Beja

Kisra

Paper-thin fermented sorghum flatbread spread on a hot plate with a wooden strip and peeled off in sheets. Eaten under every Sudanese stew, and torn rather than cut.

Serves Makes 12 · 30 minutes, plus 2 days fermenting

Gurasa

also Sudanese pancake bread

A thick soft wheat pancake cooked on a flat griddle, the western Sudanese alternative to kisra and the bread that soaks up mullah best.

Serves Makes 8 · 40 minutes, plus 1 hour resting

Ful Medames

Fava beans simmered soft and crushed at the table with oil, cheese, tomato and chilli. Sudan's universal breakfast, eaten standing at a stall or sitting round a single shared bowl.

Serves 4 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking

Mullah Rob

also Yoghurt stew, Mulah roub

Meat and dried okra powder stewed in soured milk, one of the great Sudanese mullah stews, poured over kisra sorghum bread and eaten with the hand.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Ta'amiya Sudani

Sudanese fava fritters, spicier than the Egyptian version and usually served in a bread roll with salad and peanut sauce. The staple of Khartoum's morning food carts.

Serves Makes 20 · 40 minutes, plus overnight soaking

Aseeda with Mullah

A dome of sorghum porridge served with mullah, a stew of dried meat, okra powder and peanut butter. The dish of weddings, naming days and Eid across northern and central Sudan.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Shorbat Adas

also Lentil soup, Ramadan soup

Red lentil soup with cumin and lemon, the first thing on the table at every Sudanese iftar and the standard opener at weddings.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Salatat Aswad

Aubergine mashed with peanut butter, yoghurt and lemon into a smoky purée, eaten cold with kisra. It appears on almost every Sudanese table alongside the hot dishes.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Jebena Coffee

also Gahwa

Coffee roasted, pounded and brewed in a long-necked clay pot, spiced with ginger and cardamom and strained through a plug of grass. Made in the street by women who set up a stool and a brazier.

Serves 4 small cups · 30 minutes

Karkade

also Hibiscus tea, Roselle

Dried hibiscus calyces steeped into a deep crimson drink, served iced through the Sudanese heat and hot in the cold season. Sudan grows some of the best in the world.

Serves Makes 2 litres · 20 minutes, plus 4 hours steeping

Taita

also Injera

Fermented teff flatbread, the plate and the cutlery of every Eritrean meal. Sour, spongy and torn to pick up whatever is spooned onto it.

Serves Makes 8 · 45 minutes, plus 3 days fermenting

Tsebhi Birsen

also Spiced lentils, Birsen

Brown or red lentils cooked with berbere and onion until thick, the everyday Eritrean stew and the fasting-day mainstay.

Serves 6 · 55 minutes

Zigni

Beef stewed slowly in berbere and onion until the sauce goes deep red and the meat surrenders. Served on taita with a hard-boiled egg, and Eritrea's central dish.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Himbasha

also Ambasha

A slightly sweet celebration bread scored into a wheel pattern before baking, studded with raisins and scented with cardamom. Broken at gatherings and with coffee.

Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Dorho Tsebhi

Chicken in berbere sauce with whole eggs, the dish made when a guest arrives or a family celebrates. The chicken is jointed into twelve pieces by custom.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Shiro

Powdered chickpea or broad bean flour cooked into a smooth spiced purée, the fasting food of the Orthodox calendar and the everyday food of most households.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Alicha

also Mild vegetable stew, Alicha birsen

The mild counterpart to zigni: potatoes, carrots and cabbage stewed with turmeric and no chilli, for children, for fasting and for anyone who has had enough berbere.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Buna

The coffee ceremony: beans roasted, ground and brewed in a jebena in front of the guests, poured in three rounds over an hour or more. Refusing to stay for all three is a slight.

Serves 4, three rounds · 1 hour

Eish Baladi

Wholemeal pocket bread baked at ferocious heat so it balloons. The word eish means life in Egyptian Arabic rather than bread, and its price has brought down governments.

Serves Makes 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Koshari

also Kushari

Rice, lentils and macaroni under spiced tomato sauce, garlic vinegar and fried onions. Assembled in the nineteenth century from Indian, Italian and Egyptian parts, and now the national dish, sold by the ton from dedicated shops.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Ta'ameya

also Egyptian falafel

Falafel made with dried fava beans rather than chickpeas, bright green inside from a mass of herbs. Egypt's version predates the chickpea one, and Egyptians will tell you so without being asked.

Serves Makes 20 · 40 minutes, plus 24 hours soaking

Hawawshi

also Egyptian stuffed bread

Spiced minced meat with onion and chilli packed into baladi bread and baked hard until the fat soaks the crust. Cairo's late-night sandwich.

Serves 4 · 50 minutes

Fattah

Toasted bread and rice under lamb, with a garlic and vinegar tomato sauce poured over. Made for Eid al-Adha with the sacrificed animal, and for the celebration of a first child.

Serves 8 · 3 hours

Mahshi

also Stuffed vegetables, Wara2 3enab

Vine leaves, courgettes and peppers stuffed with herbed rice and simmered in tomato broth. The dish an Egyptian household spends a whole morning on, for guests and for feast days.

Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Molokhia

also Mulukhiyah

Finely chopped jute mallow leaves cooked in broth to a deliberately viscous green soup, finished with a hiss of fried garlic and coriander. Eaten in the Delta and Cairo alike, and divisive nowhere in Egypt.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Karkadeh

also Hibiscus tea

Dried hibiscus calyces steeped to a deep crimson, drunk iced in summer and hot in winter. Served at weddings across Egypt and Sudan, and once reserved for the pharaohs in the version Egyptians like to tell.

Serves 6 · 20 minutes, plus chilling

Sahlab

also Salep, Winter milk drink

Thick sweet milk drink of orchid-root starch, scented with rosewater and topped with coconut, cinnamon and nuts. The Egyptian winter street drink.

Serves 4 · 20 minutes