African

Sweet and tangy pomegranate juice brings a depth of flavor and rich color to this meltingly tender lamb stew. Serve with polenta or a grain salad and then nextover remaining lamb into sandwiches the next day.

Radiating the aromas of toasted cumin and coriander, and spiked with the salty-sour pucker of cured lemons and olives, this chicken stew produces a heady effect. If you can’t find preserved lemons in your local food markets (high-end stores usually stock them), you can order them or make them yourself.

An extra chile for this harissa recipe will play up the heat, and if you’re feeling confident, you can customize the mix of spices as well.

This chermoula sauce recipe is even better if it sits for a while to let the flavors meld.

Dukkah, an Egyptian nut and spice mix, creates a deeply flavorful crust for salmon fillets when tossed with puffed amaranth.

Homemade harissa is simpler to make than you might think, and packs a flavorful punch on swordfish.

This couscous salad is just right for a late summer barbecue.

Let’s put it this way: If you like salsa verde, you’ll love charmoula, its spiced cousin.

This recipe warms the heart of my big sister, Omolola. She insists that she can’t make it like I can, but I reckon she just likes being pampered once in a while. Don’t we all. Yam can be a little dry on its own but this mash is silky smooth, with the coconut giving it a richness.

You’ll need some lollipop sticks for this recipe. We found some interesting yellow serving sticks that worked well at dinner, but if worse comes to worst you can use cocktail sticks.

This is the dish that first got me into cooking. Talking about it got me my first job in a kitchen, and together with the help of friends, local restaurants, and family it’s the recipe we have worked on the most for this book, because we all know how good it should be. If I could only eat one thing in the world it would probably be my grandma’s jollof. She would regularly cook a big pot with care and patience and insist that everyone took home a small container of it. Cooking the rice and storing it for the following day or to give to friends to take away is part of a sharing culture that surrounds jollof—just remember to return the Tupperware!

Made with fresh herbs, garlic, lemon, and warm spices, this Moroccan sauce makes a great marinade or finishing sauce for meat and seafood.

A fragrant, herbaceous sauce acts as both a marinade and a dressing for this pretty, Moroccan-inspired salad.

During the developing and testing process for this book, this dish became Hubby's new favorite. Totally unexpected—I was sure he'd steal a line from the kids and say, "Thank you anyway, but this is not my taste." (We taught them to say that instead of "Ooo, yick!") It's just not the usual stuff and spices he goes for, but apparently the combination was soooo his taste. And mine, too. It's one of those winner recipes that will make you dance around your kitchen. You may hug me now.

We use a slow cooker with a browning option to crisp the chicken skin for this Moroccan-flavored dish. The stew is great on its own but couscous would be an easy and fitting side dish.

Shakshuka is Tunisian in origin but has become hugely popular in Jerusalem and all over Israel as substantial breakfast or lunch fare. Tunisian cuisine has a passionate love affair with eggs and this particular version of shakshuka is the seasonal variant for the summer and early autumn. Potatoes are used during the winter and eggplants in spring. Having published recipes for shakshuka once or twice before, we are well aware of the risk of repeating ourselves. Still, we are happy to add another version of this splendid dish, seeing how popular it is and how convenient it is to prepare. This time the focus is on tomato and spice. But we encourage you to play around with different ingredients and adjust the amount of heat to your taste. Serve with good white bread and nothing else.