Cooking a meal from a different country every week for my household. Week 2 of 52: Senegal 🇸🇳 (Fish Pastels, Chicken Yassa & Thiakry)
Cooking a meal from a different country every week for my household. Week 2 of 52: Senegal 🇸🇳 (Fish Pastels, Chicken Yassa & Thiakry)
by nz_achilles
3 Comments
nz_achilles
When I put up [my post last week](https://www.reddit.com/r/tonightsdinner/s/exjUeaqF8Z) of my first dinner in this family global food adventure, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But thank you for all the comments and support 😊
The actual effect it had on my household was so positive. People have been excitedly talking about it all week and involving friends and co-workers. I even had to cook for six this week as a friend of the family joined us at our table. They’re filling in their global food passports with comments and stickers and its just such a mood shift for 2026.
Which brings us to this meal for Senegal 🇸🇳. Honestly when I made the list of 52 countries I knew there were going to be some places that would test me – I just didn’t expect it to be so soon! I have cookbooks from around the world but certainly nothing about West Africa. So when my husband picked Senegal it really needed research.
The final menu:
Starter: Fish Pastels with Sauce Rouge
Main: Chicken Yassa with Broken Rice
Dessert: Thiakry
But so glad I was pushed… the Chicken Yassa was amazing. Savoury and sweet with onion. As were the Pastels. This is a cuisine I think has made my family interested to explore more.
For this week here is a list of the countries coming up on the tour as requested. I will hope to start compiling recipes and sharing them with the community soon too, along with the “passport” books. Thank you for reading!
Senegalese food is popular in France, where I live, and I’ve tried a few recipes, but none of these! They look good. My husband visited Senegal as a kid and I’m sure he’d love a home-cooked meal of Senegalese food. As we have some African grocery stores near us, it might be easy to get the ingredients.
On a related note, I have a Facebook friend who does a meal from a different country every year for Christmas. I think she uses a random generator to pick the country a few weeks in advance, so she can start planning the menu and finding the ingredients. She doesn’t post pictures until the day after Christmas. I actually look forward to seeing her annual post!
3 Comments
When I put up [my post last week](https://www.reddit.com/r/tonightsdinner/s/exjUeaqF8Z) of my first dinner in this family global food adventure, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But thank you for all the comments and support 😊
The actual effect it had on my household was so positive. People have been excitedly talking about it all week and involving friends and co-workers. I even had to cook for six this week as a friend of the family joined us at our table. They’re filling in their global food passports with comments and stickers and its just such a mood shift for 2026.
Which brings us to this meal for Senegal 🇸🇳. Honestly when I made the list of 52 countries I knew there were going to be some places that would test me – I just didn’t expect it to be so soon! I have cookbooks from around the world but certainly nothing about West Africa. So when my husband picked Senegal it really needed research.
The final menu:
Starter: Fish Pastels with Sauce Rouge
Main: Chicken Yassa with Broken Rice
Dessert: Thiakry
But so glad I was pushed… the Chicken Yassa was amazing. Savoury and sweet with onion. As were the Pastels. This is a cuisine I think has made my family interested to explore more.
For this week here is a list of the countries coming up on the tour as requested. I will hope to start compiling recipes and sharing them with the community soon too, along with the “passport” books. Thank you for reading!
[Country List Tracker](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iKKEQiydvbf5n-gEDVSWc9qp68nQWodsOePcZwufLS8/edit?usp=drivesdk)
Senegalese food is popular in France, where I live, and I’ve tried a few recipes, but none of these! They look good. My husband visited Senegal as a kid and I’m sure he’d love a home-cooked meal of Senegalese food. As we have some African grocery stores near us, it might be easy to get the ingredients.
On a related note, I have a Facebook friend who does a meal from a different country every year for Christmas. I think she uses a random generator to pick the country a few weeks in advance, so she can start planning the menu and finding the ingredients. She doesn’t post pictures until the day after Christmas. I actually look forward to seeing her annual post!
The fish pastels look delightful.