Kenyan cuisine

Africa is a continent that has many mysteries. If your trip to the mainland includes visiting Kenya , be sure to get acquainted with the local gastronomic traditions . They are very different from European, so you will get an invaluable culinary experience. Kenyan cuisine was formed under the influence of taste preferences of Asian and European immigrants, who, in turn, underwent a change when meeting exotic African delicacies.

Culinary preferences of local aborigines

In many ways, the cuisine of Kenya is determined by the geographical location of the country and its climate. Therefore, the menu of local residents are mainly present:

1. Seafood and fish, especially on the east coast, which are usually served with fruit and seasonings.
2. Meat. There are goat, veal, pork can afford only secured Kenyans, the lower social strata of the population usually eat meat of wild animals, hunted, or poultry (dishes from it are called kuku).
3. Varied side dishes. Among them, porridge from corn groats was extinguished, rice, potatoes, beans, millet porridge, corn, and cassava root crops.
4. Flat cakes used instead of bread.
5. Fruits and vegetables.
6. Spices and sauces.
7. Fruit juices, beer, coca-cola.

The most interesting dishes of traditional cuisine

Arriving in Kenya, you should take advantage of a unique opportunity to taste those dishes that you did not even know about in your homeland. Among them:

1. Meat and fish, fried with vegetables on the coals, which gives them a special flavor and aroma.
2. Chapati - fresh cakes of small thickness, which must be eaten immediately after baking: then they are soft and lush, but after cooling they become stale and need to be soaked in the soup.
3. Bean soup.
4. Mataa is a very thick paste, which is prepared from water, beans and corn. Other variations of the dish - from meat and beans, as well as corn kernels, potatoes and peas.
5. Game fried in dough (batter).
6. Sukuma - stewed greens, to taste like spinach.
7. Grilled chicken, flavored with curry sauce.
8. Ugali. This porridge is cooked from corn flour, diluted with water. But it is eaten not only independently, but also rolled from it balls, inside which are placed vegetables and meat, then dipped in sauce and flavored. Millet porridge and sorghum are also very common.
9. Matoke is a Ugandan dish that has settled down in Kenya. It is a banana, baked or cooked in broth with butter, lemon, onion, chili and other spices.
10. Egbred - pancakes stuffed with minced meat and eggs.
11. Samosa - patty with vegetable or meat filling with spices, fried in oil. shish kebab - marinated meat, which is toasted on skewers on an open fire
12. Shish kebab - marinated meat, which is fried on skewers on an open fire.
13. Syriani - meat stewed in sour milk along with vegetables, papaya and spices.
14. Spicy vegetable salad kochumbari, which includes chili, onions and tomatoes.
15. Coconut rice - grits when cooked cooked in coconut milk.
16. Nyama choma is a goat fried on a grill, which is served finely chopped on wooden plates. It goes well with beer. A variation of such a dish is the heap of choma, which is made from chicken.

Exotic dishes and seafood

Fans of the thrill are worth visiting in the famous restaurants "Carnivor" and "Safari Park" in Nairobi . In the local menu, you will meet such unusual delicacies as roast zebra and ostrich, liver monkey, stewed elephant, crocodile meat and antelope. If you are not squeamish, take a chance and try fried termites and locusts. Representatives of the Masai tribe even eat clay, which is crushed, mixed with water and flour and bakes cakes from it. However, it is better for unaccustomed tourists to refrain from frequent use of such delicacies.

Some unusual dishes Kenyan tribes eat for centuries. The Luo tribe is a maize with a spicy sauce and a fish tilapia, in the Kikuyu tribe - irri (a salad of corn, potatoes, onions, greens, beans or peas). Africans from the Swahili tribe love coconuts and tamarinds.

In Kenya, all year round you can also taste the seafood:

• Nile perch;
• Trout, roasted on coals, turtle soup;
• octopus ragout;
• oysters;
• crustaceans;
• fish baked on charcoal in banana leaves.

Fried fish and shrimp will be especially tasty if consumed with coconut rice, ginger, garlic, vegetables, lime juice, tomato sauce, chilli pepper.

Desserts and drinks

The Kenyan people inherited the love of baking from European settlers: now the local housewives often cook mandarinas - sweet buns without stuffing, fried in oil, round or triangular in shape, muffins, puffs, milk cakes. In a tiring African heat in the nearest eatery you will be offered cakes with ice or freshly squeezed fruit juice. Tea is prepared here as follows: milk is poured into the water, sugar and tea leaves are put, boiled and immediately fed to the table. Kenyan coffee is considered the best on the continent, so tourists often take it home as a souvenir .

For connoisseurs of good alcohol here is a real expanse: you can try a drink of chang on the basis of maize and sugar, delicious beer pombe (it is cooked from sugar, millet and bananas), honey beer, papaya wine, reed rum, coffee liqueur.