When you’re hankering after something starchy and satisfying, this soupy spring rice delight will definitely please the tastebuds

I don’t know whether I prefer saying risi e bisi or eating this Venetian springtime speciality, which is traditionally made to celebrate the feast of St Mark, the city’s patron saint, on 25 April. That said, this deliciously soupy, starchy dish ticks a lot of boxes for me at this time of year, not least because even I can amuse myself in a terrible Italian accent for only so long.

Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 4

Three joyful dishes for a new year: a mild yellow curry, street food-style fried pork and a simple dish of baked mackerel and rice

Songkran , the Thai New Year on 13 April, is a vibrant and joyous celebration marked by a famous water festival that symbolises the cleansing of the past year’s misfortunes through playful water fights and anointing one’s elders with water at the hottest time of year. Traditional Thai dishes play a central role, reflecting the culinary heritage that unites families and communities at this auspicious time.

Both tantalising and restorative, zesty and creamy, this Greek take on chicken soup hits all the right notes and is perfect for Easter

Chicken soup for the soul is more than just an American self-help trope: as Carolina Doriti points out in her book Salt of the Earth , “every culture around the world has a restorative chicken soup”, from Romanian ciorba radauteana to Filipino tinolang manok . Creamy, tangy kotosoupa avgolemono is Greece’s version, and it’s “greatly healing and medicinal, and the most delicious, comforting, warming meal you will have”, according to food writer Georgina Hayden, whose Greek Cypriot family prescribes it for anyone feeling under the weather or simply run down.

Based on avgolemono, Greek cuisine’s famous egg and lemon sauce, which is a rich, bracingly sour mixture that’s often added to stews and other dishes (such as stuffed cabbage ), in the words of Rena Salaman , “its welcoming aroma always adds a bright note to a cold day, and it makes a very substantial meal by itself”. So if you’re craving sunshine but still feel in need of a little winter comfort, this is the dish for you. It also makes a lovely splash of colour at the Easter table, particularly if you’re serving chicken for the main course.

Just as Britain gets the hang of cooking risotto, its future has been thrown into doubt

I know, I know. How peak middle class to make mention of a risotto crisis; don’t most of us have enough on our plates already without getting worked up about the cost of posh rice to boot? But at the risk of impaling myself with my own privilege – there it goes, clean through my Toast linen apron like an expensive Japanese knife – I’m going to jump in anyway, truffle grater in hand (I’m joking, I don’t own a truffle grater). The bad news is that hard times lie ahead for Italian rice , and while I think this is a grave development for Italians, as for all Europeans, perhaps it’s a particular sadness for we British, who came a bit late to risotto, and have only just started truly to get the hang of it.

The trouble has to do with the climate crisis. Risotto rice varieties such as arborio and carnaroli are grown in the Po valley, a floodplain in the north of Italy where the challenge for farmers used to be to keep the water away. But now everything’s topsy turvy. In 2022, the worst drought in 200 years struck the Po, the river that feeds the system of canals that irrigates the paddy fields. As a result, Italy lost 26,000 hectares of rice fields, and production of the grain dropped by more than 30%. Things haven’t improved since. Last year, there was again a drought, and a further 7,500 hectares were lost. Some farmers are getting out, replacing rice with crops that require less water. Others are pondering the cultivation of other varieties of rice: grains that are hardier than carnaroli, but which are also less suitable for making risotto, which requires rice both to be super-absorbent and to maintain its texture after slow cooking.

A layered bake of potatoes, risotto rice, cheese and mussels that will leave your kitchen smelling like the sea

Leafing through Luigi Sada’s book of La Cucina Pugliese , I couldn’t find riso, patate e cozze (rice, potatoes and mussels). I was looking for rice dishes in primi piatti , lost in the countless, great-sounding recipes for mussels and other shellfish from the heel of Italy – in short, the wrong chapter. This layered bake of rice, sliced potatoes, tomatoes, cheese and mussels is the first recipe in the chapter titled Les Soupes (oddly, in French). Sada crowns riso, patate e cozze , also known as tiella , “ the queen of minestre ”, and notes that it is made differently from town to town, and that this “mothership recipe” is tiella barese from Puglia’s capital, Bari. It includes courgettes and uses pecorino. Meanwhile, other recipes from Bari remind us that there is no such thing as a definitive version, each suggesting wildly different proportions and all sorts of rice, or not to include courgettes and to use parmesan instead.

What everyone seems to agree on, though, is that a rest brings out the best in tiella – they all advise waiting before eating – as well as the importance of opening the mussels by hand. Several people reassured me that this is just like opening oysters, which, after being defeated by shell-clenched oysters and shamed by a professional shucker, I didn’t find reassuring at all. However, it turns out that if you insert the point of a knife near the hinge, then run the blade between the two shells, mussels, while a faff, are much easier to lever open than oysters. Yet they’re no less dramatic when you pull apart the shells apart and see the soft, secret flesh inside.

An early spring pie of leek, spinach and sheep’s cheese in a rosemary garlic cream, served with a wild rice and cauliflower salad in a sweet almond dressing

As my eldest daughter approaches teendom, I am realising the full gamut of motherhood. Among other things, she, as I did before her, approaches her mum’s belongings as if they were her own, and as a result I am increasingly appreciating my own mother’s patience and unconditional love. I think little says love more than a pie, and I am hoping that this simple but delicious one will do the trick.

A traditional maqluba – an upside-down layered treat of rice, veg and meat – with sides of pickled aubergine and a spicy, herby courgette salad

Ramadan in Jerusalem holds a special place in my heart, and evokes a blend of spirituality, community and tradition. A vibrant atmosphere envelops the city, the streets come alive with bustling markets selling festive foods, sweets and decorations, and the aroma of fresh baking fills the air.

Sami Tamimi is a chef and food writer.

A soffritto blended to a vivid green and thickened with brown rice and butter – you’ll never throw away a radish leaf again

This is an oldie but a goodie, and it’s adapted from a recipe in my first book The Natural Cook, published 10 years ago . It uses the whole radish, including the green leaves, and with zero waste.

Radish leaves are one of my favourite root greens. They’re ever so spiky raw but, once dressed or cooked, they soften and a fresh, cucumbery flavour sings through. They’re delicious in a leafy salad alongside other leaves dressed generously with a mustardy vinaigrette or simply lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil. They are also delicious gently wilted with extra-virgin olive oil and crushed garlic to serve instead of (or mixed with) other leafy greens such as spinach or kale.

There are as many different recipes for kare raisu as there are cooks who make it, so can our in-house perfectionist discover the winning formula?

In the early years of this century, not long after I ate my first “sushi” (M&S vegetarian selection, since you ask), I tried my first katsu curry at a cool London noodle bar, with my cool new university friends, one of whom had been banging on about this Wagamama place since freshers’ week. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I found that the thick, brown gravy dolloped over neat slices of breaded chicken reminded me of nothing more than good old chip shop curry sauce .

Of course, I didn’t mention this at the time, for fear of ridicule – it wasn’t until many years later that I found out this was no mere coincidence. As Japanese chef and author Hiroko Shimbo explains , “Indian curry came to Japan from England”, via the Royal Navy, when the country first opened up to foreign trade in the second half of the 19th century. After adoption by the Japanese armed forces, it became more widely popular as an example of yōshoku , or western food.