El Salvador - Pupusas
Recipe from https://tasty.co/recipe/salvadoran-pupusas-as-made-by-curly-and-his-abuelita
El Salvador's pupusas were a lovely middle-of-the day lunch. The pupusa dough is made of Masa Harina, a type of corn flour, and filled with mozzarella, refried beans and chicharron, a blended mix of fried pork shoulder, tomato, onion and green pepper. They were then fried off and served with curtido, a quick-pickled mixture of cabbage, carrot and onion. I would recommend giving the recipe a quick look, if not just for the very wholesome interactions in the video of the grandson-grandmother duo cooking them together.
Yemen - Saltah
Recipe from https://yemeniyah.com/2010/07/25/yemeni-salta/
Whilst unfortunately not the most beautiful dish I've had the chance to make, Yemen's Saltah is a delicious meal, with a flavour profile that was definitely new to me. It is most easily described as similar to a veal or lamb (which I chose to use) stew, with egg and "Hulba", a blended mix of tomato, coriander, chilli, lemon and fenugreek, the over-riding flavour. I must admit, I did make a mistake here, as I assumed the Hulba was meant to be mixed in to the stew, but I think that it should actually be left on top of the stew (or "Tabeekh") to continue cooking. I imagine this would have made the finished product look a lot prettier.
Madagascar - Romazava
Recipe from https://nationalfoods.org/recipe/national-dish-of-madagascar-romazava/
Romazava is essentially a meat and leafy green stew, regularly served with steamed rice. My recreation of it required a few substutions, due to supply issues, so instead of anamamy and paracress greens, I used spinach and rocket, as well as the mustard greens the recipe called for. The recipe also contained chicken breast, pork loin and beef (though I believe this is more commonly actually zebu meat when made in Madagascar). The stew was flavoured with tomato, ginger, chilli and garlic.
Brazil - Feijoada
Rcipe from https://braziliankitchenabroad.com/everyday-black-beans/
Feijoada, Brazil's national dish, consists of black beans cooked along with smoked meats. This recipe called for smoked sausage and smoked bacon, and was flavoured with cumin, bay and sofrito. What could have been a very overpoweringly salty dish was very much saved by the addition of acid, in the form of white vinegar, which rounded out the flavour really nicely. Sofrito is a blended mix of onion and garlic, used regularly in Brazilian cuisine as a flavouring. I served this here alongside rice and kale.
Jordan - Mansaf
Recipe from https://theodehlicious.com/jordanian-mansaf-recipe/
Considered a national dish of Jordan, Mansaf is a dish of lamb in a yoghurt sauce, normally served on turmeric rice with nuts with parsley. The lamb was cooked for a few hours in boiling water flavoured with cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, bay and cloves to let it tenderise. The yogurt sauce, known as Laban can be made with yoghurt or with a dry goats milk called Jameed, but unfortunately I could not source that. It is then flavoured with the beef stock, garlic and lemon. I did have some issues with the yoghurt sauce, but I found that blending it up helped to stabilise it.