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Tunisian ring doughnuts made from a soft yeast dough, fried until puffed and chewy, and finished with powdered sugar.

A Turkish white-bean stew with onion and tomato paste, simmered until the beans are creamy and the sauce is thick.

A Timorese-style plate of hard-cooked eggs coated in a thick tomato and chili sauce. The sweet-sour seasoning makes it suitable as a small plate or part of a larger meal.

Fried yeast buns filled with potato, tuna, egg, olives, capers, harissa, and lemon. The buns should be light inside and filled only after draining.

A crisp warka pastry filled with tuna, herbs, capers, harissa, and egg. A soft yolk is common, but pasteurized eggs should be used when it is not cooked firm.

Fried bake filled with seasoned fried shark and crisp vegetables, then dressed with sauces. Purchase shark from a legal, responsibly managed source, or use a firm sustainable fish where shark is unavailable.

A Turkmen lamb and potato pie enclosed in a simple rolled dough and finished with sesame seeds.

Saucy red beans cooked with onion, tomato, garlic, and curry powder and served over warm chapati pieces.

Farmer's-cheese pancakes lightly sweetened with sugar and vanilla, dusted with flour, and pan-fried until golden.

A Tongan-style sweet of tender sweet-potato dumplings poached in a lightly sweetened coconut sauce.

A chilled Trinidadian holiday drink of milk, rum, lime zest, bitters, nutmeg, and egg. Pasteurized eggs keep the uncooked preparation safer.

A one-pot Trinidadian pelau with browned chicken, rice, pigeon peas, coconut milk, herbs, and vegetables. Caramelized sugar gives the chicken and rice their characteristic deep color.

Doubles pairs two soft fried bara with curried chickpeas, tamarind chutney, pepper sauce, and fresh culantro. This version keeps the bara tender and the channa spoonable.

Thin Turkmen flatbreads filled with spinach and onion, browned in a skillet, and served with plain yogurt.

Ai manas is a Timorese chili condiment prepared in many household variations. This fresh version combines chili, onion, chive, citrus, and coconut oil.

Yeasted Emirati pancakes scented with saffron and cardamom and served warm with date syrup.

Eggplants split and filled with a tomato-rich ground-beef mixture, then baked with a little water until completely tender.

A Tunisian chickpea and bread soup seasoned with garlic, cumin, and harissa, then finished with lemon, olive oil, parsley, and egg.

Pieces of egg dough fried until crisp and coated with warm honey. The sweet can be shaped while warm and left to set.

2 regional versions

A Tunisian tomato and harissa skillet with merguez and eggs. The sauce is reduced until thick before the eggs are added.

A chopped Turkish salad of tomato, cucumber, onion, parsley, mint, lemon, and olive oil, mixed just before serving.

Katupa is rice cooked with coconut and enclosed in woven palm leaves. This accessible version uses softened banana leaf to make fragrant individual coconut-rice parcels.

A chilled salted drink inspired by Turkmen chal, made here with commercially prepared fermented milk and cold water.

A Turkish red-lentil and bulgur soup seasoned with tomato paste, mint, paprika, cumin, butter, and black pepper.