Recettes

Hausa Masa

Masa, also called waina, is a fermented rice cake from the Hausa of Northern Nigeria: small, round, spongy underneath and browned on the surface, cooked in a dedicated pan with shallow round wells. It belongs to the Hausa, one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa, and it is among the dishes most closely identified with them. The fermentation is what makes it. Rice is soaked, ground with cooked rice, and left to rise overnight, and the mild sourness that develops is what separates masa from any other rice pancake. The holes that open across the surface as it cooks are the visible evidence of that ferment, and a masa without them has not been left long enough. It is breakfast food and snack food, sold from street stands and in markets across the north, and it appears at celebrations and family gatherings. What goes with it varies by household and by time of day: honey, groundnut oil, a peppery stew, or yaji, the same spice blend used on suya. Masa is a dish that has held its association with one people while spreading well beyond them, which is a fair description of how Hausa food generally has travelled through Nigeria.

Nigeria1 hrLaila

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Bananas are central to Rwandan agriculture and to Rwandan eating in a way that has no equivalent in most of the world. The country grows dozens of varieties, distinguished by whether they are for cooking, for eating fresh or for brewing, and the plant occupies hillside smallholdings across the country. A snack built on ripe banana is not a novelty in Rwanda; it is the obvious use of what is there. These beignets are small fried cakes of mashed ripe banana in a light batter, crisp at the edge and soft through the middle, sometimes spiced with cinnamon or nutmeg. They are sold from street stalls and market stands, fried in batches through the day, and eaten hot and standing up. At home they appear at gatherings and family celebrations. The variety of banana matters to the result. Rwandan cooks use small, sweet local bananas rather than the large export Cavendish, and the difference is not cosmetic: the smaller fruit is sweeter and denser, which means the batter needs less sugar and the finished beignet is less wet. Where those bananas are not available the recipe still works, but it works differently, and that is worth knowing before judging the result.

Rwanda1 hr 20 minLaila

Awara, a Northern Nigerian fried soy bean cake, served hot with pepper and sliced vegetables

How to Make Awara (Tofu, Soyabean Cake)

Awara is Northern Nigerian soy bean cake, and it is one of the clearest examples of an introduced crop becoming a genuinely local food. Soy beans are not indigenous to West Africa. Awara, as the Hausa make and eat it, is not found anywhere the crop came from. What separates awara from tofu is the frying. The process to the curd stage is the same: beans are soaked, ground, strained to a milk, heated, and set with an acid or a mineral coagulant, then pressed. Where East Asian tofu is usually finished at the press, awara is cut, seasoned and fried until the outside is golden and firm. That frying step is the dish, and it produces something with a texture and a flavour of its own. It is street food and snack food, sold ready made across the north because the process at home is long. Awara is served hot with ground pepper and oil, and increasingly with sliced fresh pepper, cabbage and cucumber alongside. It is eaten with pap or kunu at breakfast, and at any hour after that. It is also the north's most practical answer for anyone eating no meat, which is a role it has held far longer than the word vegetarian has been in common use in Nigeria.

Nigeria1 hr 30 minJennifer

Nigerian pancakes, thin savoury sweet pancakes made with onion and pepper in the batter

Nigerian Pancake (Diet)

The Nigerian pancake, known colloquially as diet, is thin, dense and slightly crisp at the edges, and it is savoury as often as it is sweet. Onion and ground pepper go into the batter alongside the sugar, which produces something no other pancake tradition attempts: sweet, savoury and faintly hot in the same mouthful. It sits a long way from the thick fluffy pancake of the American breakfast table. There is no raising agent and no attempt at height. The batter is loose, the pan is tilted to spread it thin, and the result has a dense bite and a lacy edge. Nigerians eat it at breakfast with tea, and just as readily as an afternoon snack with a cold drink. What it is served with follows the same double logic as the batter. Honey, sugar, condensed milk, peanut butter and fresh fruit on the sweet side; pap, custard, oats and yogurt drinks such as kunu aya or zobo alongside. It is home food and street food at once, cheap to make from things most Nigerian kitchens already hold, and it belongs to no particular region of the country, which is unusual enough to be worth noting.

Nigeria30 minJennifer

Gullisuwa

Gullisuwa is a Hausa fried pastry from Northern Nigeria, made from wheat flour worked with ground roasted peanuts and fried until crisp. The groundnuts are what distinguish it. They give the pastry a toasted, faintly sweet base that a plain flour dough does not have, and groundnuts are one of the defining crops of the northern Nigerian savannah. It belongs to celebration rather than to the everyday. Gullisuwa appears at weddings, at festive occasions and as street food, made in quantity because it keeps well and travels well, and it is offered to guests as part of the spread rather than served as a course. That is the usual position of a fried snack in Hausa hospitality: present, plentiful and not the point of the meal. Its exact origin is not documented. What can be said is that it belongs to the Hausa, that it has been made for generations, and that Northern Nigeria's long trade and cultural connection with the Sahara and the Arab world is visible in a good deal of its sweet and fried food. Beyond that, the specific lineage of gullisuwa is not recorded, and the honest position is to say so rather than to construct one.

Nigeria50 minLaila

Puff-Puff

Puff puff is deep fried yeast dough, golden outside and chewy within, and it is the most widely eaten street snack in West Africa. Flour, sugar, yeast, water and salt are all it requires, which is a large part of why it is everywhere: the ingredients are in every kitchen and the technique needs no equipment. The names change with the border. Puff puff in Nigeria and Cameroon, bofrot or togbei in Ghana, and further variations across the region, but the dough and the method travel intact. It is sold from roadside stands in the evening, made at home for parties and children, and eaten hot from the oil with the fingers. What distinguishes it from a doughnut is the chew. Puff puff dough is a loose batter rather than a kneaded dough, scooped by hand and squeezed into the oil rather than shaped, and the long rise gives it a slightly fermented depth that a quick doughnut does not have. Variations run through the same base: habanero chopped into the batter for a peppered version, milk for a softer and sweeter one, nutmeg or cinnamon for warmth. It is late night food as much as party food, which is how most people who grew up with it remember it.

Nigeria2 hr 20 minBeatrice

Nigerian Buns

Nigerian buns are fried dough balls with a crunchy outer crust and a soft, cake like interior. They sit alongside puff puff and chin chin in the small group of fried snacks that account for most of what Nigerians eat between meals, and the differences between the three are understood precisely by anyone who grew up with them. Buns are the rich one. Where puff puff is yeast raised and made from almost nothing, buns use baking powder for lift and include egg, butter and milk, which produces a denser, sweeter, more substantial thing with a genuinely crunchy shell. They also absorb less oil in the frying, which is a real practical advantage and a point people make in their favour. They are everywhere: sold from roadside trays and by hawkers, made at home for children after school, brought to parties and picnics, and eaten with tea at breakfast. The flavouring is open, with nutmeg the most common and cinnamon and vanilla both standard, and every household has a version that is slightly sweeter or slightly denser than the next. They are best hot and are still good at room temperature, which is most of what a snack needs to be.

Nigeria35 minBeatrice

Nigerian Egg Roll

The Nigerian egg roll is a whole hard cooked egg wrapped in a slightly sweet dough and deep fried, and it has nothing to do with the Chinese egg roll beyond the name. The closest comparison is a Scotch egg, with dough in place of sausage meat, and the resemblance ends at the structure. It is street food and travel food. Egg rolls are sold from glass cases at bus stops, from hawkers' trays in traffic, and from the small kiosks that cluster around Lagos offices, and they exist because they solve a specific problem: something substantial, cheap and self contained that can be eaten with one hand in a stationary car. Anyone who has spent time in Lagos traffic understands the appeal without further explanation. The dough is what makes it Nigerian rather than generic. Flour, baking powder, sugar, margarine and nutmeg produce something between a bread and a cake, faintly sweet against the plain salted egg inside, and that sweet and savoury combination is a Nigerian snack signature that also runs through buns, puff puff and chin chin. It is eaten with tea, fruit juice or chilled zobo, and it is substantial enough that people eat it as breakfast or lunch rather than as a snack.

Nigeria50 minDebby

Fura Da Nono

Fura da nono is millet and milk, and the name says exactly that: fura is the millet ball, nono is the fermented milk. Spiced millet dough is rolled into balls, then mashed into soured milk and drunk from a bowl or a calabash. It is both a meal and a drink and Nigerians do not find that ambiguous. It belongs to the Sahel and to the peoples who move across it. The Fulani, the Hausa and the Zarma-Songhai all make it, and it is eaten across northern Nigeria, Niger and Ghana. Its logic is the logic of cattle keeping: milk that will not keep in the heat is soured deliberately, and millet that grows where little else does is what goes with it. The way it is sold explains its form. Vendors carry the fura balls and the nono separately and combine them to order, mashing the millet into the milk in front of the customer, which lets them sell two products from one stand and keeps the fura from going soggy before it is bought. In a hot climate, a cold, sour, filling drink that costs very little is a serious thing rather than a refreshment, and fura da nono has held its place in northern Nigerian life without needing to modernise.

Nigeria30 minDebby

Klako, West African fritters of mashed ripe plantain seasoned with ginger and pepper, fried golden

West African Banana Fritters (Klako, Krakro)

Klako, also written krakro, is a West African fritter made from mashed ripe plantain, and it is the plantain rather than the banana that matters. Ripe plantain has the sweetness and the starch to hold a fritter together; ordinary banana turns to liquid. The recipe here is savoury, seasoned with ginger, garlic, paprika and cayenne, which is the version most commonly eaten across Côte d'Ivoire, Togo and Ghana. That savoury treatment is worth stating clearly, because the sweet version is what most people expect from anything called a banana fritter. Both exist. Sweet versions with sugar, egg and milk are made across the region and across the Caribbean, and the two have travelled together, which is no accident: the same cooking crossed the Atlantic with enslaved West Africans, and Caribbean banana fritters are a direct relation rather than a coincidence. Plantain is abundant across the humid West African belt and very little of it is wasted. Fritters are one of several answers to fruit that has ripened past the point of frying in slices, alongside kelewele, the spiced fried plantain cubes of Ghana, and the many plantain and flour combinations across the region. They are made at home, sold at roadside stands, and eaten hot with the fingers, which is when they are at their best.

Côte d'Ivoire30 minCuisine228

Benne Cakes

Benne is the Wolof and Bambara word for sesame, and it is the word that carries this dish's history. Sesame was cultivated across West Africa long before the Atlantic slave trade, and enslaved West Africans carried the seed and the word with them to the Americas, where both survived. Benne cakes as they exist today are most strongly associated with the Gullah Geechee communities of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, where the seed was planted, the name was kept, and the thin crisp sesame wafer became a regional speciality that Charleston still sells. That makes them a diaspora food rather than a West African one: African in origin, African in name, and developed into their current form on the other side of the ocean. The association with good luck travelled too, and it is the reason benne cakes appear at Kwanzaa, the African American celebration established in 1966, where they are served as a snack before the meal. The source for this recipe places them in West Africa and gives Ghana, Nigeria and Togo as the cuisine, which is where the seed and the word come from rather than where this particular cookie was developed. Both halves of that story are true and neither is complete on its own.

45 minBeatrice

Kuli Kuli

Kuli kuli is a peanut snack eaten across Nigeria, Benin, northern Cameroon and Ghana, and it is one of the most widely recognised street foods in West Africa. It is made from peanuts alone, and the technique is what makes it: the oil is deliberately pressed out of the ground paste before the remaining solids are shaped and fried. That extraction is the point. Removing the oil leaves a dense, dry paste that fries into something genuinely crunchy rather than soft, and it also produces the frying oil as a by-product, so nothing is wasted. It is a piece of processing knowledge that predates industrial oil pressing and is still done by hand in Hausa communities in northern Nigeria, where the snack has its strongest association. It takes different shapes in different places: small sticks, rings, flat discs and irregular pieces are all standard, and the form varies by region and by seller. English names for it, groundnut cake and peanut snack among them, are approximations rather than translations. Kuli kuli is eaten on its own, mixed into garri with sugar and water, crumbled over salad, or served alongside fura and koko. Crushed to a powder it becomes the peanut component of suya spice, which is where most people outside the region encounter it without knowing.

Nigeria35 minBlessing

Mhadjeb

Mhadjeb, also written mhajeb, mahjouba or m'hadjeb depending on the region and the transliteration, is an Algerian stuffed flatbread built from semolina dough stretched until it is almost translucent, folded around a cooked filling of onion, tomato and pepper, then griddled flat. It belongs to street food and to Ramadan. Through the fasting month it appears on stalls across Algerian towns in the hour before sunset, stacked and sold by the piece, and it is one of the dishes most associated with the table at iftar. Outside Ramadan it is everyday food, made in quantity at home and eaten warm. The name carries a story that Algerians tell about its origin. Mahjouba was said to be a woman who did not leave her house, and in Algerian usage the word carries both meanings at once, the secluded woman and the honourable one. She made these breads and sent them out with her children to sell in the market. The dish took her name and kept it. What makes it technically distinctive is the stretching. The dough is worked with oil rather than flour, then pulled out by hand on an oiled surface until it is thin enough to read through, which is what gives the finished bread its layered, papery texture against a soft, well-cooked filling.

AlgeriaNympha

Chin Chin

Chin chin is fried dough cut into small pieces, and it is the most widely eaten snack in Nigeria. The texture sits between a cracker and a dry cake, and how hard it should be is the thing people have opinions about, with preferences running from soft and cakey to properly tooth breaking. It began as occasion food, made for birthdays and for Christmas, and the making of it was a household event that children were put to work on. That has changed: it is now sold at every street corner, in every grocery store and supermarket, and it is as ordinary as a packet of biscuits. It is also made across West Africa, and Ghanaians call it achomo. Flour, sugar, milk and butter are the base, with eggs, nutmeg and baking powder optional depending on the texture wanted. Nutmeg is the flavouring most associated with the Nigerian version, and the variations run to cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa and ground pepper. The three levers are simple enough to state: more butter and baking powder makes it soft, leaving out the egg and the baking powder makes it hard, and everything else is a matter of where between those you want to land.

Nigeria50 minBeatrice

Nigerian street doughnuts, fluffy yeasted rounds fried without egg

Easy Fluffy Doughnut Without Egg

This is the Nigerian street doughnut, a yeasted round fried until deep gold and eaten plain or with a filling, and it is made here without egg. Doughnuts of this kind are sold from roadside stands and street trays across Nigerian cities, alongside puff puff and buns, and they belong to the same everyday snack economy. Leaving the egg out is not a compromise. Egg gives a richer, cakier crumb, and its absence produces something lighter and breadier, closer to a soft bread roll than a rich doughnut, which is what many Nigerian street versions are. Milk powder does the work of adding richness instead, and it is a common pantry item in Nigerian kitchens where fresh milk is less convenient. The technique is straightforward yeasted dough: mix, knead until smooth and elastic, shape, prove until doubled, fry. The frying is where it goes wrong most often, and the source is unusually specific about it: the oil must be low enough that it is not bubbling, because a doughnut this size needs several minutes to cook through and a hot pan will colour the outside long before the middle is done.

Nigeria1 hr 40 minChopsity.

Fried cassava, golden crisp yuca pieces sprinkled with salt

Fried Cassava (Yuca)

Fried cassava is cassava root parboiled, then fried until the outside crisps and the inside stays dense and soft. It is eaten across a great many countries under different names, and the source names none, which is defensible here: versions of it are made in West and Central Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Cassava came from South America and reached Africa through Portuguese Atlantic trade from the sixteenth century, becoming one of the continent's principal staples. Yuca is the Latin American name for the same root, and it is not related to the yucca shrub despite the near-identical spelling. In West Africa it turns up fried as a street snack, and in the Caribbean and Latin America as yuca frita. The texture is what people come back for: crisp outside, dense and slightly buttery inside, quite unlike a potato chip. Two things matter in the making. The fibrous woody core running down the centre of each piece has to come out, since it never softens. And cassava must be peeled and thoroughly cooked before eating, parboiling before frying is not just for texture, and the source's own question about whether frying alone deals with the issue is worth answering properly rather than glossing over.

55 minDebby

Belila, Egyptian wheat berry porridge served with hot milk, almonds and cinnamon

Wheat Porridge (Belila)

Belila is Egyptian wheat porridge: whole wheat berries cooked until they burst, served warm in hot milk with toasted almonds and cinnamon. It is a breakfast dish, and it is equally at home as a snack or a filling dessert. Whole wheat berries are the point, and they are quite different from any milled grain. Left whole, they hold their shape and burst open rather than dissolving, giving a chewy, almost popping texture that no flour or flake reproduces. The fuller Egyptian version carries anise seed and golden raisins in a light syrup alongside the milk and almonds, which is worth knowing since neither appears in this recipe's ingredient list. The method is soaking rather than long cooking. The berries are covered with boiling water and left overnight, then cooked briefly and rested off the heat until they pop open. Cooked wheat berries should be kept in the fridge undrained, and portions warmed with hot milk poured over as needed, which makes it a practical thing to have prepared in advance. It is eaten by children and adults alike and is regarded as comfort food at any hour.

Egypt40 minFoodChef

Cameroonian Banana and Corn Fritters

These are fritters of mashed ripe banana and corn flour, leavened with yeast and deep fried, and the contributor is candid about where they came from: banana fritters exist, corn fritters exist, and this combines the two. It is an invention rather than an inherited dish. Both parents have their own histories. Corn fritters are a traditional sweet and savoury snack in the southern United States and in Indonesia, where they are perkedel jagung or bakwan jagung, and they originate in Native American cooking. Banana fritters are made across West Africa and much of the tropics, and appear in this archive as klako and krakro. What makes this version work is the yeast. Most fritter batters are leavened chemically or not at all; this one proves for an hour to ninety minutes, which is why the finished fritters are chewy and bread-like inside rather than dense. Very ripe bananas, heavily spotted, mash without lumps and carry more flavour. The result is described as sweet and salty at once, which the salt in the batter is doing deliberately. Peanut oil for frying is a common West and Central African choice, and it carries an allergen worth flagging.

Cameroon1 hr 45 minCuisine228

South African Banana Muffins golden domed muffins on a cooling rack, easy moist banana muffins made from overripe bananas

Easy and Quick Banana Muffins

South African Banana Muffins are a reliable, quick bake made from overripe bananas mashed into a simple batter of flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and cinnamon, producing soft, moist muffins with a natural banana sweetness that makes them a favourite for breakfast, school lunch boxes, and afternoon tea across the country. The beauty of banana muffins is that the overriper the banana, the better the result. Bananas that are too soft and dark to eat fresh are at their best for baking, their sugars fully developed and their flavour intense. This recipe is one that even beginning bakers reliably succeed with.

Pan-Africaniam.nkay

Tatale

Tatale is the Ghanaian plantain pancake, made from plantains so ripe their skins have blackened, mashed with onion, ginger and pepper, bound with corn flour and fried in spoonfuls. It is street food and a side dish, and it is sometimes called the golden pancake for its colour. It exists because of thrift. Overripe plantain is too soft to fry as slices and too sweet to use as a starch, and tatale is what was worked out to use it. That origin is common to a great many good dishes and it is worth stating rather than glossing over. Its traditional partner is aboboi, the Bambara bean stew, and the two are eaten together as a complete meal across Ghana. It is also served warm as an appetizer with beans in various forms. It is eaten in Nigeria as well. The source claims a link between the dish and Tatale, a district in northern Ghana. That district exists, but the connection to the dish is not something the record supports, and it is flagged rather than repeated as fact.

Ghana1 hr 5 minFoodChef

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

A no-bake cheesecake with a digestive biscuit base, a cream cheese and mascarpone filling loosened with peanut butter, a layer of peanut butter fudge, and a chocolate ganache on top. No country is named and none applies: this is a modern dessert of the kind made everywhere. It sits in Worldwide Recipes for that reason. Nothing in it is regional. Digestive biscuits are British, mascarpone Italian, and the peanut butter and chocolate pairing is North American in origin. That combination is now international and belongs to no particular kitchen. Africa's own peanut desserts are quite different and worth naming, since peanuts are one of the continent's defining crops. Kuli kuli is the Nigerian fried peanut snack. Meni-meniyong is the Malian sesame and honey brittle. Nkate cake is Ghanaian peanut brittle. None of them resembles a cheesecake. Two practical notes: nothing here is baked, so the times are chilling times rather than cooking, and the source's ingredient list has section headings tangled into it, which has been reconstructed against the method. Contains peanuts.

South Africa1 hrChef.donkey

Plantain Bread

Plantain bread is a sweet quick bread built on overripe plantains, and it exists for the same practical reason banana bread does: it is what you make when the fruit has gone too far to eat but is too good to throw out. The comparison to banana bread is the useful one, and the difference is real. Plantain is starchier and less sugary than banana even when very ripe, so plantain bread comes out slightly denser and less cloying, with a flavour that is deeper and a little more savoury at the edges. People who find banana bread too sweet tend to prefer it. It uses the plantains at the stage most cooks would consider past it, skins mostly black, flesh soft and heavily speckled. At that point the starches have converted and the fruit mashes easily, which is exactly what the batter needs. It is a quick bread, chemically raised, so there is no proving and no kneading. Walnuts are a common addition for texture, and it is eaten at breakfast, with tea, or as a snack.

Côte d'Ivoire1 hr 5 minFoodChef

Bhajias

Bhajias are thinly sliced potatoes coated in a spiced gram flour batter and fried until crisp, and they are an East African street snack, popular in Kenya and Tanzania. They arrived from India and have been made locally long enough to be entirely at home. Gram flour is what makes them work and what makes them naturally gluten free. Milled from chana dal, it fries into a crisp shell in a way wheat flour does not, and it carries an earthy, slightly nutty flavour of its own. Rice or corn flour goes in alongside for extra crispness. They belong to the same Indian inheritance in East Africa as chapati, samosas and pilau masala, brought by Indian merchants and labourers over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and absorbed completely into Kenyan and Tanzanian eating. What has changed locally is what goes with them: kachumbari, the tomato and onion salad, is the standard Kenyan accompaniment rather than the chutneys of India, though tamarind chutney and ketchup are both used. The batter should coat the back of a spoon, and it will thin as the potatoes go through it, so more flour is added as you go.

Kenya45 minNympha

South African Creamy Yogurt Popsicles with fresh fruit on a plate, a healthy refreshing frozen dessert

Creamy Homemade Yogurt Popsicles

Yoghurt popsicles are blended fruit and yoghurt frozen in moulds, about as simple as a frozen dessert gets, and endlessly variable. The technique is worth more than the recipe, because the recipe is essentially "choose a fruit". Blending the fruit gives a smoother result than chopping it in; straining is worth doing for anything seeded, like blackberries or raspberries, unless you want the seeds. Flavourings such as citrus zest or vanilla are optional additions rather than requirements. The one part people reliably struggle with is getting them out of the mould. Running warm water over the outside for a few seconds releases them cleanly; pulling harder does not, and usually leaves the popsicle behind and the stick in your hand. Yoghurt gives a creamier, tangier result than fruit and water alone, and full-fat yoghurt freezes noticeably softer than low-fat, which is worth knowing if you dislike a hard, icy texture. **Filed as Worldwide**, a generic frozen dessert with no African claim, kept on the platform because the page already exists.

Ermanuella Ben

Taro Fries

Taro root cut into batons, seasoned and baked or fried until the outside crisps. No country is claimed, and none is implied by the recipe, which is a modern snack rather than a traditional dish. Taro is worth knowing about, because it is not a novelty ingredient anywhere except in Western supermarkets. It is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world, and across West and Central Africa it is a staple under the name cocoyam, the corm cooked and pounded, or worked into soups, and the leaves eaten as a vegetable. Nigerian ekpang nkwukwo and Ghanaian kontomire both belong to that tradition and are on this site. So while taro fries as a format are a contemporary invention, the vegetable itself is thoroughly African as well as Asian and Pacific. What makes it behave differently from potato in the pan is starch. Taro is denser and starchier than potato, with a mild nuttiness and a faint natural sweetness, which is why it crisps well and why the soaking step in the method is worth doing rather than skipping. The source's nutritional comparisons with potato have not been carried across. The relevant point for cooking is texture, and that is covered in the tips.

40 minDebby

South African vetkoek, deep-fried bread rolls, split and served warm

Vetkoek (South African Fried Bread)

Vetkoek is a yeasted dough, flattened by hand and deep-fried until it is crisp outside and soft as bread inside. The Afrikaans name translates literally as fat cake, and the isiZulu and isiXhosa name is amagwinya. It is one of the most widely eaten things in South Africa. Its lineage is Dutch. Fried yeast dough came to the Cape with Dutch settlers, and vetkoek belongs to the same broad family as the Dutch oliebol, the Caribbean johnnycake and Mexican sopaipillas. What happened to it afterwards is what makes it South African: it became township food and street food, sold from stalls and windows across the country, and its usual filling, curried beef mince, is itself a product of the Cape's Indian and Cape Malay influence. It is eaten both ways round. Split and stuffed with curried mince, cheese, polony, tinned fish or slaw, it is lunch. Split and spread with syrup, honey or jam, it is a sweet snack with tea. Neither version is more authentic than the other. Note that this page covers plain vetkoek. The filled version with beef mince curry has a separate page on this site, and the two are meant to complement rather than replace each other.

South Africa45 minFoodChef

Cameroonian Koki Corn steamed corn pudding wrapped in banana leaves, a traditional Central African dish from Cameroon

Cameroon Koki Corn

Koki corn is a Cameroonian steamed pudding made from ground fresh corn mixed with palm oil and greens, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed until it sets firm. It is the corn version of a dish more commonly made with black-eyed peas. Koki beans, ground soaked beans treated the same way, is the better-known form, and the two are close relatives using the same technique on different staples. Both belong to a wider West and Central African family of leaf-wrapped steamed puddings that includes moi moi and abala. The wrapping is not decorative. Banana leaves are warmed over a flame first, which makes them pliable enough to fold without splitting, and they hold the loose mixture in shape while it steams. They also contribute a faint grassy aroma that the pudding takes on. Palm oil is heated before it goes in, which changes how it behaves in the mixture and gives the finished koki its deep orange colour. Njama njama, huckleberry leaves, a Cameroonian staple green, or spinach is folded through. It sets firm enough to slice and is eaten hot, on its own or with plantain.

CameroonBlessing

Chips mayai, Tanzanian chips cooked into an omelette, served with kachumbari

Chips Mayai (Tanzanian Chip Omelette)

Chips mayai is chips set into an omelette and cooked as a single flat cake. The name is literal, chipsi is chips, mayai is eggs in Swahili, and it is one of the defining Tanzanian street foods, also known as zege. It is sold from stalls across the country and cooked to order: fries already made, eggs beaten with chopped onion, tomato, green pepper and coriander, the two combined in a hot pan and turned once. Minced meat goes in where a heartier version is wanted. It arrives with kachumbari, the East African tomato and onion salad, and tomato sauce. The comparison the source draws with Spanish tortilla is apt and worth thinking about, because the difference is instructive. A tortilla española uses potato sliced thin and cooked gently in oil until soft, folded into egg and set slowly into something dense and custardy. Chips mayai uses chips, already fried, already crisp, and cooks fast, so the potato keeps some of its structure and the egg stays lighter. Same two ingredients, entirely different results, and the potato cut is what does it. It is eaten at any hour: breakfast, a late-night meal after drinking, or a snack in between. Nothing about it is formal.

Tanzania30 minBlessing

Fruit Salad

Fruit salad is chopped fruit served in its own juices, sometimes with a light syrup or dressing, and it is about as universal as food gets. The one technique worth knowing is that it improves with time. Fruit cut and left to sit releases juice, and that juice becomes the dressing, which is why a fruit salad made an hour ahead is noticeably better than one assembled at the last minute. The source makes exactly this point: it is tastier the longer it soaks. The other thing worth knowing is which fruits misbehave. Apples, pears and bananas brown quickly once cut; a squeeze of citrus slows it considerably. Melon releases a lot of water and dilutes everything else, so it is better added late. Berries collapse if stirred much. A dressing is optional. Honey with lime, orange juice, or a light sugar syrup are all common, and any of them draws out more juice from the fruit itself. **Filed as Worldwide.** Fruit salad has no particular national claim, and the page is kept and reclassified rather than removed.

5 minBlessing

Honey Popcorn

Popcorn popped on the hob, coated in a honey and butter mixture and baked briefly so the coating sets crisp rather than staying sticky. No country is claimed. **This page had no recipe card in the source**, only an article about why honey popcorn is good. The ingredients and method below have been reconstructed from what that article describes, and that is flagged rather than hidden. The technique the article gets right is the baking step, and it is the difference between honey popcorn and sticky popcorn. Honey poured over popcorn stays tacky, because honey is around eighteen per cent water. Spreading the coated popcorn on a tray and baking it at a low temperature drives that water off, and the sugars set into a thin brittle shell. Ten to fifteen minutes at a low heat, turned once or twice, is enough. Its other observation is also true: honey helps salt adhere to the popcorn, which distributes the seasoning far more evenly than salt sprinkled onto dry kernels, most of which falls to the bottom of the bowl. Popcorn itself is indigenous to the Americas, maize was domesticated in Mexico and popping varieties are ancient there. Maize is now grown and eaten across Africa, but popcorn as a snack came the other way.

25 minDebby

Plantain Chips

Green plantain sliced paper-thin and fried until crisp. It is a snack made across West Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and no single country is claimed for it. **One correction to the source, and it matters.** It says plantain chips are "also known as alloco, dodo, or chicharritas". Chicharritas is right, that is the Cuban and Puerto Rican name for exactly this. But alloco and dodo are not chips. Both are the West African dish of *ripe* plantain cut into thick pieces and fried soft: sweet, tender and yielding, the opposite of a crisp. Alloco is the Ivorian name and dodo the Nigerian one, and both have their own pages on this site. Conflating them with chips confuses two quite different foods. The distinction comes down to ripeness. Green plantain is starchy and barely sweet, and sliced thin it dries and crisps. Ripe plantain is full of sugar and moisture; sliced thin it burns before it crisps, and cut thick it fries soft. The source's own instructions are good, do not salt before frying, do not use overripe fruit, season while hot, but they are written as a list of tips rather than as a method. A method has been constructed.

35 minNympha

Recettes

Recettes à la une

Cameroonian Banana and Corn Fritters

Honey Popcorn

Puff-Puff

Gullisuwa

Nigerian Egg Roll

Nigerian Buns

Rwandan Banana Beignets

Plats emblématiques

Recettes les plus populaires

Hausa Masa

Rwandan Banana Beignets

How to Make Awara (Tofu, Soyabean Cake)

Nigerian Pancake (Diet)

Gullisuwa

Puff-Puff

Nigerian Buns

Nigerian Egg Roll

Fura Da Nono

West African Banana Fritters (Klako, Krakro)

Benne Cakes

Kuli Kuli

Mhadjeb

Chin Chin

Easy Fluffy Doughnut Without Egg

Fried Cassava (Yuca)

Wheat Porridge (Belila)

Cameroonian Banana and Corn Fritters

Easy and Quick Banana Muffins

Tatale

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Plantain Bread

Bhajias

Creamy Homemade Yogurt Popsicles

Taro Fries

Vetkoek (South African Fried Bread)

Cameroon Koki Corn

Chips Mayai (Tanzanian Chip Omelette)

Fruit Salad

Honey Popcorn

Plantain Chips