Swahili

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

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

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