Recipes

Browse the archive by country, course and cooking time.

Active filters

Chakalaka

Chakalaka is a South African relish of onions, tomatoes, peppers and often baked beans, spiced with curry powder and chilli, and it is close to compulsory at a braai. It came out of the townships, where it has been a staple of black South African cooking for decades. Accounts of its origin vary and none is firmly documented, which is common for food that developed in domestic and working-class settings rather than in restaurants. What is certain is that it is now everywhere, served at braais, at funerals and weddings, in lunchboxes, tinned and sold in supermarkets. Its usefulness is in its flexibility. It works hot as a side dish, cold as a relish, spooned over pap, alongside grilled meat, or in a sandwich. It is light, quick, keeps well, and gets better after a day. Grated carrot is near universal, baked beans are common though not obligatory, and the heat level varies from mild to considerable depending on who is making it. It is naturally vegan in its standard form, which is unusual for a dish that spends most of its life next to grilled meat.

EasySouth Africa

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

View Full Recipe →

Red-Red Stew

Red red is a Ghanaian black-eyed pea stew, and the name is a plain description of what it looks like. The beans are cooked in red palm oil, zomi, with tomato, and both give the dish the deep rust colour it is named for. It is usually vegetarian, which is worth noting because it is unusual among West African stews in being so by default rather than by adaptation. The beans carry it, and the palm oil provides the richness that meat would otherwise supply. Some households add fish or meat, but the standard version does not need it. Zomi is not interchangeable with ordinary red palm oil. It is palm oil that has been heated and infused, and it carries a deeper, slightly smoky flavour that is much of what makes red red taste Ghanaian rather than generically bean-stewed. The classic accompaniment is fried plantain, and the pairing is close to inseparable, the sweetness of ripe plantain against the savoury, oily beans is the whole balance of the meal. Gari is often served alongside too. It is cheap, filling and slow-cooked, and it is street food as much as home food across Ghana. Black-eyed peas are the usual bean, but the dish tolerates others without complaint.

EasyGhana

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

View Full Recipe →

Gorraasa (Sudanese Flatbread)

Gorraasa is a thick, spongy Sudanese flatbread cooked in a pan from a pourable batter rather than a kneaded dough. It is one of Sudan's two national breads, alongside kisra, and it is used as a tool as much as a food. Its purpose shapes its texture. A round of gorraasa goes under stewed meat or a saucy dish, and pieces are torn off to pick food up, so it needs to be soft enough to tear cleanly and springy enough not to disintegrate under sauce. That is why it is thick and slightly elastic rather than crisp or brittle. It is often eaten with damaa, the Sudanese meat and tomato stew, in a combination known as gorraasa be dama. Two things in the method are worth taking seriously. The batter must be thick, pancake-batter thick, because a thin one will not hold the bubbles that give the bread its sponginess. And it is cooked on one side only, over medium heat, until the top dries out completely. The heat needs watching: too high and the base burns before the top sets. The source is emphatic about salting the batter properly, and it is right. Gorraasa made without enough salt is bland in a way that no accompaniment fixes, because there is nothing else in it.

35 minEasySudan

Recipe by Nympha · Africook

View Full Recipe →

Tsaramaso Malagasy (White Bean and Tomato Stew)

Dried white beans cooked until tender, then finished with red onion and sliced tomatoes into a thick, soupy stew. It is Malagasy, and it is served everywhere on the island. It is laoka, which is the useful word here. In Malagasy eating, rice is the meal and laoka is whatever accompanies it, the thing that goes on top of, or beside, a large plate of rice. Tsaramaso is one of the most popular laoka in the country, and it is eaten as a matter of course rather than as an occasion dish. It is very often not vegetarian. Zebu meat, the humped cattle that are central to Malagasy life, makes it hen'omby sy tsaramaso, and pork makes it tsaramaso sy henakisoa. The shank is the cut the source recommends. This version is the plain one, which is also widely eaten. The technique in the recipe is worth noting: the beans are cooked separately in water, seasoned only at the end, and a cup of their cooking liquid is kept back. That liquid is what the finished stew is loosened with, and it carries starch and flavour that plain water would not. The source compares it to cassoulet, which is a reasonable shorthand, beans and meat cooked long and slow, though the seasoning is entirely different.

2 hr 15 minEasyMadagascar

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

View Full Recipe →