Bammy
Flat, dense Jamaican cassava breads, soaked in coconut milk and pan-fried for 10 minutes until golden on both sides.
Photograph credit: Bammies (lead image of the Bammy article) by Jongleur100 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
A day with fried fish, escovitch sauce and a hot bammy is about as Jamaican as a meal gets. The bammy is a flat, round bread made from cassava, and its flavour is mild and slightly sweet, which is why it soaks up sauce so well. Bread and fish go together.
Traditionally it is made from grated, pressed cassava. This version uses cassava flour, which gives the same chewy-soft texture without the work of squeezing out the juice. Mix the flour with salt and warm water into a firm dough, let it rest for a few minutes so the flour absorbs the water, and press it into flat rounds about a finger thick. Wet your hands as you shape; the dough is sticky and splits on dry skin.
Soaking the rounds in coconut milk for a few minutes gives them a soft, sweet centre. Then fry them in a little oil over a medium heat until golden, turning once. Serve them hot, split and buttered, or beside fish and vegetables. Leftovers toast well.
How to Make Bammy
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Mix the cassava flour and salt in a bowl. Add the warm water and mix to a firm dough. Rest for 5 minutes.
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Divide into 8 pieces. With wet hands, press each into a round about 1 cm thick.
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Dip each round in the coconut milk for 1 minute on each side.
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Heat the oil in a wide pan over a medium heat. Fry the bammies for 4 minutes on each side until golden.
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Serve hot, split or whole.
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A Few Pointers
- Add water a little at a time; cassava flour is thirsty.
- Keep your hands wet when shaping the rounds.
- Fry over a medium heat so the middles cook before the outsides colour too far.
Serve It With
Escovitch fish · Ackee and saltfish · Butter · Steamed vegetables
Keeping and Reheating
Best on the day. Keeps for 2 days; reheat in a dry pan.
Bammy Nutrition
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (how much frying oil the food takes up cannot be known from the recipe). Why some recipes have none.
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published .
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