Mandinka

Churah Gerteh

Pounded millet porridge with groundnut paste and sour milk, eaten for breakfast and at naming ceremonies. Millet is still the Gambian countryside's real staple, whatever the rice figures say.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Benachin

also Jollof rice, One pot

Rice cooked in tomato with fish or meat and vegetables, whose Wolof name means one pot. The Gambia and Senegal both make a strong claim to be where jollof begins.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Afra

Meat grilled over charcoal in a dedicated afra shop, chopped on the board with onion and chilli and wrapped in paper with bread. Serengeti's late-night food, eaten standing up.

Serves 4 · 40 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Domoda

Groundnut stew with meat and pumpkin, thickened to a rich brown sauce and served over rice. Made for guests and for Friday lunch, and claimed by Gambians as the national dish before benachin.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Superkanja

Okra stewed with palm oil, smoked fish and meat into a thick drawing sauce, eaten over rice. The most-eaten sauce in the Gambian countryside and the test of a cook's judgement with okra.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Plasas

also Palaver sauce, Cassava leaf plasas

Cassava or potato leaves cooked down with palm oil, smoked fish and meat, the Gambian and Sierra Leonean green sauce, served over rice.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Wonjo

Hibiscus juice with ginger and vanilla, sold frozen in bags outside every school and mosque. Gambians drink it half melted, biting the corner off the bag.

Serves 8 · 30 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

Arroz de Jaguacida

Rice cooked with fish, palm oil and lime in a single pot, the everyday meal of the coast and the Bijagós islands. Plainer than jollof and built entirely on the fish.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Caldo de Mancarra

Groundnut stew with meat or fish and palm oil, served over rice. Bissau-Guinean cooking runs on rice, groundnut and palm oil, and this dish uses all three.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Caldo Branco

A pale broth of fish or chicken with cassava and sweet potato, no palm oil and no tomato, sold at market stalls in Bissau. The white soup, and the one served to the unwell.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Siga

Chicken cooked with palm oil and lime and served on rice, made for weddings and for the return of a relative. Simple in construction and judged on the quality of the bird.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Bianda with Cashew Fruit

Rice with a sauce made from cashew apples, which the country produces in enormous quantity and mostly discards while exporting the nut. Tart, sharp and specific to the season.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Cana de Caju

Cashew apple wine and the spirit distilled from it, made in villages through the harvest. The nut is exported; the fruit stays home and becomes this.

Serves Makes about 4 litres of wine · 5 days for wine; longer for the spirit

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