African foods make healthy choices especially when eaten in the right combination. This is why recipes from Africa are prepared in many different ways. You will have to know some methods used for cooking by simple housewives to renowned world class African chefs. Below is a list of cooking methods used to make delicious African cuisine.
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1) Roasting
You can cook food without using water over an open fire by roasting. You can have the fire burning in an open wood fireplace, a charcoal burner or a hearth. In Africa, foods are often roasted such as fish, meat, bulbs such as Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, arrow roots and some types of bananas.
2) Boiling
You can also cook food in boiling water. You don’t have to use oil. Frequently, Africans have to use earthen ware cooking pots. They also use cooking utensils made of metal and other materials, which are gaining much popularity.
Vegetables, bulbs such as cassava and potatoes, legumes such as beans and peas, and grains such as rice are commonly boiled foods. In places like northern Uganda, odii or a groundnut paste is added to the boiled food as sauce.
3) Steaming
Some recipes in Africa particularly in southern Uganda, consider steaming as being an important technique of food preparation. Cooking matoke wrapped in banana leaves is usually steamed over boiling water. Meat, fish and vegetables are also steamed while enclosed in banana leaves.
This style of cooking is highly recommended to retain the nutritional value of foods.
4) Frying
Immigrants to Africa have brought their own styles of cooking as well which include frying food. Previously, frying food was not done in any African cuisine. But today, this method is now adopted by almost everyone in the country. When you fry food, you use cooking oil for cooking. It will also include onions and tomatoes to this style of food preparation.
Many Africans use frying many different foods such as fish, meat, vegetables, legumes and pastries.
5) Baking
African cuisine is slowly integrating the baking technique. This may however be a new method for cooking and most typically done in bakeries. In western societies, they have melted cheese dishes, breads, cakes, pies and other foods. But in Africa, this style of cooking is still not yet widespread.
The way that foods are prepared in Africa demonstrates the changing trends of African cuisine. It has adopted cooking techniques such as frying which plays a strong role in African style of food preparation.
The conventional styles of cooking such as boiling and steaming create meals with lesser or no fat. Hence, these styles of cooking have proven to be healthier and more nutritious.
These methods will continue to be used in many recipes from Africa. For instance, dried foodstuffs need to be boiled first to be cooked and ready to eat.
However, Africa has welcomed new methods for cooking to give a wider variation on flavors and taste as well as enhance cooking experiences.
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