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Dish of the week: Holubtsi

12 Dried shrimp Recipes From 8 Cuisines.

Tiny shrimp salted and sun-dried until hard, used as a seasoning rather than as seafood. Soaked in warm water for ten minutes they soften enough to pound into pastes and sambals; toasted dry they are ground over noodles and salads. They carry a concentrated savoury depth that underpins Thai pad thai, Brazilian moqueca and vatapa, and countless Chinese vegetable dishes. Buy pink, whole, unbroken ones and keep them in the freezer, because they go rancid and grey at room temperature.

12 recipes on this route

The recipes.

Split orange acaraje fritter filled with pale vatapa paste, okra caruru and whole dried shrimp

Brazil13 hr 50 min

Acarajé

Bahian Black-Eyed Pea Fritters

Bright yellow achu soup poured into a well in a white mound of pounded cocoyam, with pieces of beef and cow skin

Cameroon2 hr 30 min

Achu Soup

Cameroonian Yellow Palm Oil Soup

A jar of Burmese balachaung, rust-coloured crisp dried shrimp with fried garlic and shallots under oil

Myanmar1 hr

Balachaung

Burmese Dried Shrimp and Garlic Relish

Small bowl of Tainan danzai noodles with dark minced pork, a whole shrimp, bean sprouts and coriander in shrimp broth

Taiwan1 hr 50 min

Danzai Mian

Tainan Peddler's Noodles

Bowl of thick orange egusi soup with melon seed curds, goat meat and dark shredded greens

Nigeria1 hr 55 min

Egusi Soup

Nigerian Melon Seed and Greens Stew

Dark green eru stew glossy with red palm oil, studded with cow skin and smoked fish, next to a mound of garri

Cameroon2 hr 5 min

Eru

Cameroonian Wild Leaf and Waterleaf Stew

Bowl of orange coconut laksa gravy with short-cut rice noodles, prawns, fish cake slices and shredded laksa leaf

Singapore1 hr 35 min

Katong Laksa

Singapore Coconut Curry Noodle Soup

Wooden bowl of nkwobi cow foot coated in yellow palm oil paste, topped with shredded utazi and onion rings

Nigeria2 hr 30 min

Nkwobi

Igbo Spiced Cow Foot in Palm Oil

Sliced fresh popiah rolls showing braised jicama, shredded omelette, peanuts and lettuce inside a soft wheat skin

Singapore1 hr 50 min

Popiah

Singaporean Fresh Spring Roll with Braised Turnip

Thick dark green sanga of cassava leaves and yellow maize kernels glossy with red palm oil in an iron pot

Cameroon1 hr 25 min

Sanga

Cameroonian Maize and Cassava Leaf Pot

Jar of near-black Ghanaian shito chili sauce under a layer of dark oil, with a spoonful beside it

Ghana2 hr

Shito

Ghanaian Black Chili and Smoked Fish Sauce

Green papaya salad heaped on a plate with cherry tomatoes, long beans, chilies and crushed peanuts beside a clay mortar

Thailand20 min

Som Tam Thai

Green Papaya Salad Pounded in a Mortar

also known asebi, udang kering, camarao seco

common in