Niger

Alkaki is a Nigerien fried snack of millet or wheat dough shaped into rings, deep-fried, and dusted with ground peanut and sugar.

A Sahelian staple of cooked millet flour worked into a firm hand-rolled ball, eaten by tearing pieces and dipping them into a communal sauce.

Chunks of mature mutton threaded on skewers, coated in a dry spice rub, and grilled directly over live charcoal until the exterior is deeply charred and the interior remains juicy.

A crunchy West African fried snack of lightly sweetened wheat dough cut into small cubes or strips and deep-fried until hard and golden, usually scented with nutmeg.

A steamed millet-flour couscous of West Africa — millet flour rubbed into fine granules and steam-cooked in multiple passes, served topped with or alongside a sauce of moringa leaves (Moringa oleifera) cooked in oil with aromatics.

A pungent Sahelian broth built on fermented locust beans (dawadawa) seasoned with dried chili and dried fish, eaten over a starch.

A steamed millet couscous served with a spiced vegetable and/or meat sauce, staple of Hausa and Zarma peoples in Niger and the broader Sahel.

A traditional Fulani pastoral beverage of spiced, pounded pearl-millet balls dissolved into fresh lactic-fermented cow's milk, consumed as both daily sustenance and roadside refreshment across the Sahel.

A Hausa-origin sun-dried beef snack made from paper-thin sheets of lean meat that are first dried to remove moisture, then thoroughly coated in a spiced groundnut paste (danbune/yaji) and sun-dried again to form a stiff, shelf-stable, intensely flavored slab.

A dark, viscous Hausa soup built on powdered dried baobab leaves (kuka), fermented locust beans, and dried fish, producing a characteristic sour-earthy, mucilaginous broth served over stiff porridge.

A Hausa thin, mucilaginous 'draw' soup made from powdered dried baobab leaves and fermented locust bean (dawadawa), eaten with a stiff grain porridge.

A Hausa soup of pureed pumpkin enriched with groundnut paste, leafy greens, and smoked fish or meat, served with a stiff grain swallow.

A West African one-pot rice cooked in a rich tomato-and-onion meat broth until the grains are saturated with flavor and oil.

A lacy, slightly sour West African flatbread made from a fermented rice batter cooked on a griddle.

A Nigerien dish of thin flatbread torn into small pieces and layered with or soaked in a spiced lamb or goat stew.

A dense, smooth, moldable swallow made by cooking fine maize flour in boiling water until it sets into a firm, cohesive mass, eaten by hand as the starchy vehicle for leaf-based and legume soups.

Fermented rice-flour batter cakes from the Hausa region, cooked in the round wells of a special divot griddle into soft, spongy fritters.