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Appetizers

Snacks and handheld food with intent. Dips worth double-dipping, sandwiches that travel without collapsing, finger food that earns the napkin.

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Chawanmushi with Crab and Shiitake (Japanese Steamed Egg Custard) with dashi, crab meat and shiitake mushrooms — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Chawanmushi with Crab and Shiitake (Japanese Steamed Egg Custard)

Chawanmushi is a savoury Japanese egg custard steamed until it barely sets — so soft it trembles on the spoon, with none of the firmness of a Western custard. Dashi carries the flavour, seasoned lightly with mirin and pale soy, while crab, shiitake, kamaboko, and ginkgo nuts sit hidden beneath the surface. Served warm in a lidded cup with a sprig of mitsuba and a shaving of yuzu, it's the quiet, restrained side of Japanese cooking.

40 min130 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

Chicken and Mushroom Julienne with chicken, mushrooms and onion — Russia recipe

🇷🇺RussiaMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Chicken and Mushroom Julienne

Julienne in Russian cooking is not a way of cutting vegetables: it is the name of a hot appetizer (жюльен, zhulyen), chicken and mushrooms in cream sauce baked under cheese in small individual cocotte dishes. The word comes from French, where it means thin strips, but in Russia it stuck to this dish, a popular item on Soviet restaurant menus. You boil the chicken, sauté the mushrooms, make the sauce, fill the dishes and bake; start to finish takes under an hour.

53 min300 kcal6 serves

🥑Keto

Chicken Liver Pâté with chicken liver, bacon and butter — France recipe

🇫🇷FranceMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Chicken Liver Pâté

Chicken liver pâté is a smooth, buttery spread for toast: livers cooked with bacon, onion and carrot, then blended with more butter and a splash of milk. Cook the livers until the centre reaches 70°C and holds it for 2 minutes, then stop — longer frying makes the pâté grainy and bitter.

23 min400 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

Chicken Quesadilla with flour tortillas, chicken and Monterey Jack cheese — Mexico recipe

🇲🇽MexicoMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Chicken Quesadilla

Flour tortillas folded over spiced shredded chicken, peppers, and melted cheese, then toasted in a dry pan until golden and crisp. The trick to a quesadilla that doesn't leak is restraint: don't overfill it, and put cheese against both halves of the tortilla so it fuses shut into one crisp, molten package.

25 min550 kcal2 serves

💪High protein⚡Quick🌶️Spicy

Chinese Braised Eggplant with eggplant, soy sauce and garlic — China recipe

🇨🇳ChinaMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Chinese Braised Eggplant

Silky Chinese braised eggplant in a glossy sweet-savory sauce with garlic, ginger and sesame. One of the great vegetarian dishes of Chinese cuisine — the eggplant absorbs every layer of flavor from the sauce.

15 min160 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick

Coxinha with chicken thighs, chicken stock and requeijão — Brazil recipe

🇧🇷BrazilAdvanced

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Coxinha

Coxinha is the teardrop-shaped chicken croquette sold in every Brazilian bakery and snack bar, named after the chicken drumstick whose shape it imitates. The dough is a scalded flour paste made with the broth the chicken was poached in, which is why a coxinha tastes of chicken all the way through rather than only in its filling. Inside sits shredded thigh meat bound with requeijão, the Brazilian spreadable cheese, and the whole thing is breaded and deep-fried until the shell crackles. The two things that decide the result are kneading the dough while it is still hot and sealing the shell without trapping air.

90 min480 kcal6 serves

Crispy Fried Tofu with firm tofu, cornstarch and garlic cloves — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Crispy Fried Tofu

Japanese golden fried tofu with a crispy cornstarch crust, served with a simple soy-garlic sauce, sesame seeds, and green onion. A dish that wins over even tofu skeptics.

30 min165 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🥑Keto

Croquetas de Jamón with jamón serrano, whole milk and unsalted butter — Spain recipe

🇪🇸SpainMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Croquetas de Jamón

Spanish ham croquetas are made from a thick bechamel enriched with finely diced jamón serrano, chilled until it can be shaped, then breaded and deep-fried. Unlike the French croquette, which is built on potato, the Spanish version has no starch filler at all: the interior is meant to be liquid at eating temperature and held together only by the crust. The dish came out of home kitchens as a way to use the last shreds of ham from the bone, and it survives in almost every bar in Spain as the standard measure of a kitchen. The two things that decide the result are the flour-to-milk ratio and how long the flour is cooked before the milk goes in. Active work is about an hour, but the dough must chill for several hours before shaping.

60 min430 kcal4 serves

Currywurst with bratwurst, tomato paste and curry powder — Germany recipe

🇩🇪GermanyMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Currywurst

Currywurst is Berlin street food: a pork sausage cut into rounds, buried under a hot tomato and curry sauce and dusted with curry powder on top. Herta Heuwer sold the first one at her stand in Charlottenburg in September 1949, and she built the sauce from tomato paste, curry powder and Worcestershire sauce rather than from ready-made ketchup. Berlin serves a skinless boiled sausage, pale and soft, while the Ruhr fries a bratwurst in its casing for the bite; both arrive with fries under ketchup and mayonnaise, ordered as Pommes rot-weiß.

30 min460 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick

Deviled Eggs with Chipotle with eggs, mayonnaise and chipotle — USA recipe

🇺🇸USAMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Deviled Eggs with Chipotle

Deviled eggs are one of the easiest appetisers to make badly and one of the most satisfying to get right. The filling needs to be smooth — not grainy, not lumpy — and seasoned assertively enough that you taste it rather than just fat. Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce do two things at once: they add smokiness and heat, and the sauce itself adds a tomato-tinged depth that plain hot sauce doesn't. The lime brings brightness. This is not a subtle dish, which is exactly the point at a table that also has glazed ham and couscous salad.

35 min110 kcal12 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

Edamame with edamame, sesame oil and soy sauce — Japan recipe

🇯🇵JapanEasy

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Edamame

Young green soybeans boiled in salted water — a classic Japanese snack. Simple, nutritious and delicious as is, or elevated with sesame oil, chili flakes and soy sauce.

15 min180 kcal4 serves

🌿Vegetarian⚡Quick🌱Vegan

Forshmak with herring, apple and bread — Israel recipe

🇮🇱IsraelMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Forshmak

Salt-cured herring ground with tart apples, butter, and a touch of onion into a creamy, pungent spread. A staple of Jewish cuisine that hits every note — briny, sweet, sharp — all at once on a piece of dark rye bread.

23 min530 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick💪High protein

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