Welcome to The Congo Cookbook

Welcome to The Congo Cookbook, a collection of African recipes (including Chicken Recipes) from All over Africa, plus information About African Cooking and Women's Work, cuisine, culture, food, gastronomy, and history. Featuring African Proverbs, Excerpts from historic texts, and Rare Recipes. Hints on How to have an African Dinner Party at home, for school projects, for a club dinner, and for Kwanzaa celebrations. The FAQ describes and tells how to obtain our downloadable PDF file and printed book that have all of the recipes published on the Congo Cookbook website. Please enjoy!

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Doro Wat
One of the best-known of all African recipes, Doro Wat (Doro Watt, Doro Wot, Doro Wet, Doro We't, Dorowat) is a spicy Ethiopian chicken dish made with Berberé (a spice mixture or spice paste) and Niter Kibbeh (or nit'ir qibe, a spicy clarified butter). Berberé and niter kibbeh, basic ingredients in many Ethiopian recipes, are usually made in large quantities and kept on hand for some time. No doubt using berberé and niter kibbeh gives a special quality to Doro Wat. But a very good result can be obtained by adding the same spices directly to the Doro Wat, instead of indirectly in the berberé spice mix and niter kibbeh. . . . more

Berberé
Berberé (or Berbere) is an Ethiopian spice mixture that is the flavoring foundation of Ethiopian cuisine, a basic ingredient in Dabo Kolo, Doro Wat, and many other dishes. Berberé is made from a cupboard-full of herbs and spices, fresh-ground, pan-roasted, and then packed into jars for storage. Among Ethiopian cooks there are many variations of which spices and what amounts. (In the recipe below, ingredients marked "optional" seem to be the least common.) Basic berberé is made by combining roughly equal amounts of allspice, cardamom, cloves, fenugreek, ginger, black pepper, and salt with a much larger amount of hot red (cayenne) pepper. The combination of fenugreek and red pepper is essential to berberé; while one or two of the other ingredients may be left out, the fenugreek and red pepper are must-haves. Milder berberé can be made by substituting paprika for some or most of the red pepper. Berberé is sometimes made as a dry spice mix, and is sometimes made with oil or water to form a paste. . . . more

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Appearing on the Matoke page:

John Hanning Speke

A dish of plantain-squash and dried fish

John Hanning Speke, in his Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (London: J. Murray, 1857) describes eating something possibly similar to Matoke, but made with dried fish. By, "plantain-squash" he seems to have meant plantain (fruit).

July 24th [1862] ... I marched up the left bank of the Nile at a considerable distance from the water, to the Isamba Rapids, passing through rich jungle and plantain-gardens. Nango, an old friend, and district officer of the place, first refreshed us with a dish of plantain-squash and dried fish, with pombé. He told us he is often threatened by elephants, but he sedulously keeps them off with charms; for if they ever tasted a plantain they would never leave the garden until they had cleared it out.
(Where the Nile is Born)

Other African gastronomical excerpts

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Appearing on the Palm-Oil Chop page:

African Proverb

Ke otao nme le, ya Tutu. (Ga or Accra) : If thou wish for palm-nuts, go to Tutu. N.B. -- Tutu is a town in Akwapim, where palms abound.
(from: Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton)

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