What is African Food?
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African food is incredibly diverse, with more than 50 countries and countless ethnic groups, African cuisine includes countless varieties of ingredients, flavors, and cooking techniques. So where do we start? Why even try to explore such a broad category? For starters, we wanted to spice up the everyday. We all love comfort food, and every country has their go-to, traditional foods that were often made out of necessity. These are now considered our 'comfort foods' (we often think of Cabbage Rolls, Perogies, or Chicken Noodle Soup).
But it is our job to expand our repertoire and make recipes accessible to all. It is our duty to inspire and help you put dinner on the table! As professional chefs we may even put our own spin on recipes. Living in Canada, we make recipes adaptable to our seasons and what is available. And, as busy working moms (feeding a variety of tastes!) we may skew spice or heat levels!
We first fell in love with the North African dishes of Morocco (dishes rich in vegetables, couscous and Ras El Hanout), cooked in a Tagine (a clay pot) where you will find slow-cooked meat and vegetables with loads of spice & vegetables.
We handpicked some of our favourite ingredients to make African Spiced Peanut & Black-Eyed Pea Stew, an extremely comforting dish that you can bring together in under 15 minutes.
And now we are excited to spice it up even more with our new recipes for Doro Wat & Jollof Rice. These recipes are featured in our upcoming Online Cooking Class, where we learn that the cooking techniques used are designed to maximize flavour and utilize locally available ingredients.
"More of that African Rice please mom!" This simple chicken & rice supper is our family's new favourite!
The backbone to Doro Wat (a deliciously saucey braised chicken dish with hard-cooked eggs) is Berbere, a spice blend that is spicy, smoky, slightly sweet, and earthy. The heat from chili peppers is balanced with the aromatic spices, creating a well-rounded, bold flavor. It can contain any number of spices, from chili peppers, cumin, coriander, cardamom and paprika, and many home cooks will make their own blend. To make Doro Wat (wat=stew), we used this blend of Berbere with fantastic results!
Jollof Rice is a West African Celebratory Dish which relies 'obe ata' as the backbone: a slow cooked mixture of tomato, peppers and chilies (habanero!).
With so much to explore we know this is just the tiniest of introductions to such a vast cuisine, a journey we are excited to explore and learn more about!
