Zoom Koom: the recipe for Burkina Faso's 'welcome drink' based on ginger and millet

Let's find out how to prepare Zoom Koom, Burkina Faso's welcome drink, made with millet and ginger.

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Zoom means flour, koom means water. United they form the Zoom Join, also called ZomKom or ZomKoum, literally “flour water“. Welcome drink dei Mossi, a native population of Burkina Faso, spread throughout the country.

It is prepared for every good occasion, including great ceremonies such as weddings. Sweet but also spicy, it has a unique and unmistakable flavor.

The recipe is quite simple to prepare, ideal for sipping during the hot summer season.

Zoom Koom: the recipe from Burkina Faso

There are different versions of the Zoom Koom, enriched according to preferences with pieces of fresh pineapple, black pepper, cinnamon, lemons, chilli. We offer you the recipe from Lami Cooks who explains in this video how to prepare it step by step using millet and a mix of spices including cloves, black pepper, chilli and Selim pepper.

Ingredients

2 cups of millet
1/2 tablespoon of cloves
1/2 tablespoon of black pepper
2 strips of Selim pepper (optional)
fresh ginger
2 dried chillies
Sugar to taste (replace the white one with brown sugar)

Method

Pour the millet into a container filling it with water. Leave it to soak for a whole night (the traditional recipe calls for 3 days). The millet will start to ferment, so you will need to remove the white part that has formed on the surface and wash it well.

Remove the peel from the fresh ginger and cut into small pieces.

Pour the various spices and two handfuls of ginger into a tall bowl, add the millet and a little water.

Blend until a homogeneous mixture is obtained, which you will filter with the help of a sieve, gradually adding water until the mixture is grayish in color. Continue to squeeze the mixture patiently to extract all the juice.

Now that the juice has been filtered, you can sweeten it with a little brown sugar. All that remains is to pour it into a glass and add a few ice cubes.

Zoom Koom: the fastest variant with millet flour

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The Zoom Koom can also be prepared with millet flour as explained in this video: just pour it into a pan for about ten minutes, keeping the heat low, mixing it with a spoon.

Add the dried chilli pepper, grated ginger and cloves to the pan, mix well and pour a little water. If you want, you can also add pieces of fresh pineapple.

Blend the mixture until you get a homogeneous consistency, then filter it with a sieve, pressing it well with a spoon to extract all the juice.

Sweeten with honey and pour the drink into a glass, serving it with ice cubes and adding, if you like, a few mint leaves to give it an even fresher flavor.