West & Sub-Saharan Africa

Senegal to Nigeria, and south of the Sahara

South of the Sahara, the table is built on grains and a long-cooked pepper base: rice, fonio, yam and cassava alongside stews of tomato, chilli, groundnut and smoked fish. It runs from the Senegambian coast — where jollof rice began as thieboudienne — east through Ghana and Nigeria, each kitchen renaming and remaking the same dishes. This part of the collection is young; more is on the way.

Every recipe

5 recipes in this region.

A shallow clay dish of Ethiopian doro wat — bone-in chicken pieces and whole hard-boiled eggs stained deep red, half-submerged in a thick mahogany berbere and onion sauce with a slick of spiced butter on top — set on a round of pale injera with more rolled flatbread and a mound of white ayib alongside.

The Ethiopian highlands — Amhara and Addis Ababa, shared across the Horn of Africa · Ethiopian

Doro Wat (Ethiopian Spiced Chicken Stew)

Ethiopia's feast-day chicken stew, built the slow way: a kilo of onions dry-cooked to a purée before any fat touches the pan, berbere and spiced butter bloomed into them, and chicken and whole eggs simmered until the sauce turns mahogany.

IntermediateMainsCelebration

An overhead shot of a wide round of pale grey-tan Ethiopian injera on a colourful hand-woven mesheb basket, its surface covered in open honeycomb holes, with a tightly rolled injera cylinder along one edge and small mounds of dark stewed collard greens, red lentil wat and mustard-yellow shiro spooned onto the bread beside a bowl of crumbled white ayib cheese, on dark wood.

Vegan

The Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands — teff country, from Gojjam and Shewa north into the Eritrean plateau · Ethiopian

Injera (Ethiopian and Eritrean Teff Flatbread)

The sour, lace-holed teff flatbread that is plate, cutlery and staple across the Horn of Africa — fermented for three days, thickened with a cooked absit, and cooked on one side only until the eyes open.

AdvancedBreadsFermented

A wide pot of deep red-orange Nigerian jollof rice with separate glossy grains, scattered strips of red pepper and onion on top, a serving spoon lifting the toasted bottom layer, with fried plantain and grilled chicken alongside.

Lagos and south-western Nigeria — part of the wider West African jollof belt · Nigerian

Jollof Rice (Nigerian Party Style)

West Africa's great one-pot rice, cooked the Lagos party way: a long-fried pepper-and-tomato base, parboiled long-grain rice steamed until every grain is stained red, and a deliberately toasted bottom pot for that smoky finish.

IntermediateMainsOne-pot

Overhead view of Nigerian beef suya piled on brown butcher paper over a dark weathered wooden board: charred, spice-crusted pieces of beef heaped with raw red onion rings and halved tomatoes, a long flat metal skewer laid across the paper, a small dark bowl of rust-red yaji spice powder and lemon wedges alongside, with loose red spice scattered over the paper.

Hausaland — northern Nigeria (Kano, Zaria, Sokoto) and across the Sahel into Niger, Chad and northern Cameroon · Nigerian

Suya (Tsire) — Hausa Grilled Beef Skewers with Yaji

Nigeria's great night-time street food: beef sliced paper-thin, oiled, buried twice in a dry peanut-and-chilli rub, and grilled fast over charcoal. The secret is that yaji is a dry rub, not a marinade — and that the peanut in it has had its oil pressed out.

IntermediateSnacksGrilled

A wide communal platter of Senegalese thieboudienne: an orange-red bed of broken rice topped with browned bone-in fish steaks stuffed with green parsley rof, surrounded by batons of cassava, carrot, wedges of cabbage, sweet potato rounds and whole okra, with lime wedges and salted onion rings scattered over.

Saint-Louis and the Atlantic coast of Senegal — now cooked nationwide, from Dakar to the Casamance · Senegalese

Thieboudienne (Ceebu Jën) — Senegalese Fish and Broken Rice

Senegal's national dish and UNESCO-listed culinary art: whole fish stuffed with a pounded parsley-and-garlic rof, fried, then simmered with cassava, cabbage and carrot in a long-fried tomato base — and broken rice steamed in that broth until every grain drinks it up.

IntermediateMainsOne-pot