Mossi

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

Banku

Fermented maize and cassava dough cooked to a smooth sour ball, eaten with okro stew or grilled tilapia and pepper. Sour, dense and shaped by hand into a rounded mound.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes, plus 3 days fermenting

Tuo Zaafi

also TZ, Sagim

Maize and cassava flour cooked into a soft swallow, the staple of northern Ghana, eaten with an okra or ayoyo soup that has to be slippery enough to swallow it.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Ghanaian Jollof

Rice cooked in a reduced tomato and pepper base, made in Ghana with aromatic rice and a lighter hand on the purée. The rivalry with Nigeria over this dish is conducted with total seriousness.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes

Kenkey

also Kormi, Dokono

Fermented maize dough half-cooked, wrapped in maize husks and boiled into dense sour balls. The Ga and Fante staple, eaten with fried fish and pepper sauce.

Serves 6 · 2 hours, plus 3 days fermenting

Waakye

Rice and beans cooked with dried sorghum leaves, which turn it a deep reddish brown, sold from before dawn with shito, gari, spaghetti and boiled egg piled on.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus overnight soaking

Kelewele

also Spiced fried plantain

Ripe plantain cubed, tossed in ginger, chilli and spice and deep-fried, sold from pans on Accra street corners after dark and eaten with roasted peanuts.

Serves 4 · 30 minutes

Fufu with Light Soup

Pounded cassava and plantain with a clear peppery soup of goat or fish. Sunday food, and the dish most Ghanaians name when asked what they would want if they were far from home.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Red Red

Black-eyed peas stewed in palm oil with tomato, served with fried ripe plantain and gari. Named twice for red: the palm oil and the tomato.

Serves 6 · 1 hour, plus overnight soaking

Sobolo

Hibiscus infused with pineapple skin, ginger and cloves, sold chilled in bottles at every junction in Accra. Ghana's version leans heavily on the ginger.

Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus chilling

Foutou

also Foufou

Yam, plantain or cassava pounded in a wooden mortar to a smooth elastic dough, eaten with soup. Two people work the pestle and the turning between blows in a rhythm.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes

Kedjenou

Chicken and vegetables sealed in a canari pot and cooked in their own steam with almost no added liquid, shaken rather than stirred. The most characteristically Ivorian dish there is.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Attiéké with Grilled Fish

Fermented grated cassava steamed into light sour couscous, served with a whole grilled fish and raw onion. The lunch of Abidjan, eaten off a plastic table under an awning.

Serves 4 · 40 minutes

Garba

also Attiéké thon, Garba kedjenou

Fried tuna on a heap of attiéké with raw onion, tomato and chilli, sold from wooden kiosks by Nigerien vendors across Abidjan. The cheapest full meal in the city.

Serves 4 · 35 minutes

Alloco

also Fried plantain, Aloko

Ripe plantain fried in palm oil and served with a raw onion and chilli relish, sold in the evening on every Abidjan street by the women called allocodrome vendors.

Serves 4 · 25 minutes

Sauce Graine

Palm nut pulp cooked down with meat, smoked fish and crab into a deep orange sauce, served with rice or foutou. Made for family Sundays and celebrations across the south.

Serves 8 · 2 hours

Sauce Claire

A thin, clear, fiercely peppery broth of fish and aubergine, from the lagoon country. Named for what it is not: no palm oil, no groundnut, no thickening at all.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Bissap

also Jus d'oseille

Hibiscus steeped with mint and pineapple and served ice cold in sealed plastic sachets from every cooler box in Abidjan. The default soft drink of West Africa.

Serves 8 · 30 minutes, plus chilling