

Add the water, salt and pepper, stir well and bring to boil. Then, add the rice. Let simmer until the rice is ready and has soaked up almost all of the water, stirring from time to time. Serve with white or brown bread.

• 350g boneless chicken breast, cut in cubes
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 small piece fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 4 fresh green chilies, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• ½ teaspoon hot red chili powder
• 1 teaspoon tandoori masala
• 1 can tomatoes, with juice
• 200ml water
• salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh green coriander, finely chopped

Heat 2 tablespooons oil in a frying pan and fry the chicken cubes until brown.

In another pan, heat another 2 tablespoons oil and frythe onions until transparent, then add the ginger, chilies and garlic and fry briefly.

Add the turmeric, coriander, cumin, chili powder and tandoori masala. Stir well and fry very briefly.

Put the mixture in a blender, along with the tomatoes and whizz until very smooth.

Put the chicken cubes, the mixture from the blender, the water and the salt back into the pan and let cook with the lid on for about 15 minutes. Add the coriander, stir well and let cook for a little while longer. Then serve with rice or chapatis.