Recettes

Corn Dough Porridge

Corn dough porridge is a Ghanaian breakfast, particularly in the south, made from fermented corn dough thinned with water and cooked with grains of selim until thick. It is closely related to koko and to ogi across the border in Nigeria, all built on the same fermented maize. Fermentation is what gives it its character. Corn is soaked, ground and left to sour for several days, which produces a distinctly tangy flavour and makes the grain easier to digest. Fermented corn dough is sold ready made at Ghanaian and Nigerian markets and grocers, in blocks or bags, and making it from scratch takes days rather than minutes. Grains of selim, also called negro pepper or hwentia, is the spice that makes this Ghanaian rather than generic. It is a long dark pod with a smoky, slightly bitter, aromatic flavour, crushed into the water before the corn goes in. The other technique that matters is straining: the dough is slaked with water and passed through a strainer before it meets the heat, which is the only reliable way to avoid lumps. It is served hot with sugar, and often with milk, roasted nuts or coconut flakes.

30 minEasyGhana

Recette de Amanda Dadson · Africook

Cucumber Mint Agua Fresca

Agua fresca is a chilled non-alcoholic drink popular in Mexico and Central America, made by blending fruit, soaked grains or steeped blossoms with water and a little sweetener. The name translates as fresh water or cool water, and this is the cucumber and mint version. It is Latin American rather than African. The source notes that similar drinks are available across many African countries, which is true in the sense that blended fruit coolers are made everywhere hot, but agua fresca is a specific Mexican and Central American tradition with a Spanish name. It sits in Worldwide Recipes for that reason, with its URL unchanged. Africa has its own cold blended drinks that this is not: zobo and bissap from hibiscus across West Africa, kunun zaki from fermented millet in northern Nigeria, bouye from baobab in Senegal, and tigernut milk. Each has its own name and tradition. One practical point about this recipe: gin appears in its ingredient list, which the prose presents as an optional way to turn the drink into an aperitif. That makes it alcoholic as written rather than the non-alcoholic drink agua fresca normally is, and it should be left out for the classic version.

15 minEasy

Recette de Beatrice · Africook

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.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

30 minEasyNigeria

Recette de Jennifer · Africook

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