Recettes

Mandazi

Mandazi is the fried bread of the Swahili coast, the strip of East African coastline running through Kenya, Tanzania and the offshore islands, where Bantu, Arab, Persian and Indian influences have been folding into one another for a thousand years. It is usually cut into triangles, though rounds and squares are common too, and it is fried until it puffs and turns gold. The dough is enriched with coconut milk and scented with cardamom, and those two ingredients place it geographically as precisely as a map would: coconut from the coast, cardamom from the Indian Ocean spice trade that made these ports what they were. It is often described as a Swahili doughnut, which is fair as a shorthand and misleading in one respect. Mandazi is considerably less sweet than an American doughnut, and it is not glazed or filled. That restraint is what makes it useful, it goes with tea in the morning, with a bean stew at lunch, or on its own from a street stall, and none of those would work with something sugary. It was once more of an occasion food, made at Christmas and for celebrations. It is now everyday, which the source attributes plainly to changing lifestyles and to more people knowing how to make it. It reheats well, which is part of why it is made in quantity.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

EasyKenya

Recette de Beatrice · Africook

Chocolate Malva Pudding

Malva pudding is one of South Africa's defining desserts: a soft, spongy baked pudding drenched in a hot cream and butter sauce the moment it leaves the oven, so the sponge soaks it up rather than sitting in it. This is the chocolate version, with cocoa worked into both the sponge and the sauce. Apricot jam is the ingredient that surprises people and it is not optional. It goes into the batter rather than onto the finished pudding, and its acidity reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to give the sponge its characteristic open, slightly sticky crumb. A malva pudding made without it is a chocolate sponge, which is a different and lesser thing. The dish is generally traced to Cape Dutch cooking, and the name has been variously explained through Afrikaans and through the wine sometimes served with it, with no single account settled. What is not in doubt is its position: malva pudding appears at Sunday lunches, at restaurants across the country and at every gathering where a hot pudding is expected, served with custard, cream or ice cream while it is still warm.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hr 10 minEasySouth Africa

Recette de Laila · Africook

South African Stewed Green Beans

Green beans cooked slowly with potato and onion until everything is completely soft, then roughly mashed and finished with butter and nutmeg. It is South African, and it is old-fashioned in the best sense. The dish exists for a specific reason and the source is refreshingly honest about it: this is what to do with green beans that have gone past their best. Beans that are too tough and stringy to steam and serve whole become excellent when cooked long and mashed, because the slow cooking breaks down exactly the fibres that made them unpleasant. It is a technique for rescuing produce rather than showcasing it, which is why it belongs to an older way of cooking. The potato is structural. It breaks down completely and binds the mash, which is why the dish holds together rather than being beans in water. Nutmeg with green beans is a Cape Dutch habit, and the same pairing turns up across South African vegetable cookery. It is not a garnish, it is what makes the dish taste South African rather than generically braised. The source is also honest that quantities do not matter much, which is true of most old traditional recipes and rarely admitted. Do not mash it to a purée. Texture is meant to survive.

50 minEasySouth Africa

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

Peri Peri Spiced Rice

This is rice cooked in a peri peri spiced tomato and vegetable base, served with a lemon and garlic coconut yoghurt alongside. It belongs to the southern African peri peri tradition, and no single country is named in the source. Peri peri itself is Mozambican and Angolan, built on the African bird's eye chilli that naturalised there after Portuguese traders brought chillies from South America. The seasoning blend here is a dry rub of salt, chilli, onion powder, garlic powder, ground coriander and oregano, which is the restaurant-style formulation rather than the fresh sauce. The technique is the interesting part and the contributor is emphatic about it. The rice cooks in just enough water to cover it, under a lid on a low flame, until every drop has gone, and it then rests for ten minutes untouched. The instruction in the source is in capitals: leave the rice alone, because the aim is a crust on the bottom of the pan. That is the same principle behind Persian tahdig, Senegalese thieboudienne and Spanish socarrat, and it turns a side dish into something worth the pan.

35 minEasySouth Africa

Recette de Chef.donkey · Africook