Recettes

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Ogi (Nigerian Pap)

Ogi is fermented cereal porridge, sour, smooth and pale, and it is among the first things most Nigerians ever eat. It is called akamu in Igbo and pap in English, and it is made from maize, sorghum or millet steeped in water for up to three days, wet milled, sieved to remove the husks, and then fermented for several more days until it turns distinctly sour. That sourness is the point and it is what separates ogi from any other cereal porridge. It also does real work: fermentation makes the grain more digestible and gives ogi a probiotic character, which is a large part of why it has been the standard weaning food for Nigerian infants for generations and why it is given to people who are unwell or recovering. The same base goes in two directions. Thinned and cooked, it is the porridge eaten at breakfast with akara, moin moin, fried plantain or bread. Cooked much thicker and left to set, it becomes agidi or eko, sliced and eaten with pepper soup or stew. Across the region the names change without the thing changing much: koko in Ghana, uji in Kenya, where it is more often made from millet and sorghum. Three grains are used in Nigeria, and white corn, yellow corn and guinea corn each give a slightly different result.

Les mieux notées

10 minEasyNigeria · African

Recette de Debby · Africook

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Fufu

Fufu is starch pounded to a smooth elastic mass, and it is among the most widely eaten things in West and Central Africa. The word comes from Twi, spoken in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, where it means to mash or to combine, and the sound of a mortar and pestle working in rhythm is the sound of fufu being made. What goes into it depends entirely on where you are. West Africa favours white yam, sometimes with plantain. Central Africa favours cassava. Plantain, cocoyam, semolina, rice and combinations of flours all appear, and each gives a different texture and a slightly different name. That variability is why fufu is better understood as a category than a recipe. It crossed the Atlantic with enslaved West Africans and survived. Foo foo and fou fou in the Caribbean are made with plantain or cornmeal, coocoo in Barbados is the same idea, and Cuban, Jamaican and Puerto Rican versions carry sweet plantain and pork fat. Whatever the base, it is eaten the same way: a piece is pulled off with the fingers, an indentation is pressed in with the thumb, and it is used to scoop soup or stew. It is never eaten alone, and its slightly tangy, near neutral flavour is what lets a heavily seasoned soup do the talking.

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50 minMediumCôte d'Ivoire · Nigerian

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

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Semovita

Semovita is one of Nigeria's swallows: the family of smooth, firm starch preparations that are pinched off by hand, rolled between the fingers and used to lift soup from a bowl. The swallow is not a side dish. In Nigerian eating it is the vehicle and the soup is the flavour, and a meal is understood as the pairing of the two. It is made from semolina, the coarse milling of durum wheat, and it belongs to the wheat based end of the swallow spectrum rather than the cassava, yam or maize end. That places it alongside amala, eba, fufu, pounded yam and starch as one option among several, chosen by household preference and by what the soup is. Semovita is smoother and milder than most of the alternatives, which is a large part of its appeal. Its status is worth stating plainly: Semovita is a brand name that has become the general term for the product, in the way a number of household names have. The dish is Nigerian, industrially produced and comparatively recent, and it earned its place at the table on texture rather than on history. It is eaten with ogbono, okra, efo riro, egusi and every other Nigerian soup.

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17 minEasyNigeria

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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Kenkey

Kenkey is fermented maize dough, wrapped in banana leaf or corn husk and steamed into firm parcels. It is sour, and the sourness is the whole character of it. The fermentation runs one to three days before anything is cooked, and a kenkey that has been rushed is immediately identifiable to anyone who eats it regularly. It comes from the Ga people of Accra and the surrounding coast, who have been making it for centuries, and it has spread across Ghana without losing that origin. Ga kenkey and Fante kenkey are recognised as distinct: the wrapping differs, and so does the ratio of fermented to fresh dough, which changes how sour the finished parcel is. Kenkey is street food in the most functional sense. It is bought in its wrapping, which serves as the plate, and eaten with fried fish, shito and a raw pepper and tomato grind, standing up or sitting on a bench. The wrapping is not presentation; it is what the dough is steamed in and what keeps it for days without refrigeration. That combination of sour dough, hot pepper and fried fish is one of the most recognisable plates in West Africa.

Les mieux notées

55 minMediumGhana

Recette de Laila · Africook

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