Iteso (Teso)

Matoke

Green cooking bananas steamed in their own leaves until soft and yellow, then mashed. The staple of the Baganda and the food that defines central Uganda.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Katogo

also Matoke katogo, Breakfast stew

Green bananas cooked in one pot with offal, beans or groundnut sauce until they absorb everything. Uganda's breakfast, argued about endlessly for what should go in it.

Serves 4 · 50 minutes

Kalo

also Millet bread, Atap

Finger millet flour worked into a dense dark brown loaf, often with cassava flour for body. The staple of eastern and northern Uganda, torn and dipped into sauce.

Serves 6 · 35 minutes

Luwombo

Chicken, beef or groundnut sauce steamed inside a banana leaf parcel, invented in the 1880s by a cook to Kabaka Mwanga II. Opened at the table so the steam is released in front of the guest.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Rolex

An omelette rolled inside a chapati, whose name is a compression of rolled eggs. Sold from griddle stalls outside every campus and taxi park in Uganda.

Serves 2 · 30 minutes

Grilled Tilapia

also Ngege, Fish choma

Whole tilapia from Lake Victoria, scored, rubbed with garlic and lemon and grilled over charcoal at the landing sites. Eaten with the fingers and a heap of kachumbari.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes, plus 1 hour marinating

Gonja

also Roast plantain

Sweet plantain roasted whole over charcoal until the skin blackens and the flesh caramelises, sold at every Ugandan roadside and taxi stage.

Serves 4 · 25 minutes

Binyebwa

Groundnut sauce, sometimes with mushrooms or smoked fish, steamed or simmered and served over matoke. The sauce that goes with everything at a Ugandan celebration.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Muchomo

also Goat muchomo, Nyama choma ya mbuzi

Goat meat on sticks, salted and grilled slowly over charcoal, the fixture of every Ugandan celebration and the reason the town of Nakasongola is on the map.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 15 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Malewa

Smoked bamboo shoots stewed with groundnut, a Bagisu dish from the slopes of Mount Elgon. Prepared at imbalu circumcision ceremonies and sold dried in Mbale market.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus soaking

Eshabwe

also Ghee sauce, Ankole ghee sauce

Clarified butter whipped with rock salt and water until it turns white and thick, the ceremonial sauce of the Ankole and Toro pastoral kingdoms. Poured over millet bread or matoke.

Serves 6 as a sauce · 30 minutes

Bushera

Sorghum or millet flour fermented into a thin sour drink, served fresh to children and left longer to turn alcoholic for adults. A Bakiga and Banyankole staple.

Serves 6 · 20 minutes, plus 1 to 3 days fermenting

Ugali

White maize meal cooked stiff enough to hold its shape when turned out, eaten with sukuma wiki or stew. Kenya's daily bread, and judged entirely on whether it is lump-free.

Serves 6 · 25 minutes

Githeri

also Muthere, Boiled maize and beans

Maize and beans boiled together, eaten plain in the fields and fried up with onion and tomato at home. The default Kenyan school and prison meal, and the thing most Kenyans have eaten more of than anything else.

Serves 6 · 2 hours, plus overnight soaking

Nyama Choma

Goat or beef roasted slowly over charcoal, weighed raw, then chopped on a board and served with kachumbari and ugali. Kenya's national eating occasion as much as its dish.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Mutura

A sausage of minced meat, blood and offal packed into intestine and grilled over charcoal, sliced and served with kachumbari from evening street stalls in Nairobi.

Serves Makes 4 sausages · 1 hour 30 minutes

Mahamri

also Mandazi ya nazi, Swahili doughnut

Triangular coconut-and-cardamom doughnuts of the Swahili coast, fried until hollow. Eaten at breakfast with mbaazi, at tea, and at every coastal celebration.

Serves Makes about 24 · 1 hour, plus 3 hours rising

Pilau

Rice cooked in spiced meat stock until every grain is brown, made for weddings, Eid and Christmas alike. The coast's Omani inheritance, adopted by the whole country.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Sukuma Wiki

Collard greens fried with onion and tomato, whose Swahili name means push the week: the cheap dish that gets a household to payday. Eaten with ugali more than anything else in Kenya.

Serves 4 · 25 minutes

Mukimo

also Irio, Kienyeji

Potatoes mashed with maize, beans, pumpkin leaves and green peas until the whole thing turns a deep green. The central Kenyan celebration dish, and what a Kikuyu wedding is judged on.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Mbaazi wa Nazi

also Pigeon peas in coconut

Pigeon peas stewed in thick coconut milk with cardamom and cumin, eaten on the Kenyan coast for breakfast with mahamri doughnuts. Sweet, spiced and heavy.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus soaking

Omena

also Dagaa, Silver cyprinid

The tiny silver fish of Lake Victoria, sun-dried and then fried with onion and tomato. Cheap, intensely savoury and the protein that western Kenya actually eats.

Serves 4 · 40 minutes

Chai ya Maziwa

Tea boiled entirely in milk with sugar, and often ginger and cardamom, drunk several times a day. Kenya is one of the world's largest tea exporters and drinks it milkier than anyone.

Serves 4 · 15 minutes

Uji wa Wimbi

also Millet porridge, Fermented uji

Finger millet porridge, drunk rather than eaten, often lightly soured by a day's fermentation. The Kenyan breakfast and the standard food for nursing mothers and the sick.

Serves 4 · 25 minutes, plus optional overnight fermenting