Recettes

Fish Seasoning

This is a dry spice rub for fish, and it belongs to no particular cuisine. Paprika, thyme, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, black pepper and cayenne is a broadly Western seasoning profile, and the source claims no country for it. That is worth stating plainly on a platform documenting African food, because Africa has a great many specific fish seasonings that this is not. Nigerian fish is seasoned with blended pepper, ginger and stock cubes. Senegalese fish carries rof, a stuffing of parsley, garlic and chilli pushed into slashes in the flesh. Moroccan fish is marinated in chermoula, built on coriander, cumin, paprika and preserved lemon. Any of those would be the regional answer to the question this recipe is asking. What is here is a competent all purpose blend, useful for grilling, baking or pan frying, and it keeps for months in a sealed jar. It is filed under Worldwide Recipes rather than presented as African, since inventing a heritage for a paprika and oregano rub would be exactly the kind of claim this archive should not make.

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10 minEasy

Recette de Debby · Africook

Shiro Wat (Ethiopian Chickpea Stew)

Shiro wat is ground chickpea stew, and it is among the most eaten dishes in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Onion, garlic, tomato and berbere are cooked down in oil, chickpea flour is whisked in, and the result thickens to something between a thick gravy and a puree, smooth enough to spread and eaten with injera. Its position has a great deal to do with the religious calendar. Ethiopian Orthodox practice includes a very large number of fasting days, on which no meat, eggs or dairy are eaten, and shiro contains none of them. It is standard on Wednesdays and Fridays, through the eight weeks of Tsom, the Great Lent, and it is eaten during Ramadan by Ethiopian and Eritrean Muslims too. That is a dish serving two religions in one country without modification. It is also cheap and quick, which explains the rest of its reach. Shiro powder, sold ready mixed with the spices already in it, is available across Ethiopia and increasingly abroad, in two kinds: mitten shiro, which is red and carries berbere, and netch shiro, which is white and mild. The dish takes different forms by consistency and name: shiro fessess is runny and served over injera with chillies, shiro tegamino is thick and cooked in an earthenware pot until it bubbles and caramelises at the base, and shiro fit fit shreds injera through it for breakfast.

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35 minEasyEthiopia

Recette de Blessing · Africook

African Pepper Sauce

Pepper sauce is the West African condiment: blended hot pepper cooked down in oil or water until thick, spooned onto anything that needs lifting. It goes with puff puff, grilled meat, fish and eggs, and there is scarcely a dish it is not served alongside somewhere in the region. What distinguishes it from a hot sauce elsewhere is what it does not have. There is no vinegar, no fermentation and usually no sugar. The base is pepper, salt, oil and often a stock cube, and the texture is thick and coarse rather than pourable. Recipes vary with the cook, but hot pepper is the constant, and habanero and scotch bonnet are the usual choices. Heat is adjustable and worth adjusting. Most West African pepper sauces are fierce, and this one uses three habaneros against four bell peppers, which is moderate by regional standards. Deseeding the habaneros, using fewer, or leaving them out entirely all work. The other choice is water or oil: water reduces away and gives a lighter sauce that keeps about a week; oil floats to the top when the sauce is done and seals it, which keeps it considerably longer. No country is named, and the sauce belongs to the whole region rather than to one.

30 minEasy

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Gomen Wat (Ethiopian Collard Greens)

Gomen is the Ethiopian word for collard greens, and gomen wat is the dish made from them: greens braised down with onion, garlic, ginger and spice until they wilt but keep some bite. It appears on almost every Ethiopian platter, spooned onto injera alongside the meat and lentil stews. It is also called ye'abasha gomen or abesha gomen. Abesha is a term used collectively for Ethiopians and Eritreans, so the name translates roughly as Ethiopian collard greens, distinguishing the local variety and preparation from others. Collards are eaten widely across the continent and beyond, from Tanzania and Kenya to Brazil, Portugal and the southern United States, but the Ethiopian treatment is specific. Niter kibbeh is what makes it specific. It is clarified butter infused with herbs and spices during the clarifying, closely comparable to Indian ghee except for that infusion, and it is the fat almost all Ethiopian cooking is built on. Using plain butter or oil produces a perfectly good pan of greens; it does not produce gomen wat. Because of the butter, this is vegetarian rather than vegan, and a fasting version made with oil exists for the Orthodox fasting days when animal products are avoided.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

30 minEasyEthiopia

Recette de Blessing · Africook