Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Uzazi along with all the Uzazi containing recipes presented on this site, with 4 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain as a major flavouring.

Uzazi is the Nigerian name for the spice derived from the pericarp (outer seed coat) and seed of Zanthoxylum tessmannii (syn Fagara tessmannii), a West African member of the 'prickly ash' trees and a relative of Asian Sichuan Pepper and a member of the Rutaceae (citrus) family.

In contrast with Sichuan pepper, where only the outer pericarp is used, the fruit of uzazi are typically gathered slightly under-ripe before being sun-dried. This keeps the pericarp whole, with the seed inside. The spice is then mixed with other spices (typically chillies, Senegal pepper and Ashanti pepper) as part of traditional West African pepper soup spice blends.

As the unripe fruit are typically picked and dried, uzazi can appear very similar to Ashanti pepper and is often confused with it (indeed, the names uzazi and uziza [Ashanti pepper] are related and very similar, thereby increasing the confusion).

Z tessmanii has a more spicy flavour and even greater 'pungency' than Sichuan pepper and both the pericarp and inner fruit are ground and used as a flavouring in traditional West African 'pepper soups' (ie chilli-based stews).