The Author's Kitchen, Africa Style Quiz

Answer: Macaroni

Koshari originated in the 19th century, was originally sold as a street food, and is heavily influenced by Italian cuisine, hence the use of both macaroni and rice. Egyptian footballer Mohammed Salah is reportedly a fan. It is topped with tomato sauce and garlic vinegar, and garnished with crispy fried onions and chickpeas.

The Alexandrian variant is spicier and more similar to curry, with cumin, boiled eggs fried in ghee or butter, pickled tomatoes and yellow lentils. Outside Egypt, some regional variants use different vegetables or chicken; the Japanese variant even includes cheese sauce, sour cream and avocado! (Egypt being a Muslim country, Marsala and mortadella are out of the question - they're a type of fortified wine from Sicily and a pork sausage respectively!)

Answer: Tuna

Lablabi consists of a broth flavoured with cumin and garlic, along with chickpeas, tuna, harissa, chillies and olive oil, and is sometimes topped off with a poached egg. It is served over crusty bread. Some variants may contain olives, spring onions, parsley or lemon juice, and one variant, hergma, contains cows' trotters. Nohut corbasi, a Turkish version, contains lamb shank. Lablabi is supposed to be filling and frugal, with a reputation as a 'food of the poor', and its spiciness makes it perfect for cold days.

Answer: Tagine

A traditional Moroccan tagine, like the ones pictured here, consists of a round base and a conical lid with a well in it for cold water, to help prevent condensation. It can either be heated over charcoal or in an oven at a low temperature. It also means that only a small amount of water is needed to cook meat and vegetables.

In Morocco and Algeria, 'tagine' also denotes a slow-cooked meat stew which also contains a mixture of spices, such as cinnamon, cumin or ginger, and sometimes pulses such as chickpeas or fruit such as apricots or raisins.

In Tunisia, a tagine is a combination of a meat stew and an omelette, similar to a frittata. (A marmite, not to be confused with the spread, is a French cooking pot for casseroles; a terrine is a French earthenware cooking dish; and a dallah is an Arabic coffee pot.)

Answer: Tomatoes

Jollof rice gets its name from the Jollof Empire (also known as the Wolof Empire), which ruled over what is now Senegal from 1350 to 1549. Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania (if you've heard '7 Seconds', the duet between Neneh Cherry and Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour, Wolof is the language N'Dour is singing in for the first verse). Rice was, and still is, a commonly grown crop in the region. Jollof rice is similar to thieboudienne, a Senegalese fish dish.

It is made with tomatoes (which give it its reddish colour, along with tomato puree), onions, garlic, and sometimes meat, vegetables or chilli peppers, such as the ferocious Scotch bonnet.

Other West African countries, such as Ghana or Sierra Leone, have their own variants, and it is not uncommon for people from those countries to argue over whose jollof rice is the best; however, in 2014, West African Twitter was united in criticising British chef Jamie Oliver's attempt at making jollof rice, which included whole cherry tomatoes.

Answer: Suya

Suya, like shish kebab, is meat served on a skewer (although the skewer is not pictured in this example), and is a popular street food in Nigeria due to being relatively cheap. It is also eaten across West Africa, and further east in Sudan (where it is called agashe).

As it originates among the Hausa people of the north, who are predominantly Muslim and therefore cannot eat pork, it is usually made with chicken, beef or lamb, though tripe and other innards can be used as well. The meat is marinated in a spice mix and barbecued, and can be served with sliced onions and dried peppers or rice, like the suya pictured here.

It can also be ordered as a pizza topping. Kilishi is a dried version, similar to beef jerky, coated in a peanut paste called labu and dried in the sun. (The other answers are also kebab-type dishes: Souvlaki is Greek, sosatie is South African and cevapi is from the Balkan region.)

Answer: Palm nuts

Specifically, it's the pericarp, or fruit part, of palm nuts that is used to make muamba, or palm butter. The palm oil used in West African cooking, which comes from the same tree, is thick (I had to heat the bottle slightly just to squeeze it out when cooking with it), red and has a woody flavour. Chicken muamba is one such dish, and also contains peanuts or peanut butter.

Other muamba dishes use beef, fish, venison or even crocodile instead of chicken. As well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is also the national dish of Angola and Gabon, and has caught on in Belgium, the DCR Congo's former coloniser.

Although the chicken muamba here is served with chips, it can also be served with spinach, eggs, sweet potatoes or rice.

Answer: Injera

Wat, also known as wot or tsebhi, can contain meat or vegetables, and is made by first slow cooking onions until they dry out, then adding a fat such as niter kibbeh (a spicy clarified butter) and sautéing the onions to break them down. It is flavoured with berbere, a spice mix. Doro wat contains chicken, misir wat, traditionally eaten during Lent, is vegan and contains lentils, and sanbat wat is a kosher version of doro wat, where vegetable oil is used instead of niter kibbeh to avoid mixing meat and dairy. Doro wat can also be served with hard-boiled eggs.

Injera, often used to mop up Ethiopian stews, is made with teff flour, flour made from a native lovegrass species, although other fermented grains can be used if teff is unavailable. (Kitfo is a dish made of raw minced beef and niter kibbeh, a kind of clarified butter; genfo is a thick porridge shaped like a giant doughnut, with a dipping sauce in the middle; and mitmita is a spice blend.)

Answer: African Great Lakes region

The African Great Lakes region is in the east, named for the lakes around the East African Rift, and includes Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Swahili is the national language of Kenya, and 'kachumbari' comes from 'cachumber', an Indian salad dish of a similar nature.

The main ingredients of kachumbari are chopped tomatoes, onions and chillies, such as habaneros or Scotch bonnets, though regional variants can include cucumber (like the Indian cachumber), avocado, parsley, and even gin or vodka.

It is eaten as a side dish; in Kenya and Uganda, it is an accompaniment to nyama choma, or roast goat, while in Tanzania, it can be eaten with rice dishes such as pilau or biryani.

Answer: Biltong

Biltong is one of the most well-known foods to come out of southern Africa, and can be bought in supermarkets all over the world, especially in countries with large South African populations. Like beef jerky, it is tough, chewy dried meat, although it does not have to be made from beef; it can be made from more exotic animals such as kudu, ostrich or crocodile.

The word 'biltong' comes from the Dutch words for 'buttock' and 'strip', and biltong has its roots in the dried meats Dutch settlers brought with them as they trekked across South Africa.

It was traditionally marinaded in vinegar, salt and spices and hung out to dry. Unlike beef jerky, it is rarely smoked and has a thicker texture. (As for the other answers, chakalaka is a South African tomato and bean relish; ifisashi is a Zambian peanut stew; and seswaa is a beef and goat stew from Botswana.)

Answer: Dried fruit

The origins of bobotie are unclear, but it is thought to be influenced by both Dutch and Malaysian cuisine, due to its use of curry powder. It can be made with minced beef, lamb, pork or ostrich, and the traditional version has six key ingredients: jam (some recipes use chutney as a substitute), curry powder, cinnamon, bay leaves, raisins and bread soaked in milk. Apricots can be used as an alternative to raisins. Similar to the Greek moussaka, it has a meaty base with a savoury egg custard topping, though some versions are more similar to meatloaf in terms of texture.

It is traditionally served with rice. When South African golfer Trevor Immelman won the 2008 Masters, he chose bobotie as the featured item on the menu of the Champions' Dinner the following year, along with sosatie, melktert (a custard tart) and South African wines.