Tanzania

🇰🇪Kenya

Pilau

A coastal Swahili spiced rice with meat, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon, a festive and daily classic

🇹🇿Tanzania

Pilau ya Zanzibar

A Zanzibar-style pilau with browned onions, cardamom, clove and cinnamon.

🇹🇿Tanzania

Pilipili

Pilipili hoho

Small fierce chillies pounded with lime, salt and sometimes coconut into a rough table sauce.

🇹🇿Zanzibar City, Tanzania

Pweza wa Nazi

Octopus simmered slowly in coconut milk with curry spices, tamarind and chilli until tender.

🇰🇪Kenya

Samaki wa Kupaka

A coastal Swahili fish in coconut sauce with turmeric and tamarind, a festive and coastal classic

🇹🇿Tanzania

Samaki wa Kupaka Zanzibar

Samaki wa kupaka

A Zanzibar fish preparation repeatedly brushed with spiced coconut sauce over charcoal.

🇩🇯Djibouti

Sambusa

ሳምቡሳ

Crispy triangular fried pastries stuffed with spiced lentils, beans or beef. The Ethiopian-Eritrean cousin of the Indian samosa, beloved at fasting tables, breakfast spreads and Ramadan iftars.

🇰🇪Kenya

Sukuma Wiki

Kenya's daily green: sautéed collard greens with onions and tomatoes, the most common ugali companion

🇹🇿Tanzania

Supu ya Kichwa

Goat or cow head boiled overnight into a peppery broth and drunk in the morning from a bowl with lime.

🇹🇿Tanzania

Supu ya Malenge

A Tanzanian pumpkin soup, creamy and gently spiced, often with coconut milk.

🇹🇿Arusha, Tanzania

Supu ya Ndizi

Green banana soup cooked with meat, coconut milk and a little curry powder into a thick, mild broth.

🇰🇪Kenya

Tomato Onion Salad

Kachumbari

A Kenyan fresh tomato and onion salsa with chili and lime, the essential nyama choma companion

🇹🇿Tanzania

Tui la Nazi

Fresh coconut grated on a stool-mounted blade and squeezed with warm water into a rich first press and a thinner second.

🇲🇼Malawi

Ugali

Posho

Kenya's staple food: dense maize flour porridge cooked in boiling water, served with meats, vegetables, or stews

🇹🇿Zanzibar City, Tanzania

Urojo

Turmeric-yellow soup of mango and tamarind thickened with chickpea flour, loaded with bhajia, crisps, cassava, boiled egg and coconut chutney.

🇰🇪Zanzibar City, Kenya

Viazi Karai

Boiled potatoes dipped in a turmeric-yellow gram-flour batter and deep-fried, served with a green coconut chutney.

🇹🇿Tanzania

Visheti

Coconut-milk dough cut into small logs, fried, and dipped in a cardamom sugar syrup that sets to a white glaze.

🇰🇪Kenya

Vitumbua

A coastal Swahili sweet rice flour fritters, a daily and street classic

🇹🇿Tanzania

Wali na Maharage

Plain or coconut rice served with coconut-stewed beans — the cheap plate of the whole country.

🇹🇿Zanzibar City, Tanzania

Zanzibar Cloves

Karafuu

Unopened flower buds of the clove tree picked by hand and sun-dried on mats until dark brown and oily.

🇹🇿Zanzibar City, Tanzania

Zanzibar Curry Spice

Bizari

House blend of clove, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, turmeric and black pepper ground at the market.

🇹🇿Zanzibar City, Tanzania

Zanzibar Pizza

Thin dough stretched over a griddle, filled with minced meat, egg, onion, cheese and mayonnaise, folded into a square and fried in oil.