Shirazi

Wali wa Nazi

Rice cooked in coconut milk, served under every curry and grilled fish on the islands. The first thing a Zanzibari cook teaches and the hardest to get exactly right.

Serves 6 · 35 minutes

Pweza wa Nazi

Octopus stewed in coconut milk with lime, cardamom and chilli, the dish Zanzibar is known for. Tenderising the octopus properly is most of the work.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Mchuzi wa Samaki wa Nazi

also Fish in coconut curry

Reef fish simmered in coconut milk with tamarind, turmeric and green mango, the dish that most concisely explains Zanzibar's position in the Indian Ocean.

Serves 6 · 50 minutes

Urojo

also Zanzibar mix

A tangy turmeric and mango soup piled with bhajia, crisps, boiled potato and chutneys, assembled to order at Forodhani night market. Every stall makes it slightly differently.

Serves 6 · 1 hour

Zanzibar Mishkaki

also Forodhani skewers

Beef skewers grilled at the Forodhani night market in Stone Town, sweeter and more heavily spiced than the mainland version, finished with tamarind.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes, plus 4 hours marinating

Zanzibari Biryani

Rice layered with spiced meat, fried onion and saffron and sealed to steam, made for weddings and Eid. Cardamom, clove and cinnamon are grown a few miles from the kitchen.

Serves 8 · 2 hours 30 minutes

Kashata

also Coconut brittle, Kashata ya nazi

Grated coconut or peanuts cooked into caramelised sugar with cardamom and cut into diamonds. The sweet of Zanzibar's markets and of every Eid table.

Serves Makes about 30 pieces · 35 minutes

Mkate wa Kumimina

A soft baked rice cake with coconut and cardamom, whose name means poured bread. Cut in wedges and eaten with tea or at the end of a meal.

Serves 8 · 1 hour 30 minutes, plus soaking

Spice Tea

also Chai ya tangawizi

Black tea boiled with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, clove and black pepper, using the spices the islands were colonised for. Drunk all day and offered to every visitor.

Serves 4 · 20 minutes

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

Riz au Coco

Rice cooked in coconut milk with cardamom and clove, the base of nearly every meal in the archipelago. Coconut is to the Comoros what palm oil is to the Gulf of Guinea.

Serves 6 · 40 minutes

Mataba

Pounded cassava leaves cooked in coconut milk with fish or meat, the Comorian national dish. The pounding is done in a wooden mortar and takes the best part of an hour.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Mkatra Foutra

Layered coconut flatbreads griddled until blistered, eaten at breakfast with tea or alongside curry. Comorian bread, and one of the archipelago's few things baked rather than boiled.

Serves Makes 8 · 2 hours

Nyama Mkaango

also Fried spiced beef

Beef braised with Comorian spice and then fried dry until the edges crisp, sold from stalls in Moroni and eaten with cassava or rice.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 45 minutes

Langouste à la Vanille

Rock lobster in a vanilla and coconut sauce, using the vanilla the islands grow for export. Made for grand mariage feasts, where the scale of the catering is the entire point.

Serves 4 · 45 minutes

Pilao

Spiced rice cooked with meat in one pot, the Comorian version of the Indian Ocean pilau. Cardamom, cinnamon and clove come from the same trade routes as the recipe.

Serves 6 · 1 hour 30 minutes

Trembo

Coconut palm sap, drunk fresh and sweet in the morning or fermented into a sour wine by evening. Tapped from the crown of the tree and collected in a hanging gourd.

Serves Varies · Tapped daily