Ngoni

Nsima

Stiff maize porridge eaten at nearly every Malawian meal with ndiwo. A Malawian will say they have not eaten if they have had no nsima that day.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Mkhwani

also Pumpkin leaves in groundnut

Pumpkin leaves cooked with groundnut flour and bicarbonate of soda into a thick green relish, the Malawian side dish at almost every meal.

Serves 6 · 35 minutes

Chambo with Nsima

Lake Malawi tilapia grilled or fried whole and served with nsima and greens. Chambo is the lake's most prized fish and its stocks are now seriously depleted.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes

Mandasi

Fried doughnuts sold at every market and bus stop with sweet tea, made without cardamom in the Malawian style and eaten at any hour.

Serves Makes 20 · 2 hours

Nkhuku ya Sabola

Free-range chicken stewed with tomato, onion and a good deal of pepper, cooked for visitors and celebrations. The bird is usually caught that morning.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Kondowole

Cassava flour cooked into a firm glutinous paste, the northern lakeshore's alternative to nsima. Eaten with fish and noticeably stickier than the maize version.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Usipa

also Lake Malawi sardines

The small silver fish of Lake Malawi, sun-dried and fried with tomato and onion. Malawi's most important protein and the mainstay of the lakeshore economy.

Serves 4 · 35 minutes

Thobwa

Maize and millet drink fermented one day, sweet and thick, sold in bottles and served at ceremonies. Left longer it becomes alcoholic and changes name.

Serves Makes 3 litres · 1 day

Nshima

Maize meal cooked stiff and served in smooth rounds with relish. Zambians eat it twice a day and a meal without it is not counted as one.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Delele

also Okra relish, Slippery relish

Okra cooked with bicarbonate of soda until deliberately slippery, a Zambian relish that people either love or refuse outright.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Ifisashi

Greens cooked in groundnut paste, served with nshima. Meatless, cheap and eaten across the country, and the dish Zambians most often name as their own.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Vitumbuwa

Rice or maize flour fritters, fried and sold at markets and roadsides with tea, eaten at breakfast and by children on the way home.

Serves Makes 20 · 2 hours

Chikanda

also African polony, Wild orchid cake

Wild orchid tubers pounded with groundnut and chilli and set into a firm pink cake, sliced and sold at Zambian markets. Sought after enough that the orchids are now threatened.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Village Chicken with Nshima

Free-range chicken stewed slowly with onion and tomato, cooked when guests arrive. Village chicken takes far longer than the frozen kind and is worth every minute.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Kapenta

Tiny dried lake sardines fried with tomato and onion, from Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kariba. Cheap protein, eaten with nshima across the country.

Serves 6 · 35 minutes

Munkoyo

Maize porridge fermented with the root of the munkoyo shrub into a sweet-sour drink, made in villages and sold in bottles in Lusaka.

Serves Makes 3 litres · 1 to 2 days

Ugali

Maize meal cooked stiff and turned out as a mound, eaten with fish, beans or greens across the whole country. The measure of a cook is whether it holds together cleanly.

Serves 6 · 25 minutes

Makande

also Maize and bean stew

Maize and beans simmered slowly with coconut milk, the Chagga and Pare version of the East African staple. Richer and looser than Kenyan githeri.

Serves 6 · 2 hours 30 minutes, plus soaking

Nyama Choma na Kachumbari

Goat grilled slowly over charcoal, chopped and eaten with a tomato and onion salad. Ordered by weight at a nyama choma joint and shared standing around the board.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Mchemsho

also Boiled one-pot

Everything boiled together in one pot — plantain, potato, cassava, carrot, beans and meat — in a light broth. Northern Tanzania's household dinner, and what a Tanzanian cooks when feeding a crowd.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Chipsi Mayai

A chip omelette cooked flat in a pan and cut in wedges, sold from every street griddle in Dar es Salaam and Arusha. Cheap, filling and universally eaten.

Serves 2 · 25 minutes

Mishkaki

also Marinated beef skewers

Beef marinated in papaya, ginger and spice, threaded on sticks and grilled over charcoal on every Tanzanian street corner after dark. The papaya is what makes it tender.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating

Pilau

Spiced rice with beef or goat, made for weddings, Eid and Christmas. The onions must be fried genuinely dark, which is where the colour comes from rather than from any powder.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Mkate wa Sinia

also Vitumbua tray bread, Rice tray cake

A soft, faintly sweet rice and coconut cake steamed or baked in a tray, cut into diamonds and served at coastal weddings and at the end of Ramadan.

Serves 10 · 1 hour, plus 6 hours soaking and rising

Mchuzi wa Samaki

Fish curry in coconut milk with tamarind, from the Swahili coast. The tamarind is what separates the coastal version from anything cooked inland.

Serves 6 · 45 minutes

Ndizi na Nyama

also Machalari, Green banana and beef stew

Green cooking bananas stewed with beef until they take on the meat's flavour and thicken the pot. The Chagga dish of Kilimanjaro, and one of Tanzania's most beloved.

Serves 6 · 2 hours

Kahawa na Tangawizi

Black coffee boiled with ginger and sold from brass pots carried through the streets of Zanzibar and Dar, poured into tiny cups and drunk in one.

Serves 6 small cups · 20 minutes

Togwa

also Fermented maize drink

Lightly fermented maize and millet drink, sour and faintly fizzy, drunk cold through the day. Non-alcoholic, probiotic, and given to children and the sick.

Serves Makes 2 litres · 30 minutes, plus 24 hours fermenting

Xima

also Ncima

Maize meal cooked stiff and eaten with fish, greens or matapa. The base of the Mozambican plate from Maputo to the Rovuma.

Serves 6 · 30 minutes

Mucapata

also Mung bean rice, Arroz com feijão verde

Rice cooked with mung beans and coconut milk, a northern Mozambican dish showing the Indian Ocean's long reach into the Swahili coast's cooking.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Matapa

Pounded cassava leaves cooked with coconut milk, groundnut and crab or prawn, Mozambique's national dish. The pounding is done in a wooden mortar and takes an hour.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Frango Piri-Piri

Chicken spatchcocked, marinated in bird's eye chilli, garlic and lime and grilled over charcoal, then basted repeatedly. Mozambique's best-known export to the world's high streets.

Serves 4 · 1 hour, plus overnight marinating

Caril de Camarão

Prawn curry in coconut milk with cashew, from a coast that supplies both. Made for Sundays and celebrations and served with rice.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Badjias

Fritters of ground cowpeas or split peas with onion and chilli, fried and sold in cones on Maputo's streets. An Indian Ocean arrival that became Mozambican.

Serves Makes 24 · 40 minutes, plus 4 hours soaking

Galinha à Zambeziana

also Zambezia chicken

Chicken grilled with a coconut, lime and piri-piri baste from Quelimane and the Zambezia coast — richer and less fiercely hot than the southern piri-piri chicken.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 15 minutes, plus 2 hours marinating

Sura

Coconut palm wine tapped along the northern coast, drunk sweet the same morning or sour by evening. Sold from bottles at the roadside in Nampula and Cabo Delgado.

Serves Varies · Tapped daily