Fulani (Fulbe)

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

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

Tô

also Toh

Millet or sorghum porridge cooked stiff and eaten with a leaf or okra sauce, the daily food across the Sahelian belt. Torn off in pieces and dipped with the right hand.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Tiguadege Na

also Maafe, Groundnut stew

Meat in a thick groundnut and tomato sauce over rice, Mali's national dish and the ancestor of groundnut stews from Senegal to Cameroon. The oil rising to the top is how you know it is done.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Fakoye

A sauce of powdered sesame leaves with meat and tomato, served over rice or tô. Sold from lunch pots in Bamako, and unmistakable for its slightly slippery texture.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Capitaine à la Bamakoise

Nile perch from the Niger, stuffed and grilled whole, served with fried plantain and a sharp onion salad. The dish Bamako restaurants put in front of a visitor.

Serves 4 · 1 hour

Widjila

Millet couscous with camel or mutton and curdled milk, from the Tuareg and Songhai north. The sour milk poured over at the end is what distinguishes it.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Tigadèguèna Poulet

also Chicken groundnut sauce

Chicken in groundnut sauce with sweet potato and cabbage, the Bamako version of the Sahel's great sauce, served over rice.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Dabileni

Hibiscus juice, called dabileni in Bambara, sold from coolers and street-corner freezers across Bamako. The same drink as bissap and sobolo, with a Malian preference for very sweet.

Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus chilling

Dèguè

also Thiakry, Millet yoghurt

Steamed millet grain in sweetened soured milk with vanilla and nutmeg, drunk cold from a plastic sachet at every Malian roadside.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes, plus chilling

Thiakry

also Chakery, Dégué

Steamed millet couscous folded into sweetened soured milk with nutmeg and vanilla. Eaten as breakfast, as dessert and at naming ceremonies, cold from a shared bowl.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Thieboudienne

also Ceebu jën, Fish and rice

Fish stuffed with herb paste, cooked with vegetables in tomato, and rice cooked in the resulting broth. Senegal's national dish, inscribed by UNESCO in 2021, and the origin of jollof.

Serves 8 · 2 hours

Dibi

Lamb grilled over wood in a dedicated dibiterie, chopped and served on paper with mustard onions. Ordered by the kilo and eaten with the hands, standing.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes

Fataya

also Nems senegalais, Fish pastries

Fried pastries stuffed with spiced fish or minced meat, sold from pans on every Dakar corner and eaten with a tamarind and onion sauce.

Serves Makes about 20 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Poulet Yassa

Chicken marinated in lemon, onion and mustard, then braised in a mass of the onions until they collapse into a sauce. From the Casamance, and now eaten everywhere.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight marinating

Mafé

Groundnut stew with beef and vegetables over rice, thick and orange with palm or groundnut oil. Eaten across the Sahel and given its best-known name in Senegal.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Caldou

also Kaldu, Casamance fish and rice

Fish poached in a lemon and okra broth over rice, the Casamance dish, lighter and sharper than the thieboudienne of the north.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Bouye

also Baobab juice, Jus de pain de singe

Baobab fruit pulp soaked and strained into a creamy, tart white drink with vanilla and nutmeg. The fruit is called monkey bread in French and is extremely high in vitamin C.

Serves 6 · 20 minutes, plus 4 hours soaking

Lakh

also Ngalakh, Millet and yoghurt

Millet couscous in soured milk with baobab fruit and peanut paste, eaten as breakfast and, in its ngalakh form, sent between Christian and Muslim neighbours at Easter.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Fouti

Fonio steamed to a light, fine grain and served with sauce. Fonio is one of the oldest cultivated cereals in West Africa and grows on the Fouta Djallon where little else will.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Riz Sauce Feuille

Rice with a dark sauce of pounded cassava leaves, palm oil and smoked fish. The most-eaten dish in Guinea, cooked in every household in Conakry and the Fouta alike.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Soupou Kandia

also Okra and palm oil sauce

Okra cooked into red palm oil with smoked fish and meat until thick and glossy, poured over rice. The Guinean and Casamance sauce, deliberately viscous.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Poulet Yassa

Chicken marinated in lemon and mustard, grilled and finished in a mass of slow-cooked onions. Casamance in origin and eaten from Dakar to Conakry, served over rice.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating

Konkoé Fumé

Smoked catfish stewed in a tomato and palm oil sauce, the celebration fish of coastal Guinea. The smoking is done over green wood for a full day before the cooking starts.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Lafidi

Rice noodles or fine pasta with groundnut sauce, from the Fouta Djallon. A Fula dish adapted to whatever grain or pasta is available, and eaten at Friday gatherings.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Fonio au Poulet

also Fonio with chicken

Fonio, the tiny fast-growing Sahelian grain, steamed and served with chicken and onion sauce. The Fouta Djallon's grain and now a global health-food export.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Jus de Gingembre

Raw ginger blended, steeped and strained into a fierce cold drink, sweetened and sold in frozen sachets. Guinean ginger is strong enough to make a first-timer cough.

Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus 4 hours steeping

Fufu Corn

Maize flour beaten into a smooth stiff paste, eaten with njama njama or huckleberry greens in the north-west. The standard plate of the Anglophone highlands.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Koki Beans

also Koki corn, Ekoki

Black-eyed beans ground to a paste with palm oil and spinach, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed into a savoury pudding. A Cameroonian street and household staple.

Serves 8 · 2 hours, plus overnight soaking

Ndolé

Bitterleaf boiled repeatedly to draw out the bitterness, then cooked with ground groundnuts, shrimp and meat. Cameroon's national dish, from the Douala coast.

Serves 8 · 2 hours

Mbongo Tchobi

also Black stew, Sauce noire

Fish or meat in a jet-black sauce made from burnt spices — mbongo seed, country onion and njangsa — from the Bassa country around Edéa. Smoky, bitter and unlike anything else in Africa.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Soya

Beef skewers rubbed in a groundnut and chilli spice mix and grilled over charcoal, sold from evening braziers across the north and in every Yaoundé quarter.

Serves Makes 12 · 40 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Eru

Wild forest vine leaves shredded fine and cooked with waterleaf, palm oil and smoked fish, from the south-west. Made for celebrations and eaten with water fufu.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Achu Soup

also Yellow soup, Taro fufu and yellow soup

Pounded taro served with a bright yellow palm-oil soup coloured with limestone, the ceremonial dish of Cameroon's North West grassfields, eaten with the fingers from a shared bowl.

Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Poulet DG

Chicken with fried ripe plantain and vegetables, whose name stands for Directeur Général because it was originally what you served a man of importance.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Kondre

also Plantain and goat stew

Goat and unripe plantain stewed with country onion and njangsa until the plantain thickens the pot. A grassfields dish cooked for visitors and for the head of the household.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Sanga

also Maize and cassava leaf

Fresh maize kernels cooked with cassava leaf and palm oil into a thick green-and-gold porridge. A Beti and southern Cameroonian dish of the maize harvest.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Foléré

Hibiscus juice with pineapple, ginger and mint, sold from freezers in the north and served cold at every celebration. Cameroon's name for what is bissap elsewhere.

Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus chilling

Bil-Bil

also Millet beer, Bilibili

Sorghum beer of northern Cameroon, brewed by women in great clay pots and sold from the compound door. Sour, cloudy and drunk from a shared calabash.

Serves Makes about 8 litres · 1 hour active, plus 4 days germinating and 3 days fermenting

Tô

also Saghbo

Stiff millet or sorghum porridge, the daily food of most of the country, torn off in lumps and dipped in sauce. Eaten with the right hand from a shared bowl.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Riz Gras

Rice cooked in a rich tomato and meat broth until it absorbs everything, the West African one-pot in its Burkinabè form. The name means fat rice and is not an exaggeration.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Brochettes

Skewers of beef or mutton grilled over charcoal and rolled in a peppery groundnut spice mix, sold from braziers on every street corner in Ouagadougou after dark.

Serves Makes 12 · 30 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Gonré

also Bean cake, Gonre

Black-eyed beans ground with onion and chilli, wrapped in leaf and steamed into a firm savoury cake. Burkina Faso's breakfast and market food.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking

Poulet Bicyclette

Free-range chicken, so called because it has spent its life running about, marinated and grilled whole over charcoal. Served flattened with onion sauce for guests and celebrations.

Serves 4 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating

Zamnè

also Acacia seeds, Zaamné

The small green seeds of a wild acacia, boiled long and cooked with beef and onion. A Burkinabè delicacy that is expensive, laborious and served to people you want to impress.

Serves 6 · 3 hours

Babenda

Wild leaves, rice and soumbala cooked together into a dark green one-pot, from the Mossi plateau. Soumbala is fermented néré seed and gives the dish its powerful savoury depth.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Dolo

also Millet beer, Chapalo

Sorghum beer brewed by women and sold in courtyards marked with an upturned calabash on a pole. It is drunk within a day or two, still fermenting, from a shared gourd.

Serves Makes about 5 litres · 4 days

Mauritanian Couscous

Barley or millet couscous with camel or mutton, coarser and less vegetable-heavy than its Maghrebi cousins. Mauritania joined the four-country UNESCO couscous listing in 2020.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Chebujin

also Thieboudienne

Fish and rice cooked in tomato with stuffed fish and vegetables, shared with Senegal across the river. Mauritania's version leans drier and is eaten from a communal platter with the right hand.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Méchoui

Whole lamb or goat roasted over embers or in a pit, cut up and eaten in the hand with salt and cumin. The desert celebration food, and the standard way of honouring a guest.

Serves 10 or more · 4 hours

Lakhchef

also Mauritanian pancake

A thin sorghum or wheat pancake cooked on one side until it is full of holes, eaten at breakfast with butter, honey or a meat sauce.

Serves Makes 10 · 40 minutes, plus overnight fermenting

Marou we Laham

Rice with meat, cooked in one pot and served on a wide communal platter. The plain name is accurate: this is the dish put out when a family has guests and wants everyone to eat well.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Hakko

A Haalpulaar dish of the Senegal river valley: leaf sauce over millet couscous, thickened and soured, eaten in the villages of the south where the millet is grown.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Zrig

Camel or goat milk thinned with water and sweetened, drunk cold across the Sahara. It is what a herder offers on arrival and the first thing given to a traveller who has come far.

Serves 4 · 10 minutes