← Nouns Cooking · Caribbean

Ingredients

• 900 g fresh cassava (or 500 g frozen grated cassava, thawed)
• ¾ tsp Salt
• 400 ml Coconut milk
• 4 tbsp Vegetable oil, for frying

Method

1. Peel the cassava, cut out any woody core and grate it finely. Wrap it in a clean tea towel and twist hard to squeeze out as much liquid as possible; it should feel almost dry and crumbly.
2. Rub the salt through the cassava, breaking up any lumps. Press a quarter of it firmly into a lightly oiled 12 cm frying pan or ring to make a disc about 1 cm thick. Repeat to make 4.
3. Cook the discs in a dry non-stick pan over medium-low heat for 5–6 min per side, until firm and holding together, without browning much.
4. Pour the coconut milk into a shallow dish and soak the bammies for 10 min, turning once.
5. Heat the oil in the pan over medium heat and fry the soaked bammies for 3–4 min per side, until golden and crisp outside and soft inside. Cut into wedges and serve with fish.

Tips

• Use sweet cassava, sold in most shops; bitter cassava must be specially processed. Never eat cassava raw.
• Cooked, unsoaked bammies keep in the fridge for a week, ready to soak and fry.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Taste the Islands Jamaicans.com