Recettes

Zalabya (Egyptian Syrup Doughnuts)

Zalabya are small round balls of yeasted batter, deep-fried until crisp and dipped briefly in cold sugar syrup. They are Egyptian street food, sold from kiosks all over the country for very little, and they are eaten most of all during Ramadan. The source's description is the best one: think of them as the round part that is missing from a doughnut. They are crunchy outside and light and airy inside, and the syrup is absorbed only into the outer layer, so biting into one gives a burst of sweetness against a plain interior rather than sweetness all the way through. The names travel. Loukoumades in Greece, lokma in Turkey, zalabya or zalabia in Egypt, and loqmet al-qadi, the judge's bite, across the Arabic-speaking world. Versions are eaten all around the Mediterranean and into South Asia, where jalebi is a related but differently shaped relative. The batter is very wet, closer to a thick pouring batter than a dough, and that is what makes them light. It is dropped by the spoonful straight into the oil rather than shaped. The syrup should be cool when the hot balls go in, for the same reason as koeksisters: the temperature difference draws it in. The source's ingredient list has run its headings into the list and one water quantity is malformed.

1 hr 55 minEasyEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Asun (Peppered Goat Meat)

Asun is smoked or roasted goat meat tossed through a fierce pepper and onion mix, and it is one of the fixtures of the Nigerian owambe, the large Yoruba party that runs on food and music. It arrives as part of the small chops circuit, alongside puff puff and peppered snails, and it disappears fast. Goat is the whole point. Yoruba speakers call it ogunfe, and it carries a stronger, more mineral flavour than beef that stands up to the quantity of scotch bonnet involved. The meat is simmered until tender before it ever meets fire, then roasted or grilled to dry the surface and pick up smoke, and only then does it go into the pepper mix. Skipping the first stage is the most common way it goes wrong, since goat that has not been softened stays tough no matter how long it spends in the pan. Sliced onions and bell peppers go in for sweetness against the heat rather than for bulk. Whether asun is a starter or something else is a matter people disagree about: the source archive files it under both appetizer and dessert, and Nigerians treat it as a small chop, a side to jollof rice, or a main course with plantain, depending entirely on the occasion.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hr 15 minMediumNigeria

Recette de Debby · Africook

Groundnut Sweet

Groundnut sweet is peanuts set in caramelised sugar and cut into blocks, and it is made from three things: groundnuts, sugar and water. In Cameroon it is sold by the piece from roadside tables and market stalls, cut from a slab with a knife, and it is among the cheapest sweet things available anywhere in the country. Groundnuts are grown across Cameroon and across the West African savannah generally, and the confection follows the crop. Similar sweets exist wherever groundnuts are abundant and sugar is affordable, which covers a great deal of the continent and much of the world beyond it, and each region has arrived at its own version independently. What makes it work is the contrast in texture rather than any complexity of flavour. The sugar sets to a hard, glassy shell around nuts that stay crisp inside it, so a piece shatters rather than chews. It is the kind of sweet that gets eaten by the handful without anyone deciding to, and it is made in slabs precisely because it is sold and eaten in that way: broken off, handed round, gone.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

MediumCameroon

Recette de Nympha · Africook

Killishi (Beef Jerky)

Kilishi is Northern Nigerian dried meat, and it is a considerably more deliberate thing than the jerky it is usually compared to. Beef is sliced thin enough to be translucent, dried, coated in a paste built on ground groundnuts and spices, dried again, and briefly finished over heat. The groundnut coating is what separates kilishi from every other dried meat in the world. It is a preservation technology first. In the Sahel, where refrigeration was not available and the dry season is long, thin slicing and sun drying kept meat edible for months, and the spice paste added flavour while doing further preservation work. That the result is now sold as a delicacy rather than as survival food does not change what it was built for. Kilishi is Hausa, sold in markets across the north and increasingly across the whole of Nigeria and among the diaspora, where it travels well precisely because it was designed to. It is eaten as a snack rather than as part of a meal, torn into pieces, often with a cold drink. The heat level varies by maker, and the yaji spice logic that runs through northern Nigerian cooking, the same groundnut and pepper base used on suya, is visible in it.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

5 hr 35 minMediumNigeria

Recette de Laila · Africook