Recipes · Breakfast
Kama with soured milk
Not a bread at all: a roasted flour of barley, rye, oats and peas, stirred into soured milk with berries.
- Makes
- 2 bowls
- Hands-on
- 5 minutes
- Start to finish
- 15 minutes
- Oven
- None
Kama is one of those foods that people outside Estonia have rarely heard of and Estonians take entirely for granted. It is a finely ground mix of roasted grains and peas, traditionally barley, rye, oats and pea flour. Stirred into soured milk or kefir, it thickens into something between a porridge and a mousse, nutty and a little toasty.
It belongs on this site because of the rye in it, and because it is what I eat while the bread is in the oven.
Method
- Stir the kama and honey into the cold kefir until smooth. If you are new to kama, start with less; it is easier to add than to take away.
- Leave it for 5–10 minutes. It thickens noticeably as the flour takes up the liquid.
- Spoon it into bowls and top with berries. A few crushed rye crisps add crunch.
Notes
- For a party dessert, fold the kama mixture into lightly whipped cream with a spoonful of curd cheese, layer it with berries in glasses and chill it for an hour.
- Two or three spoonfuls of kama in a rye dough give a sweeter, toastier loaf. Add them with the morning flour.
- Outside Estonia, kama turns up on the Baltic shelf of bigger grocers, usually in a small paper bag.