Spices in Nigerian cooking

The two halves of Nigerian pepper-soup spice, and they divide the work exactly: uziza supplies pungency and a green bitterness, ehuru supplies warm resinous aroma. A soup with the pepper and not the nutmeg is sharp and thin; one with the nutmeg and not the pepper is aromatic and dull.

How: Ground together into pepper-soup spice; In ofe nsala, the white soup

Add alongside: Grains of Selim, Bird's eye chilli, Ginger

• Both are ground fresh; both lose their aroma and keep their bitterness

Two spices that English has called Guinea pepper, from two families, in the same pot. Grains of selim brings smoke and a musky bitterness from the whole pod; uziza brings piperine pungency. Between them they give a pepper soup the character that chilli alone cannot.

How: Together in pepper-soup spice; In goat and fish soups

Add alongside: Calabash nutmeg, Ginger, Garlic

• Grains of selim is used whole or coarsely broken and is generally removed; uziza is ground in and stays

Fish pepper soup is one of the dishes ehuru is most associated with, and the reason is that its warm resinous aroma sits over fish without the sweetness true nutmeg would bring — which is exactly the distinction the two spices’ shared name obscures.

How: In fish pepper soup; In ofe nsala with catfish

Add alongside: Uziza, Bird's eye chilli, Grains of Selim

Goat pepper soup is the dish, and uziza’s bitterness is doing structural work against a fatty, strongly flavoured meat that chilli heat alone would not cut. The same reasoning puts it in isi ewu.

How: In goat pepper soup; In isi ewu

Add alongside: Calabash nutmeg, Grains of Selim, Onion

• Added early; the bitterness needs time to extract

Two pungencies with different mechanisms and different timings: capsaicin is slow to arrive and slow to leave, gingerol is immediate and fades, so the pair produces a heat with a shape rather than a plateau. It is a combination East Africa, West Africa and Southeast Asia all use independently.

How: In mitmita; In West African pepper mixtures

Add alongside: Garlic

The aromatic half of yaji, the Hausa suya rub, against its heat. Calabash nutmeg — ehuru, a West African seed unrelated to true nutmeg — is warm, resinous and slightly bitter, and it is what distinguishes a Nigerian suya rub from a generic chilli-and-peanut mixture. Together on grilled beef they are one of the most recognisable street-food flavours in West Africa.

How: In yaji, rubbed onto skewered beef before and after grilling

Add alongside: Ginger, Garlic

• Calabash nutmeg is not Myristica and cannot be replaced with nutmeg without losing the resinous edge

Dried ginger is the sharp, bright element of a suya rub and calabash nutmeg the deep one, and the pair is what gives the mixture its length: the ginger is gone quickly and the ehuru is still there. Both are ground dry into a mixture that must stay dry to cling to the meat.

How: In yaji with groundnut powder

Add alongside: Cayenne pepper, Onion

Dried garlic supplies savoury depth to a rub whose other components are aromatic or hot, and calabash nutmeg keeps that savouriness from reading as ordinary. The pairing is standard in commercial suya mixtures and less consistent in home-made ones, where the aromatic content varies by household.

How: In yaji

Add alongside: Onion, Ginger

Dried onion in a suya rub is bulk and savouriness rather than flavour anyone identifies, which makes calabash nutmeg the ingredient carrying the identity. A useful pairing to understand rather than an interesting one to taste: it is why the mixture has body.

How: In yaji

Add alongside: Garlic

Heat with okra is near-universal wherever it is eaten, from West African soups through Louisiana gumbo to South Indian dry fries. Okra itself is very mild, so the chilli is supplying the interest rather than balancing anything.

How: In gumbo; In a West African okra soup

For the green fruit rather than the ripe one, which is the distinction this pairing turns on. A green banana or plantain is a starch vegetable, and the Caribbean seasons it as one — allspice, thyme, salt and chilli — not as a fruit.

How: On fried or boiled green plantain

Whole pods go into a West African pepper soup with chicken and are fished out before serving, contributing a musky, smoky bitterness that reads as savoury rather than as a fault. The bitterness is doing structural work in a broth that is otherwise hot and fatty.

How: Whole in a pepper soup, removed before serving

• Used whole and removed; ground, the bitterness becomes unmanageable

The two dark forest pods of West African soup, used together in Nigerian pepper soups. Grains of selim brings smoke and musk, prekese sweetness and fruit, and both are simmered whole and removed.

How: In pepper soup

Add alongside: Calabash nutmeg, Uziza

Both go into the pot for Nigerian pepper soup. Calabash nutmeg is resinous and warm, prekese sweet; the soup wants both kinds of aroma against its chilli.

How: In pepper soup

Add alongside: Grains of Selim, Uziza

Okra soups across northern Nigeria and northern Ghana are seasoned with dawadawa, which supplies the savoury depth that meat would in a richer soup. The okra carries the body; the dawadawa carries the flavour.

How: In okra soup; In leaf soups eaten with tuwo

Add alongside: Bird's eye chilli, Onion

• Add it early so the ammonia cooks off

Efo riro, the Yoruba leaf stew, is defined by iru fried in palm oil with onion and pepper before the greens go in. Leaves are lean and grassy, and the fermented bean gives them the savoury backbone.

How: In efo riro

Add alongside: Onion, Bird's eye chilli

Northern Ghanaian and Hausa soups with meat are seasoned with dawadawa as a matter of course. Goat stands up to its pungency where a milder meat would be overwhelmed.

How: In meat soups and stews

Add alongside: Ginger, Bird's eye chilli

Goat pepper soup is the dish scent leaf finishes: a peppery broth seasoned with a pepper-soup spice mix, with the leaves torn in at the end so that their clove smell sits on top of the heat.

How: In pepper soup

Add alongside: Calabash nutmeg, Uziza, Grains of Selim

Catfish pepper soup takes scent leaf the same way as the goat version; the clove note cuts the richness of the fish.

How: In catfish pepper soup

Chicken pepper soup and chicken stews are seasoned with scent leaf added near the end.

Two leaves of the south-eastern Nigerian soup pot, one clove-scented and one peppery; both go into pepper soups and nsala, and between them they supply most of the aroma the spice mix does not.

Leaf soups — egusi with ugu or other greens, bitterleaf soup — are where ogiri is dissolved to give depth; the fermented savouriness balances the bitter and grassy greens.

How: In egusi and leaf soups

• The greens of the traditional soups are ugu and bitterleaf; spinach is the stand-in available abroad

The meat of a Nigerian soup — beef, often with stockfish — is where ogiri’s savouriness goes; a small piece deepens the whole pot.

Two Central African forest seeds pounded together into the spice base of Cameroonian soups and sauces: njangsa thickens and gives a nutty body, country onion the garlic smell.

One of the grated forest spices of south-eastern Nigerian pepper soup, giving an allium note beneath the heat.

Add alongside: Calabash nutmeg, Scent leaf

Grated into fish soups and fish pepper soup, where the garlic note suits the fish.