Dendi

Akassa

also Lio, Koko

Fermented maize dough steamed in leaf parcels into a firm sour cake, eaten with almost every Beninese sauce. The sourness is the point and takes three days to build.

Serves 6 · 1 hour, plus 3 days fermenting

Tchigan

also Yam and bean porridge, Atassi

Yam and beans cooked down together with palm oil into a soft red porridge, the Beninese household dish and the country's most eaten evening meal.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus soaking

Amiwo

Maize dough cooked directly in a red tomato and chilli sauce so the polenta takes the colour and the flavour, served with fried chicken or fish. Benin's best-known dish outside its borders.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Ata

also Akara, Bean cakes

Black-eyed pea fritters, whipped light and deep fried, sold from roadside pans at dawn across Benin and Nigeria alike. Eaten with pepper sauce and a hunk of bread.

Serves Makes 20 · 40 minutes, plus 4 hours soaking

Kuli-Kuli

Groundnut paste pressed of its oil, spiced and fried into crisp rings and sticks. Made in quantity for festivals and journeys, and crushed over salads and porridge.

Serves Makes 30 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Sauce Gombo

Okra cooked to a deliberately drawing sauce with smoked fish and crayfish, eaten by dipping akassa or pounded yam in and swallowing without chewing. The texture is the achievement, not a flaw.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Wagasi

also Fulani cheese, Wara

Fresh cheese curdled with the sap of the calotropis plant by Fulani herders in northern Benin, fried until golden and eaten with tomato sauce.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Sodabi

Palm wine distilled to a fierce clear spirit, poured on the ground for the ancestors before anyone drinks. Central to Vodun ceremony and to every Beninese celebration.

Serves Serves as a digestif · Distilled traditionally; served in minutes

Tuwon Masara

Stiff maize or millet porridge served with a sauce of baobab leaf or okra, the daily meal in most of Niger. Eaten hot from a shared calabash.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Dambou

Steamed couscous of millet or maize tossed with moringa leaves, oil and onion. Niger's signature dish, eaten at weddings and named as the national plate.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Kilishi

Beef sliced paper thin, dried in the sun, coated in a groundnut and spice paste and dried again. It keeps for months and is the traveller's meat of the Sahel.

Serves Makes 500g · 3 days

Masa

also Waina, Rice cakes

Small fermented rice cakes fried in a dimpled pan until crisp at the edges and soft in the middle, sold at Nigerien markets with a peppery sauce or with sugar.

Serves Makes about 24 · 40 minutes, plus overnight fermenting

Fari Masa

Light fried rice-flour puffs eaten at breakfast and at Eid, hollow inside and dusted with sugar or dipped in pepper sauce depending on the household.

Serves Makes 20 · 3 hours

Sauce Kopto

A Zarma sauce of moringa or jute leaves with soumbala and dried fish, poured over tuwo. Green, salty and deeply savoury from the fermented locust bean.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Fura da Nono

Balls of spiced millet dough crumbled into fermented cow's milk, a Fulani drink and meal in one. Sold by women carrying calabashes on their heads.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes

Pounded Yam and Egusi Soup

White yam pounded to a smooth elastic mound with a soup of ground melon seeds, greens and meat. The centrepiece of Yoruba and Igbo tables alike.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Tuwo Shinkafa

also Rice swallow

Soft short-grain rice cooked and beaten into a smooth mound, the northern Nigerian staple eaten with miyan kuka or miyan taushe.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Nigerian Jollof

Long-grain rice cooked in a reduced pepper and tomato base until the bottom of the pot lightly scorches, which is where the smoky flavour comes from and is not a mistake.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 20 minutes

Miyan Kuka

also Baobab leaf soup, Luru

Dried baobab leaf powder cooked into a dark, faintly slippery soup with dried fish and locust bean. The Hausa soup of northern Nigeria, eaten with tuwo.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Suya

Thin beef skewers rubbed in yaji, a groundnut and chilli spice mix, grilled over open charcoal by Hausa mallams and served on newspaper with raw onion and tomato.

Serves Makes 12 · 40 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Ofe Nsala

also White soup

A pale peppery soup of catfish thickened with pounded yam and scented with uziza and ehuru. Made in Anambra for a woman who has just given birth, and served at important occasions.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Moi Moi

Steamed bean pudding of peeled black-eyed peas, peppers and onion, wrapped in leaves and studded with egg and fish. Eaten alone or beside jollof at every party.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 4 hours soaking

Efo Riro

also Yoruba spinach stew

Shredded greens cooked into a base of blended pepper, onion and palm oil with assorted meat and stockfish. The Yoruba vegetable soup, and the one Lagosians argue about most.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Banga Soup

also Ofe akwu, Palm nut soup

Palm nut pulp cooked with catfish and the Delta's particular spices — beletientien, oburunbebe stick, ataiko — into a thick orange soup. The Urhobo and Isoko signature.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Zobo

Hibiscus infused with pineapple, ginger and clove, bottled and sold cold at every Nigerian gathering. The non-alcoholic drink of choice at weddings.

Serves 8 · 40 minutes, plus chilling