A special signed edition of this amazing contemporary West African cookbook! Celebrated cook and writer Zoe Adjonyoh passionately believes we are on the cusp of an African food revolution. First published to widespread acclaim in the United Kingdom, “Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen” began as a pop-up restaurant in London featuring dishes such as Pan-Roasted Cod with Grains of Paradise, Nkruma (Okra) Tempura, Cubeb-Spiced Shortbread, and Coconut and Cassava Cake. Soon those dishes evolved into this tempting and celebratory cookbook, newly revised and updated for American cooks. Join Adjonyoh as she shares the beauty of Ghana’s markets, culture and cuisine, and tells the evocative story of using these tastes and food traditions to navigate her own identity. Whether you are familiar with the delights of Ghanaian cuisine or new to the bold flavors of West Africa, this book contains inspiration for extraordinary home cooking, in dishes such as Simple Fried Plantains, Red Red Stew, Red Snapper and Yam Croquettes, Bofrot Doughnuts, Nkatenkwan (Peanut Butter Stew with Lamb), Jollof Fried Chicken, Ghana-fied Caesar Salad and more.

This pack of three spice blends includes chef Zoe Adjonyoh’s take on essential West African seasonings. Ubiquitous jollof spice—a building block of the eponymous one-pot rice dish—is made a little different in every household. This blend brings warmth from spices like ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, with a kick from chili and black pepper among other additions. We love its classic savory flavor. Kelewele spice is typically found liberally sprinkled on plantains as a popular street food, but there’s so much more this sweetly aromatic blend can do. It’s fragrant and autumnal in taste, with a light kick of chili. Suya spice borrows from the popular Nigerian cooking style—“suya” means “on the flame” or “on the grill,” and it seasons the skewers of meat in street stalls that draw in so many Ghanaians and Nigerians as they leave work for the day. It tastes nutty, warming and vibrant. The secret to its special flavor? Rich ground peanuts!

This bundle of two unique flavored salts came straight from the kitchen of chef Zoe Adjonyoh. The okra salt arose from a “happy accident”: The chef was playing around in her kitchen with okra, one of her favorite ingredients, when a container of dehydrated okra was knocked into a bowl of sea salt. The result? A potent yet never overwhelming seasoning akin to seaweed salt, offering a subtle “of the sea” quality with just the right amount of vegetal earthiness, woodsiness and touch of bitterness. It also removes the slime factor from the okra, which can be an issue for some people, while amping up the flavor concentration. The hibiscus salt also came about while experimenting in the kitchen, but also speaks to the legacy of the ingredient in much of Mexico and South America. The bitter hibiscus has a knack for coaxing out the subtle sweetness of red meats and otherwise offers floral, citrusy notes with a hint of bitter balance.

A little of these bold, single-origin spices goes a long way. This bundle includes five that are essential to West African and Ghanaian cooking. Traditionally harvested by women, dawadawa is made from the fermented seeds of the African locust bean and tastes akin to truffles with a dash of fish sauce, with a musty cocoa-like scent. We love its earthy, meaty, funky flavor and find we can swamp it in for miso in many applications. Grand grains of selim (Guinea pepper) offer a complex smokiness sliced with the menthol freshness of eucalyptus and a hint of black cardamom. Indigenous to Ghana, calabash nutmeg has a deeper, woodsy quality to it that leans more savory than sweet. Where nutmeg has cinnamon-like sweetness, this has cumin-like savoriness. Alligator pepper (grains of paradise) is a complexly flavorful spice widely popular across West Africa and Ethiopia. Each seed is about half the size of a black peppercorn but packs double the flavor and fragrance. It has a numbing quality as compared to the heat of black pepper, though there’s also a wonderfully fresh herbal quality, citrusy brightness and ginger-like warmth that’s almost reminiscent of cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom (a close relative of the spice). And cubeb pepper is bold and floral-forward, almost like black pepper without the tinge of heat.

Moringa (also known also as drumstick tree, ben oil tree or horseradish tree) has been used for its medicinal properties for centuries. It has a grassy, herbal aroma similar to okra, with a slightly bitter, strongly herbal taste akin to green tea. Native to Madagascar, baobab is floral and fruity with a light citrus tartness—wonderful for adding zing to sweet dishes.