Mozambique
Piri-piri prawns off the grill and Portuguese bread on the side — the Indian Ocean coast at its most delicious.
Mozambique's kitchen is where Africa, Portugal and the Indian Ocean meet. On the coast that means seafood and fire: fat prawns and crayfish split and grilled, then lashed with piri-piri — the bird's-eye chilli, garlic, lemon and vinegar sauce this country gave the world. You eat them with your fingers, a cold 2M beer sweating on the table, Portuguese bread rolls to mop the juices.
Away from the grill the flavours turn deeper: matapa, cassava leaves stewed slow with ground peanuts and coconut milk, often with prawns folded through and spooned over rice. Five centuries of Portugal left prego steak rolls and rissóis prawn pastries on every corner; the northern coast leans Swahili-spiced, the south more Lisbon. Coconut, cassava leaf and chilli — taste those three and you've tasted Mozambique.
- Piri-piri prawns (chilli-grilled prawns)
- Matapa (cassava leaves in peanut-coconut sauce)
- Frango à piri-piri (grilled chilli chicken)
- Xima (maize-meal porridge)
- Caril de caranguejo (coconut crab curry)
- Rissóis de camarão (fried prawn pastries)
- 2M (national lager)
