Recettes

Funge

Funge is the Angolan staple, a smooth, elastic cassava porridge that arrives alongside almost everything and asserts nothing on its own. Its neutrality is functional rather than a failure of ambition. A dish with a strong flavour of its own could not do funge's job, which is to carry the flavour of what it is eaten with. It is made from cassava flour and water, and nothing else is required. Cassava is a tropical root crop grown across Angola, and the flour keeps for months, which is part of why the dish has held its place. In Angola it is funge or funji; the same preparation carries different names and different base starches across the continent, and Angolan households recognise the family resemblance without confusing the members. Funge is eaten with the fingers. Small pieces are pulled off, rolled between the fingers, and used to lift stew, fish or greens from a shared bowl. That method makes it a communal dish by construction rather than by sentiment, and eating from the same bowl of funge carries the meaning that shared eating carries everywhere: this is a household, and you are in it.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

25 minMediumAngola

Recette de Debby · Africook

Tanjia Marrakchia

Tanjia Marrakchia belongs to Marrakech specifically, and it is named after the pot rather than the food. The tanjia is a tall, narrow clay urn with a small neck, and the dish cannot properly be separated from it: meat, spices and a little water go in, the neck is sealed with parchment and clay, and the whole vessel is buried in the embers of a hammam furnace to cook for hours. That cooking method is the reason it exists. The hammam, the public bathhouse, kept a wood fire burning to heat its water, and the ashes were free heat available to anyone who brought a pot. Labourers and workers would leave a tanjia with the furnace attendant in the morning and collect it cooked at the end of the day, which made it food for men working away from a kitchen. It is still called the bachelor's dish in Marrakech for that reason, though it now appears at celebrations, religious occasions and family gatherings as well. Beef or lamb is standard, with cumin, ginger, saffron, turmeric and paprika, and preserved lemon and olives in some households. Without a hammam the substitute is a very low oven over several hours, which gets the tenderness but not the smoke.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

5 hr 20 minMediumMorocco

Recette de Debby · Africook

Bessara (Moroccan Fava Bean Purée)

Bessara is dried split fava beans cooked soft with garlic and olive oil, then puréed and seasoned with cumin and paprika. It is street food across Morocco, most strongly associated with the north, and it is eaten for breakfast as often as for anything else. Its consistency is not fixed, and that is a feature rather than a vagueness. Made thick, it is a dip eaten from a shared plate with Moroccan bread. Made looser, it is a soup served in individual bowls, which is how street vendors serve it on cold mornings. The same pot produces both, depending on how much of the cooking liquid goes back in. Traditionally the beans were cooked for hours until they collapsed entirely and then passed through a food mill. A blender does the same job in seconds and gives a smoother result, which is what most cooks now use, and the source is right that nothing is lost by it. The condiments are not optional garnish. Bessara is served with olive oil, cumin, salt and cayenne or harissa on the side, and each person seasons their own bowl. The purée itself is deliberately mild, which only makes sense once you know that. Note that the same dish appears elsewhere spelt bissara; they are one thing. Some cooks make it with dried split peas in place of some or all of the fava beans, which gives a lighter texture and a greener colour but changes nothing about the method or the seasoning.

1 hr 30 minEasyMorocco

Recette de Deborah · Africook

Fish Chermoula

Fish marinated in chermoula, the North African herb, garlic and spice paste, then grilled or baked. Chermoula is used across Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, so no single country has been assigned to this page. Chermoula is essentially a marinade built around parsley and coriander in roughly equal measure, with garlic, cumin, paprika, lemon and olive oil. That green colour is the signature and it is also a warning: chermoula is at its best made fresh and used within a day or two, because the herbs darken and dull as they oxidise. Regional versions diverge from there, saffron in Morocco, more chilli in Tunisia, preserved lemon in some Moroccan households, but the parsley, coriander, garlic and cumin core holds everywhere. Its main job is fish, and the pairing is not arbitrary. Cumin and paprika stand up to oily fish without overwhelming white fish, and the acidity of the lemon does the work that a squeeze of lemon at the table would do, only from the inside. The one thing to watch is marinating time. Thirty minutes to an hour is what this recipe calls for and that is right; several hours in an acidic marinade begins to cure the fish rather than season it, which changes the texture in a way you probably do not want. A related page on this site covers braised snapper with chimichurri, which is a South American parallel to the same idea.

40 minEasy

Recette de Laila · Africook