Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Latchiri e Kossam
Hand-rolled maize couscous steamed fine and served with cool, tangy curdled milk, the Fula celebration dish of Guinea.
Guinean · medium · serves 4
prep 25 min · cook 50 min
~378 cal · 12g protein · 67g carbs · 6g fat · 2g fiber · 18g sugars · 4g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Latchiri e kossam is the great Fula (Fulani) dish of Guinea, steamed maize (latchiri) served with kossam, the tangy curdled milk that gives it its soul. No proper Fula celebration, a wedding, a naming, a homecoming, is complete without it, and the women who make it best guard their technique like a family secret.
The is patient work: dried maize is milled to flour, sifted fine, then moistened and rubbed by hand into tiny beads and steamed in a cloth over boiling water, again and again, until it is light and tender. The kossam is soured milk, thickened and gently , poured cool over the warm grain.
Eaten sweetened with a little sugar or lightly salted, latchiri e kossam is at once everyday nourishment and festive food across the Fouta Djallon and Conakry, a taste of the pastoral heritage of a people whose lives have always turned on grain and milk.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and gluten-, egg-, nut- 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 fine maize flour (or maize )
3 cups kossam (curdled milk) or plain yogurt
3 tbsp sugar (or salt), to taste
as needed water, for moistening and steaming
Instructions
1
Sprinkle the maize flour with a little water and rub it between your palms into small, even couscous beads.
✎ Chef’s note
Add the water a few drops at a time and keep rubbing. You want loose beads, not a paste, so the couscous steams up light.
2
Steam the couscous in a cloth-lined steamer over boiling water for about 30 minutes.
3
Tip it out, sprinkle again with a little water, rub smooth, and steam a second (and if needed a third) time until tender.
4
Meanwhile whisk the milk with the yogurt (or loosen plain yogurt with water) into a smooth, tangy kossam and keep it cool.
5
Fluff the warm couscous, sweeten with sugar or season with a little salt, and serve in bowls topped with the cool curdled milk.
Fula (Fulani) celebration tradition, Fouta Djallon.
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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. Guinean cooking is West African and rice-based, with rich groundnut and leaf sauces and grilled fish. Fonio, cassava, and the bush tea kinkeliba reflect the highlands and coast of a green, watered land.
🌍
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
LafidiA 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.
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
You’ll need: Steamer, Whisk.
Storing it: Keeps 2 to 3 days refrigerated. Resteam or warm through gently to serve.
Make it a Guinea meal
Kansiyé de Poisson (Fish in Peanut Sauce)Dinner
Kinkeliba TeaDrink
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Frequently asked questions
What is Latchiri e Kossam?
Hand-rolled maize couscous steamed fine and served with cool, tangy curdled milk, the Fula celebration dish of Guinea.
Where does Latchiri e Kossam come from?
Latchiri e Kossam is a Guinean dish from Conakry, Guinea.
Can Latchiri e Kossam be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Latchiri e Kossam 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 Latchiri e Kossam 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 Latchiri e Kossam take to make?
About 75 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 50 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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