The atlas · A cuisine · Nigeria, West Africa
Nigerian
Big flavours from a big country: tomato and pepper bases, smoke, groundnut and the scotch bonnet — and party food at a scale all of its own.
Where it comes from
Nigeria holds hundreds of peoples and cooking traditions — Yoruba stews, Hausa grills, Igbo soups — sharing a pantry of peppers, palm oil, crayfish and fermented seasonings.
Parties are serious. At an owambe, jollof is cooked in huge pots over firewood, and the smoky, slightly caught rice at the bottom is prized — the taste people call party jollof.
Where in it
- LagosThe megacity of owambe parties: firewood jollof in huge pots, small chops of puff-puff and samosa, and bukas serving the whole country's soups at lunchtime.Jollof ricePuff-puff
- Ibadan and the Yoruba south-westThe heart of Yoruba cooking: amala with ewedu and gbegiri in the city's famous amala joints, and akara and moi moi for breakfast.AmalaAkaraMoi moi
- Kano and the northAn old city of the trans-Saharan trade, and Hausa cooking: suya and kilishi, tuwo with miyan kuka, and grains — millet, sorghum, rice — where the south eats yam.SuyaMiyan kuka
- CalabarEfik country, with one of Nigeria's most admired kitchens: edikang ikong, afang and other soups thick with leaves, periwinkles and palm oil.Edikang ikong
- Port HarcourtThe Garden City of the Niger Delta, known for bole — roasted plantain with grilled fish — and for fisherman soup and pepper soup full of the creeks' seafood.Bole
How it cooks
- Obe ata — the pepper base
- Tomatoes, peppers, scotch bonnet and onion blended and fried down until the oil rises.
- Frying the base
- Cooked long enough that it's sweet, not sharp — the difference between good and great stew.
- Grilling over coals
- Suya, and the smoke that makes it.
Always in the kitchen
Cook from it
Tonight, with what's good in October
Its classics
NigerianJollof riceRice cooked in a fried-down base of tomato, pepper and scotch bonnet, until each grain is red and separate.1 version hereNigerianSuyaThin beef skewers coated in yaji — ground groundnut cake, chilli and spice — and grilled over open coals.1 version hereNigerianEgusi soupA thick soup of ground melon seeds, leafy greens and palm oil, eaten with pounded yam or eba.No one here has made it yet
NigerianAkaraFritters of peeled black-eyed beans, ground with onion and pepper, whipped light and deep-fried until golden.No one here has made it yetNigerianMoi moiA steamed pudding of peeled black-eyed beans blended with red pepper, onion and oil, set soft in leaves or tins.No one here has made it yet
NigerianPepper soupA thin, fiery broth of goat, catfish or chicken, fragrant with a ground blend of West African spices.No one here has made it yet
NigerianPuff-puffSoft, round balls of sweet yeasted dough, deep-fried until brown and puffed — street snack and party food.No one here has made it yetNigerianAmalaA smooth, brown swallow of yam flour stirred into boiling water, eaten with ewedu, a slippery soup of jute leaves, and gbegiri, a bean soup.No one here has made it yetNigerianMiyan kukaA dark green, gently slippery soup of powdered dried baobab leaves, with meat or dried fish and daddawa, eaten with tuwo.No one here has made it yetNigerianEdikang ikongA rich soup of fluted pumpkin leaves and waterleaf cooked almost in their own juices, with meat, stockfish, periwinkles and palm oil.No one here has made it yetNigerianBoleRipe plantain, and often yam, roasted over coals until charred, served with grilled fish and a hot palm-oil pepper sauce.No one here has made it yetHow it got here
Over centuries · from SenegalRice in a tomato brothJollof takes its name from the Wolof, or Jolof, empire of Senegal, whose thieboudienne — rice cooked in a fish and tomato broth — is often called its ancestor. It spread along West Africa and changed with every country.Jollof rice →
