Recettes

Dombolo, a South African steamed bread, cut into wedges and served with stew

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Dombolo is South African steamed bread, and it occupies a particular place in the country's kitchens because it is bread that never sees an oven. Where a loaf is baked in dry heat, dombolo rises under a lid over water, and the result is soft, dense and slightly damp in a way no baked bread achieves. It belongs to the stew. Dombolo is not eaten alone and is not a side thought about separately. It arrives with chicken stew, beef stew, oxtail, lamb or tripe, and its job is to take up the gravy that the meat has spent hours building. In Zulu households the same technique produces jeqe, and the distinction between the two names is one that South Africans hold firmly even when it is drawn differently from one family to the next: broadly, jeqe is steamed as its own loaf, while dombolo is the dough set to rise over the pot the stew is already in. It is Sunday food and gathering food, made in quantity, cut into wedges at the table, and eaten with the hands.

South Africa3 hr 30 minAmara

Madeeda Hilba (Sudani Fenugreek Porridge)

Madeeda hilba is a Sudanese fenugreek porridge, thick enough to set like custard, sweetened and enriched with milk. Its name is Arabic: madeeda for the porridge, hilba for the fenugreek that defines it. Its place in the Sudanese year is Ramadan, when it is served as a dessert after the fast is broken. A thick, sweet, milk based dish at the end of a day without food is a specific piece of practical wisdom, and madeeda hilba is one of a small number of dishes that appear on Sudanese tables in that month and rarely outside it. Fenugreek carries a second role. Sudanese households hold that it eases aches and settles the stomach, and the porridge is made for kerijo, the term for a woman who has recently given birth, on the understanding that it supports milk production. That the same dish serves both the Ramadan table and the postpartum household is not a coincidence: fenugreek's association with nursing mothers runs across North and East Africa, the Arabian peninsula and South Asia, wherever the seed is used in cooking. Madeeda hilba is what Sudan does with it.

SudanNympha

Tapalapa

Tapalapa is a West African bread: a dense, chewy loaf with a firm crust, baked long and scored across the top, and sold from roadside ovens and small bakeries rather than from supermarkets. It is bought fresh in the morning, torn rather than sliced, and eaten with whatever the household has. Its role is that of daily bread in the most literal sense. In the countries where it is baked, the tapalapa loaf is a breakfast item, split and filled with beans, egg, fried fish or a spread, and it is also what appears alongside a stew at other times of day. Baked in a wood fired oven, which is how most of it is still produced, it takes on a crust and a faint smokiness that a domestic oven does not reproduce. The bread belongs to a wider West African tradition of European style leavened loaves that were absorbed into local baking and then developed independently, arriving somewhere quite distinct from any European original. Tapalapa is denser and chewier than a baguette, keeps considerably better, and is built to hold a filling without collapsing. The countries of the region that bake it treat it as their own, and the question of exactly where it began is not settled.

2 hrLaila

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Bananas are central to Rwandan agriculture and to Rwandan eating in a way that has no equivalent in most of the world. The country grows dozens of varieties, distinguished by whether they are for cooking, for eating fresh or for brewing, and the plant occupies hillside smallholdings across the country. A snack built on ripe banana is not a novelty in Rwanda; it is the obvious use of what is there. These beignets are small fried cakes of mashed ripe banana in a light batter, crisp at the edge and soft through the middle, sometimes spiced with cinnamon or nutmeg. They are sold from street stalls and market stands, fried in batches through the day, and eaten hot and standing up. At home they appear at gatherings and family celebrations. The variety of banana matters to the result. Rwandan cooks use small, sweet local bananas rather than the large export Cavendish, and the difference is not cosmetic: the smaller fruit is sweeter and denser, which means the batter needs less sugar and the finished beignet is less wet. Where those bananas are not available the recipe still works, but it works differently, and that is worth knowing before judging the result.

Rwanda1 hr 20 minLaila

A Nigerian style pasta salad with macaroni, carrots, sweetcorn, peas and boiled egg in a mayonnaise dressing

Simple Pasta Salad Recipe (With Video)

The mayonnaise dressed vegetable salad is a fixture of the Nigerian party table, and it is worth being precise about what that means, because it is not a salad in the European sense at all. There are no leaves at the centre of it. It is built on cooked vegetables, sweetcorn, egg and sometimes macaroni or baked beans, bound in mayonnaise and evaporated milk, and it is served cold in a large bowl alongside jollof rice and fried plantain. It arrived through colonial and post independence British influence on Nigerian catering, and it has been thoroughly domesticated since. The evaporated milk in the dressing is the clearest marker of that: it is not a British addition, and it gives the dressing a sweetness and a thinner consistency than mayonnaise alone. Nigerians of a certain age associate it directly with owambe, the large celebration parties where the food is served in quantity. This particular recipe is a contemporary quick version rather than a documented traditional dish. It uses macaroni, carrot, peas, sweetcorn, lettuce and egg with a mayonnaise and milk dressing, and it is presented by its author as an everyday meal rather than as party food. What can be said with confidence is that it belongs to that broader Nigerian salad practice; what cannot be established from the source is any particular lineage for the recipe itself.

Nigeria35 minAmako Blessing

Fluffy Pancakes

The thick, risen pancake is a North American and British form rather than an African one, and the source for this recipe says so directly: it describes itself as a basic UK recipe. It is included here as a plain reference version, not as a dish with a claim on the continent. That distinction matters because Africa has its own pancakes and they are not this. The Nigerian pancake, known colloquially as diet, is thin, dense and deliberately savoury, carrying onion and ground pepper in the batter alongside the sugar. Hausa masa is a fermented rice cake, spongy and slightly sour, cooked in a pan of round wells. Ethiopian injera is a fermented teff flatbread that functions as a plate. Each of those is a distinct thing with its own technique and its own place at a table. What this recipe offers is the baking powder raised, egg and milk enriched, butter cooked pancake that most of the world now recognises from breakfast menus. It is genuinely good and genuinely simple, and there is no reason not to make it. There is also no reason to describe it as African cooking, and the honest position is to present it as what it is.

Nigeria30 minJennifer

Attiéké Steak Alloco

This is a plate rather than a dish: attiéké, steak and alloco together, which is how Ivorians eat all three. Each element is a staple in its own right and the combination is what turns them into a meal. Attiéké is the foundation. It is fermented cassava, grated and steamed into fine pale granules that look like couscous and taste nothing like it, carrying a distinct sourness from a fermentation of a few days. It originated in the coastal districts of Côte d'Ivoire centuries ago and is eaten at every meal of the day by Ivorians of every age. That sour note is the thing people either take to immediately or need a few platefuls to appreciate, in the same way sourdough divides opinion. Alloco is fried ripe plantain, and it is eaten across the region under different names: dodo in Nigeria, makemba in the Congo, amanda in Togo, kelewele in Ghana. Its caramelised sweetness against the sour attiéké is the balance the plate depends on, with the steak providing the third element. In Abidjan the combination is sold from roadside maquis and eaten with the fingers, and any drink at all is considered appropriate alongside it.

Côte d'Ivoire2 hr 50 minCuisine228

Toaster Pancakes

These are buttermilk pancakes with whipped egg white folded through and chocolate chunks added, cooked in a sandwich toaster rather than in a pan. The source claims no country and no tradition for them, and none is claimed here. The technique is the only distinctive thing about them. Cooking pancake batter in a toaster or sandwich press presses the batter between two heated plates rather than cooking it from one side at a time, so it sets faster and comes out with a flatter, more even surface and a slight crispness at the edges. It is a domestic improvisation rather than an inherited method. Separating the eggs and folding whipped whites into the batter is the part worth keeping regardless of what you cook them in. It is the same principle behind a souffléd pancake, and it gives a noticeably lighter result than a straight batter. Buttermilk contributes the tang and reacts with the raising agent. This entry is included as it was found in the archive, filed under Worldwide Recipes, since it belongs to no particular cuisine.

40 minErmanuella Ben

Buttermilk Rusks

Rusks are twice-baked South African biscuits, dried until hard and dunked in coffee or tea. Dipping is not optional and not a matter of taste: a properly made rusk is too hard to bite comfortably, and softening it in a hot drink is how it is eaten. The method is what makes them. A soft dough, closer to a scone than a biscuit, is baked into rectangles, broken apart and then returned to a very low oven for around twelve hours to dry out completely. That second drying is the whole thing, and it is why rusks keep for weeks in an airtight tin. Buttermilk gives the characteristic tang and reacts with the raising agents to keep the crumb open enough to dry through. The most famous South African rusk brand began in 1939 in Molteno in the north-eastern Cape, where a woman baked rusks from a family recipe during the Depression and sold them to local farming families. It grew into a national brand and a household name. **This recipe is a generic buttermilk rusk recipe, not that company's recipe**, and it is titled here as buttermilk rusks for that reason. The slug and URL are unchanged.

South Africa12 hr 45 minNympha

Suya Toast

Suya toast is a sandwich: beef or chicken suya between slices of bread, dusted with suya spice, and grilled under a broiler until the outside crisps. It is a contemporary Nigerian invention rather than a traditional dish, and it exists because suya is so good that people put it in things. Suya itself is the tradition here. It is skewered grilled meat coated in yaji, the spice blend built on ground peanuts, paprika, cayenne, ginger, garlic and onion powder, and it is sold from roadside grills across northern Nigeria and now the whole country. The mallam who grills it works over an open fire and the spice is applied before and after cooking. Putting that into a toasted sandwich with mayonnaise, tomato and cucumber is a diaspora and urban move, and it works on the same logic as any good sandwich: something rich, something sharp, something crunchy. The suya spice does the heavy lifting. Because yaji contains ground peanuts, this carries a peanut allergen even though the sandwich itself looks nothing like a peanut dish, and that is worth stating plainly.

Nigeria20 minSobecooks

Eggless Carrot Loaf

A carrot loaf made without eggs: dry ingredients and wet ingredients combined in one bowl, poured into a tin and baked. No country is named and none applies. It is a plain quick bread of the kind made everywhere. The lemon juice is doing chemistry rather than adding flavour. Mixed with milk it sours it into a substitute buttermilk, and that acid reacts with the baking soda to produce lift. In an eggless cake that reaction matters considerably more than usual, since there is no egg providing structure or aeration. Leaving the lemon juice out gives a dense, flat loaf. That is what makes it work at all. Eggless baking relies on the raising agents and on moisture, and this recipe has plenty of both: a cup of milk, three quarters of a cup of oil and a cup of grated carrot, which is largely water. The result is dense and moist rather than light, which the contributor describes accurately. Cream cheese frosting is suggested, which is the conventional carrot cake finish. The method is unusually brief, three steps, and the times given do not quite match, with a stated forty minutes against thirty in the method itself.

55 miniam.nkay

Fondant Potatoes golden and crispy outside in a pan, the South African version of the French classic butter-basted potato

Simple Fondant Potato Recipe

Fondant Potatoes are cylindrical potato portions browned aggressively in butter until deeply golden on both flat ends, then finished in a bath of herb-infused stock in the oven until they are completely tender and have absorbed the fragrant cooking liquid throughout. The result is a potato with a crackling, caramelised exterior and an interior that is so soft and flavourful it seems to dissolve. The preparation is a French restaurant technique that South African home cooks have adopted enthusiastically, particularly for special-occasion meals where the elegance and specific texture of fondant potatoes earns their place alongside quality proteins and sauces.

Pan-AfricanThulisile_

Banana Waffles

Waffle batter with mashed ripe banana folded through, cooked in a waffle iron. No country is claimed and none applies, waffles are Belgian and Dutch in origin and thoroughly international now. The most useful thing in the source is its explanation of why waffle batter is not pancake batter, and it is right. The two share flour, eggs and milk, but waffle batter carries considerably more fat and sugar. That matters mechanically rather than as a matter of taste: the extra fat crisps the surface against the hot plates, and the extra sugar caramelises where it touches them. A pancake batter cooked in a waffle iron produces something pale and soft that sticks. This is also why waffles hold syrup in their pockets while pancakes soak it up. Banana brings moisture and sweetness, which pushes the batter slightly towards the soft side. Two bananas to a cup and a half of flour is about the limit before the waffles stop crisping properly. The instruction not to overmix is the one that gets ignored and shouldn't. Lumps in the batter are correct; a smooth batter has had its gluten developed and will bake tough. The source's nutritional discussion has not been carried across.

35 minDebby

Beghrir, Moroccan semolina pancakes covered in small holes, with honey butter

Beghrir (Moroccan Thousand-Hole Pancakes)

Beghrir are Moroccan semolina pancakes, cooked on one side only, whose entire surface opens into hundreds of small holes as they cook. They are served warm with a honey and butter sauce, and they are strongly associated with Ramadan, eaten at iftar to break the fast and at suhoor before dawn. The holes are the whole thing, and they are not decoration. Yeast in a thin, blended batter produces carbon dioxide; as the pancake sets on the hot pan, the bubbles rise and burst through the surface, leaving an open honeycomb that absorbs the sauce like a sponge. That is why beghrir is never turned over, flipping it would seal the holes shut and defeat the purpose. Some regions do flip them briefly to dry the top, and those are sometimes called khringos, though in Casablanca that word means something else entirely. Fine semolina is what makes it work, and it is also what gives beghrir its pale yellow colour. Recipes vary in how much they cut it with plain flour; the more semolina, the yellower and more characteristic the result. The batter is very similar to that used for Arab qatayef, the lacy pancakes folded around fillings. Beghrir can be used the same way, though it is not traditional.

Morocco50 minAmara

Carrot and Walnut Cake

A single-layer carrot loaf with toasted walnuts and cinnamon, made with oil rather than butter. No country is claimed. Carrot cake is European in origin, descending from medieval carrot puddings made when carrots were among the cheapest sweet things available. The walnuts are the point of difference from a plain carrot cake, and they earn their place for texture as much as flavour. A carrot cake is soft throughout, the grated carrot keeps it moist and there is nothing in it to bite against. Chopped walnuts break that up, and toasting them first, which most recipes including this one leave implicit, roughly doubles what they contribute. Using oil rather than butter is not a shortcut either. Oil is liquid at room temperature where butter is solid, so an oil-based cake stays soft when cold, which is why carrot cakes keep well for days while butter cakes stiffen. That is worth knowing if you are baking ahead. Two problems with the source. Its method calls for grated lemon zest that appears nowhere in the ingredients. And its servings figure of three is not credible for a full loaf tin, eight is realistic. This page and the South African carrot cake elsewhere on the site are different recipes for a similar cake, and are flagged as such.

1 hrSarah

Cheese Omelette

Beaten eggs cooked in butter with grated cheese. No country is claimed, the omelette is French in origin and universal now. The source's explanation of the French and American styles is accurate and worth keeping. A French omelette is cooked fast over higher heat with constant agitation, then rolled into a log while the centre is still soft, and it is pale yellow with no browning at all. An American omelet is cooked more gently, the set edges lifted so uncooked egg runs underneath, and it is folded in half. Both start with the same beaten eggs; the technique is what separates them. The one piece of practical advice worth repeating is about the filling. Cheese for an omelette should be grated finely and used sparingly, because a heavy filling stops the egg sealing around it and the omelette tears when you fold or roll it. This page needs a caveat. The source's own recipe is neither of the styles it describes: it separates the eggs, whips the whites stiff, folds them back in with breadcrumbs, and finishes the top in the oven. That is a soufflé omelette, an old and perfectly good preparation but a different dish from the one the article explains. The method below follows what is written, and the discrepancy is flagged. The source also gives no quantities.

15 minBeatrice

Fluffy pancakes made from ground oats and powdered milk

Fluffy Ground Oat Pancakes

Pancakes made with ground oats and powdered milk instead of flour. The source tags them as African and West African, and the ingredients bear that out even though no country is named. Powdered milk is the marker. It is a pantry staple across West Africa in a way it is not in Europe or North America, used in baking, in drinks and in porridges, and a pancake recipe calling for a cup and a half of it rather than fresh milk places itself immediately. Serving pancakes with coleslaw, which the source suggests, is the other giveaway, that is a Nigerian rather than a Western pairing. The oats are what make them work. Ground oats behave differently from wheat flour: they contain no gluten, so there is no risk of overworking the batter into toughness, and they absorb considerably more liquid, which is why five eggs and a cup of water go into a batter that would otherwise seem far too dry. The result is denser and more substantial than a flour pancake. The one practical instruction worth keeping is about the flip. Wait for bubbles to appear across the surface before turning, that is the batter setting from below, and turning earlier tears it. Several other pancake recipes exist on this site.

30 minChopsity.

French toast made with thick slices of brioche, baked with chocolate

French Toast with Brioche

Thick slices of brioche soaked in a sweetened egg, milk and cream custard, then baked with chocolate and butter. No country is claimed. French toast in one form or another is eaten across Europe and beyond, and it is considerably older than its English name, a version appears in Apicius, the Roman recipe collection, and it is known in France as pain perdu, lost bread, because its purpose was to rescue bread that had gone stale. The bread choice is the substance of the recipe and the source is right about it. Brioche and challah are both enriched doughs, made with eggs and butter, which means they are structurally sturdier and can absorb a great deal of custard without collapsing. Plain sandwich bread turns to mush. Cutting the slices thick, around 2 cm, matters for the same reason. Baking rather than pan-frying is the other decision here, and it solves a real problem. Thick slices fried in a pan brown on the outside long before the custard in the middle has set, which is why so much home-made French toast is soggy inside. The oven cooks it through evenly. The method has a copy error worth noting: it refers to baguette slices twice, having specified brioche in the ingredients. Brioche is correct.

45 minCuisine228

Moist Banana Bread

A large batch of banana bread, enriched with chocolate chips and citrus zest. No country is claimed. Banana bread as a category is American, it spread through the United States in the 1930s once chemical raising agents became cheap and household economy made using up blackened fruit a virtue, but this particular version has been through a West African kitchen. Two details give that away. Milk flavour, the concentrated flavouring sold in Nigerian and Ghanaian shops, is not something an American or European recipe would call for. And the contributor's note recommending tigernut milk alongside it points the same way, tigernuts, kunun aya, are a West African staple with their own drink recipe on this site. The quantities are worth reading before you start. Ten bananas, six eggs and three cups of flour make five loaves, not one, which is a great deal of banana bread and explains the unusually large amounts of everything. The method has one ordering problem: it leaves the oven instruction until the second-to-last step, by which point the batter has been sitting. The oven step has been moved to the front, where it belongs.

1 hr 5 minFood Trove

Nutty Chocolate Banana Bread

Banana bread with dark chocolate, crushed almonds, Greek yoghurt and warm spices. No country is claimed; banana bread is American in origin. **It contains almonds, which the title only hints at.** The Greek yoghurt is the interesting addition and it is doing two things. Its acidity reacts with the bicarbonate of soda, giving lift, which matters because there is no other acid in the batter. And it brings moisture without more fat, which is why this loaf stays soft for several days without being heavy. Sour cream and buttermilk do the same job in other recipes. Chopping the chocolate and nuts by hand, which the method specifies, is better than buying chips. Chopped chocolate gives uneven pieces, some melting into the crumb, some staying as distinct pockets, where uniform chips stay uniform. **A contradiction to watch.** The method opens with one oven setting and then, eleven steps later, gives a hotter one for the bake itself. Those cannot both be right. The higher figure is standard for a loaf of this size and is what has been used here; the lower one would take considerably longer than the stated baking time. A separate banana bread recipe exists on this site and the two compete for some of the same searches.

1 hr 5 minSarah

Oven-Baked French Toast

Thick slices of challah or brioche dipped in a cinnamon custard, arranged in a dish and baked. No country is claimed; French toast is European and very old. The difference between this and pan-fried French toast is worth being clear about, because both exist on this site. Pan-frying gives a browned, slightly crisp surface and cooks in minutes, but thick slices often stay wet in the middle. Baking cooks everything through evenly and lets you make eight or ten portions at once instead of two at a time, which is the actual reason people bake it. The trade-off is that you lose the crust. The overnight option is the one worth taking. Assembled the night before and refrigerated, the custard soaks right through the bread rather than sitting near the surface, and the result is noticeably better. It also means the dish goes straight from fridge to oven in the morning, which is presumably the point of a brunch recipe. Bread choice is not negotiable. Challah and brioche are enriched doughs, made with eggs and butter, which gives them the structure to absorb a lot of custard without collapsing. Plain sliced bread turns to mush. A separate pan-fried French toast page exists on this site and the two compete for some searches.

55 minDebby

Stuffed Potatoes

Potatoes cooked until soft, halved and hollowed out, filled with spiced minced meat and cheese, and baked until golden. No country is named, though the seasoning points somewhere. Curry powder, paprika, turmeric and mixed herbs in a minced meat filling is a combination that turns up across South African and West African home cooking rather than in European or American stuffed potatoes, which lean on bacon, sour cream and chives. There is nothing else in the recipe to place it, so no country has been assigned, but the spicing is worth noticing. The construction is sound. Hollowing out a cooked potato and refilling it works because the skin holds its shape while the interior has already softened, and the second bake crisps the outside while melting the cheese. Leaving a reasonable wall of potato inside the skin is the part people get wrong, scooped too thin, it collapses when filled. Two problems with the source. Its temperature conversion is wrong, the Fahrenheit and Celsius figures it gives as equivalent are about fifty degrees apart. And its ingredient list carries no quantities at all beyond the potatoes, plus a line instructing the cook to season according to preference, which is not an ingredient. Its prose also contains stray HTML fragments.

1 hr 20 minXeno.Cooks

Recettes

Simple Fondant Potato Recipe

Stuffed Potatoes

Suya Toast

Eggless Carrot Loaf

Toaster Pancakes

Attiéké Steak Alloco

Madeeda Hilba (Sudani Fenugreek Porridge)

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Tapalapa

Plats emblématiques

Recettes les plus populaires

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Madeeda Hilba (Sudani Fenugreek Porridge)

Tapalapa

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Simple Pasta Salad Recipe (With Video)

Fluffy Pancakes

Attiéké Steak Alloco

Toaster Pancakes

Buttermilk Rusks

Suya Toast

Eggless Carrot Loaf

Simple Fondant Potato Recipe

Banana Waffles

Beghrir (Moroccan Thousand-Hole Pancakes)

Carrot and Walnut Cake

Cheese Omelette

Fluffy Ground Oat Pancakes

French Toast with Brioche

Moist Banana Bread

Nutty Chocolate Banana Bread

Oven-Baked French Toast

Stuffed Potatoes

Recettes

Recettes à la une

Simple Fondant Potato Recipe

Toaster Pancakes

Attiéké Steak Alloco

Madeeda Hilba (Sudani Fenugreek Porridge)

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Tapalapa

Plats emblématiques

Recettes les plus populaires

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Madeeda Hilba (Sudani Fenugreek Porridge)

Tapalapa

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Simple Pasta Salad Recipe (With Video)

Fluffy Pancakes

Attiéké Steak Alloco

Toaster Pancakes

Buttermilk Rusks

Suya Toast

Eggless Carrot Loaf

Simple Fondant Potato Recipe

Banana Waffles

Beghrir (Moroccan Thousand-Hole Pancakes)

Carrot and Walnut Cake

Cheese Omelette

Fluffy Ground Oat Pancakes

French Toast with Brioche

Moist Banana Bread

Nutty Chocolate Banana Bread

Oven-Baked French Toast

Stuffed Potatoes