Côte d'Ivoire

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Akpi

Djansang seeds toasted and ground into a thickening, faintly bitter paste that goes into palm-nut and okra sauces.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Alligator Pepper

A pungent West African spice sold as whole scaly pods and seeds, used sparingly to perfume Liberian soups, stews, rice, and ceremonial food.

🇹🇬Togo

Alloco

Ripe plantain cut into thick slices and fried in red palm oil until the sugars catch, served with raw onion and a chilli sauce.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Alloco Poulet

A plate of fried plantain with grilled or fried chicken and raw onion in chilli, the standard maquis order after dark.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Attiéké

Cassava peeled, grated, fermented for a day with a starter of older mash, pressed dry, sieved into granules and steamed into a light couscous.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Attoukpou

Attiéké bound with egg or flour, pressed into cakes and fried until the outside crisps, sold as a snack with chilli.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Claclo

Very ripe plantain mashed with flour, chilli and onion and deep-fried into small dark fritters, sweet and hot at once.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Foutou

Boiled plantain and cassava, or yam alone, pounded together in a wooden mortar with a long pestle until smooth and elastic, then shaped into a ball.

🇨🇮Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Garba

Attiéké heaped into paper with cubes of fried tuna, raw onion, tomato, chilli and a squeeze of oil, sold from wooden shacks by Nigerien vendors.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Gbofloto

Sweet yeast-dough balls fried in palm or vegetable oil until deep brown, sold warm by the bag at markets and school gates.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Ginger Juice

Gnamakoudji

Pounded ginger squeezed through cloth and sweetened, sometimes with pineapple and vanilla, sold frozen in plastic sachets.

🇬🇲The Gambia

Hibiscus Juice

Bissap

Dried hibiscus calyces steeped with sugar, mint and sometimes orange-blossom water into a deep red drink served ice-cold.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Ivorian Snails

Escargots

Giant African land snails cleaned with lime, then grilled on skewers or stewed in a peppery sauce with onion.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Kabato

Millet or maize flour cooked into a firm paste in the north of the country, the savanna answer to the southern cassava staples.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Kedjenou

Kédjénou

Guinea fowl or chicken sealed into a clay canari with onion, tomato, aubergine and ginger and cooked over low heat with no added liquid, the pot shaken rather than stirred.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Kedjenou Poulet

Kedjenou de Poulet

Ivorian chicken cooked slowly in a sealed pot with onion, tomato, pepper and little added liquid.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Koutoukou

Sodabi

Palm wine distilled in village stills into a raw, high-strength clear spirit, sold by the glass from jerrycans.

🇬🇲The Gambia

Maafe

Sauce d'arachide

Beef, lamb or chicken stewed in a groundnut paste and tomato sauce with cassava, carrot and sweet potato, served over rice.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Moyo

Raw onion, tomato, chilli and stock cube crushed together with a little oil and lemon into a loose relish, spooned over grilled fish.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Nyamanku

Fresh ginger root pulped and pressed, then let down with pineapple, orange and lemon juice and chilled hard.

🇬🇲Guinée Forestière (Nzérékoré / Forest), The Gambia

Palm Wine

Emu

Sap tapped from a palm tree and fermenting from the moment it is collected — milky, sweet in the morning, sour and stronger by evening.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Placali

Fermented cassava dough cooked out with water and beaten smooth into a glossy, sticky, notably sour paste.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Plakali

Fresh cassava dough cooked alone into a soft, glossy staple, popular among the Ahanta and Nzema of the west.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Plantain Foutou

Foutou Banane

Boiled ripe and green plantain pounded into an elastic Ivorian dough served with sauce.

🇨🇮Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Poisson Braisé

Whole tilapia or bar scored, stuffed with herbs and grilled over charcoal until the skin blisters, then served with attiéké and moyo.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Poulet Bicyclette

Lean free-range village chicken — named for how much it runs — braised or grilled whole and served with onion and chilli moyo.

🇹🇬Togo

Riz Gras

Rice cooked in a tomato, onion and pepper base with meat or fish until it takes the colour and the fat of the sauce.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Sauce Claire

A thin, clear, chilli-hot broth of tomato, onion, aubergine and smoked or fresh fish, ladled over rice or attiéké.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Sauce Feuille

Cassava or potato leaves pounded fine and simmered for hours with palm oil, smoked fish and sometimes peanut paste into a dark green sauce.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Sauce Gombo

Fresh okra grated to a slippery green sauce with smoked fish, pepper and sometimes soumbara, eaten by drawing threads of it up with a ball of foutou.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Sauce Graine

Palm nuts boiled and pounded, the pulp strained and cooked down with fish, crab or beef until the bright red oil rises to the top.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Soumbara

Locust beans fermented for days into hard, black, pungent balls that are crumbled into sauces as a savoury base.

🇨🇮Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Soupe de Pied

Cow's foot boiled for hours into a sticky, peppery broth, drunk from a bowl late at night as a restorative.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Tchapalo

Dolo

Sorghum or millet beer brewed in the north, cloudy pink-brown and served warm from calabashes in courtyard bars.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Yam Foutou

Foutou Igname

Pounded yam whipped into a smooth, elastic Ivorian staple served with palm-nut, peanut or okra sauce.