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Unlike the viscous and peppery Chinese version of this soup on page 145, this one is brothlike and derives its heat from chiles and its intriguing sour flavor from lime and lemongrass. It’s the Southeast Asian equivalent of chicken soup, often eaten to treat a cold. See page 500 for information on nam pla.

Somewhere in between a rice side dish and a one-pot meal—a form of paella, really—this can serve as either. A few bits of chicken browned along with the chorizo will go a long way. I love this with the warm taste of mild chile powder, but you can use hotter chiles or omit them entirely.

This is just about the best crab soup I have ever tasted, and it’s also the easiest. (One of the messiest, too; you must eat the crab with your hands.) At its base is miso, combined with go chu jang, a red pepper paste mixed with beans, kind of a spicy version of hoisin sauce. If you live anywhere near a Korean market, you’ll find it; if not, use hoisin mixed with Tabasco. Buy the crabs live and have them cleaned and chopped up by the fishmonger. Or follow the directions for cleaning them in step 1.

This delicate soup is classy yet simple, and leaving the mussels in their shells makes for a beautiful presentation; a touch of cream is a nice addition but an optional one. Serve this with a loaf of good, crusty bread; soaking the bread in the broth is one of this dish’s great pleasures. You can transform this into an entree, using pasta; see the variation.

Quite similar to the beef soup recipe on page 145, except at the outset, when shallots are browned to give the soup a little extra color and complexity.

This unusual soup is popular in the Dutch Caribbean and the island of St. Kitts, where peanuts are called—as they are in much of the world—groundnuts. Though many groundnuts have a stronger flavor than American varieties, you can use any unsalted roasted peanuts—or even peanut butter—in this rich soup.

When families in Mexico give up meat—either for Lent or for other reasons—they turn to soups like this one. You might have trouble finding fresh favas, though Latin markets frequently stock them, especially in spring, and I’ve even seen them at supermarkets in recent years. Their wonderful flavor has no exact match, but fresh peas are a good substitute. The best chile for this dish is the mildly hot dried chile negro; it’s best when toasted, which is an easy enough process: put the chiles in a dry, ungreased skillet over medium heat and cook, turning as each side browns, until browned and fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes.

Brilliant orange pumpkinlike squash fill the vegetable stands of Morocco and most other Mediterranean countries every fall, and they show up in stews, couscous, pasta, and soups like this.You may find the same squash in the States, but butternut, acorn, or sugar pumpkin—pumpkin grown for flavor, not size—are perfect substitutes and easy enough to find. (Canned pumpkin is an acceptable if not ideal alternative; drain it well.) Make this up to a day in advance, reserving the cream and cilantro to add just before serving.

A substantial soup (if you use chicken stock instead of water, it will be even more so) and a perfect winter lunch or a solid dinner when teamed with a light grilled dish, like Grilled Swordfish Rémoulade (page 256) or “Grilled” Mackerel with Garlic and Rosemary (page 266). Remember, though, that chickpeas can take a long time to cook, so if you have any inkling you’re going to make this soup, cook the chickpeas in advance. (Canned chickpeas are also good, or you can use lentils for speed; see the variation.) This soup can be refrigerated for a few days and reheated before serving, but it’s best to add the pasta at the last minute.

Nasi Lemak is a favored breakfast dish in Malaysia, where you get it from streetside carts and busy little restaurants that are closed by lunchtime. You start with a pile of coconut rice (which is the nasi lemak, though the name always refers to the dish) and point to what you want to eat with it—salads of pickled pineapple, deep-fried shrimp; the possibilities vary from place to place. The accompaniments suggested here are traditional and standard, and the recipes for the more unusual ones can be found in this book. Don’t feel compelled to have all of them, though it wouldn’t be hard to do so. The more things you have to eat the rice with, the more fun it is, especially at a dinner party. (I wouldn’t suggest trying to get it all made by breakfast.)

With a couple of good side dishes, this delicious standard makes a satisfying main course.

Most people seem to adore chickpeas, and one of their strongest attributes is that, unlike other dried legumes, they produce delicious cooking liquid. So if you lack stock for this dish, don’t worry about it. But—and this is true for the several chickpea recipes that follow as well as this one—the cooking time for chickpeas is unpredictable. Cook the beans the day before you plan to make the soup if at all possible, or at least soak them for several hours to reduce the cooking time (or, in a pinch, use canned chickpeas). Once they’re done, the cooking time is just a few minutes. If you are so inclined, this soup remains equally authentic and becomes more substantial if you add 1/2 to 1 pound browned sausage chunks. You can brown the sausage right before the onions, in the same skillet.

A staple of homes in Cuba and much of the rest of the Caribbean, where tomatoes are available year-round, this soup clearly derives from the classic Mediterranean “boiled water” (see the variation), a soup based on garlic, bread, and whatever else can be found. Despite its humble origins, this is a wonderful dish for entertaining (be sure to warn your guests that the bowls are hot!).

Rice and lentils are both daily fare in much of India, but rarely are they cooked together. An exception is made for the quite-quick-cooking red lentils, which are prepared in a manner not unlike that used in the Middle East.

This is one of those soups that contain so few ingredients that it’s really best to use good stock as opposed to canned broth. (On the other hand, the broth should not be too strong, or it will overwhelm the delicate, fresh pasta.) If you already have fresh pasta dough prepared for another dish, you can substitute it for the passatelli, but this stuff is worth making for its own sake—and easy.

A great way to use leftover rice and a nice cooked treatment of kimchi, which you can buy at any Korean market if you don’t want to make your own. Good as a side dish with Korean food, this also makes a fine snack or even a main course (add chicken, pork, beef, or shrimp if you like). The butter is a contemporary feature, but it’s how I learned this (from a Korean-American friend), and I like it that way.

Quicker and easier than the preceding recipe, this one usually relies on mushrooms and meat for flavor. Though it’s a cross-cultural technique and not at all traditional, I think adding a small handful of soaked dried porcini to the fresh mushrooms as they cook is a big improvement. You can buy toasted sesame seeds in Korean (and usually Japanese) markets, but toasting them yourself takes less than 5 minutes.

Every culture that relies on rice mixes other common ingredients into it, to boost both flavor and nutrition. Most people are familiar with Fried Rice (page 506) and Coconut Rice (page 516), but this recipe is quite different from those. If you make this dish with red beans only, use all the bean-cooking liquid for the rice; it will give it a lovely pink tinge.

A dish that combines the style of Chinese soup noodles with the flavors of Indian curries. This version, made entirely with fresh ingredients, is probably superior to any you’ve had at a restaurant.

I had this as a late-night snack in Japan, but it’s great at breakfast, too, a soothing, homey soup that is also good made with tofu or leftover chicken. Even if you don’t have dashi, you can execute this dish in a half hour or so. You can make fresh rice for this, of course, but if you use leftover rice—which is fine—heat it first; the microwave does a fine job of this. Some Japanese make small individual omelets for each bowl, but others use the easier, if somewhat odd, technique of cooking the egg in the soup, as here.