Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Lafidi
A Guinean morning plate: okra and garden-egg eggplant mashed with chili and fermented locust bean, spooned over rice with a slick of red palm oil.
Guinean · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 25 min
~415 cal · 9g protein · 79g carbs · 8g fat · 9g fiber · 8g sugars · 1g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Lafidi is a Guinean breakfast, a savory mash of fresh and white garden-egg eggplant cooked soft, then pounded together with chili and soumbara ( locust bean) into a sticky, deeply savory relish, spooned over rice and finished with a shine of red .
, eggplant, and soumbara are cornerstones of Guinean cooking, and their combination gives lafidi its signature depth and a gentle heat. It is sold in the mornings from Conakry stalls and made at home, filling enough to carry a working morning.
Unfussy and full-flavoured, lafidi is a savoury rice-and-relish plate that starts the day, built on and funky, seasonings.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
2 cups fresh , sliced
2 white eggplant (garden egg), diced
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp soumbara ( locust bean) or a little
1 red chili, minced
2 tbsp red
1 lime, juiced
to taste salt
4 cups cooked white rice, to serve
Instructions
1
Simmer the okra, eggplant, and onion with a little water and salt until very soft, about 15 minutes.
2
Mash or lightly pound the vegetables with the soumbara, chili, and lime juice into a thick, sticky relish.
3
Stir in the red palm oil and warm through until glossy, adjusting salt and heat to taste.
4
Spoon the mash generously over bowls of hot white rice and serve warm.
Conakry morning-market cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Conakry. The millet couscous has a name and an occasion: latchiri is a Fulani dish eaten with kossan, curdled milk, at ceremonies. The more distinctly Guinean grain is fonio, grown up in the Fouta Djallon, a tiny fast-cooking cereal that also goes into a cassava and fonio to.
🗺️
Guinea. Kinkeliba is the bush tea, leaves of a shrub steeped into a slightly bitter infusion drunk daily and treated as medicinal as much as pleasant. The country runs from a wet Atlantic coast up into the Fouta Djallon, source of the Niger, the Senegal and the Gambia rivers, which is why it grows rice, fonio and fruit that the drier Sahel cannot.
🌍
Africa. The structure repeats across most of the continent: one starch and one sauce. A grain or root is cooked stiff, torn or rolled by hand, and used to carry a stew of leaves, groundnut, okra or fish, usually from a shared bowl and with the right hand. UNESCO listings have followed that logic, inscribing couscous in 2020 as a shared Maghreb tradition and Ivorian attieke in 2024.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Guinea
Latchiri e KossamHand-rolled maize couscous steamed fine and served with cool, tangy curdled milk, the Fula celebration dish of Guinea.
Sauce GomboOkra stewed with red palm oil and smoked fish into a glossy, savory sauce, spooned over rice in the Guinean style.
Bouillie de FonioA creamy Guinean breakfast porridge of tiny fonio grains simmered in water and milk, sweetened and warmed with gentle spice.
Browse all Guinea recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
Make it a Guinea meal
Kinkeliba TeaDrink
Latchiri e KossamDessert
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Frequently asked questions
What is Lafidi?
A Guinean morning plate: okra and garden-egg eggplant mashed with chili and fermented locust bean, spooned over rice with a slick of red palm oil.
Where does Lafidi come from?
Lafidi is a Guinean dish from Conakry, Guinea.
Can Lafidi be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Lafidi recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Lafidi safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Lafidi take to make?
About 40 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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