Quick Serbian Kajmak With Feta Recipe

Name: Quick Serbian Kajmak Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 130 min
Ingredients: 1 cup Bulgarian feta cheese (or Greek feta cheese); 2 cups sour cream (full-fat); 1 pound cream cheese (full-fat, softened)

Prep: 10 mins

Cook: 0 mins

Refrigerate: 2 hrs

Total: 2 hrs 10 mins

Servings: 20 servings

Yield: 3 to 4 cups

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This quick kajmak recipe is a satisfactory substitute for the traditional product, described below, which is rarely prepared anymore because it requires the use of unpasteurized milk which is becoming increasingly hard to find.

Traditional kajmak is a "new" (unaged) cheese made by boiling unpasteurized, unhomogenized (raw) cow's or sheep's milk and then pouring it into wide, shallow bowls known as karlice.

As the milk cools, the cream rises and forms a thin layer on the surface, which is skimmed off and placed in salted layers in a small wooden tub called a cabrica. The boiling and skimming procedure is repeated many times until the tub is full.

1 cup feta cheese, Bulgarian or Greek
2 cups full-fat sour cream
1 pound full-fat cream cheese, softened

Gather the ingredients.

The Spruce
Press feta cheese through a sieve.

The Spruce
In a large bowl, beat together sieved cheese, sour cream, and cream cheese until all the ingredients until smooth. Refrigerate.

The Spruce
Let come to room temperature before serving.

How to Serve Kajmak

It's often served with pogacha (simple white peasant bread) or corn bread (proja) or as an appetizer on flatbread (lepinja sa kajmakom). But you also will see it melted on the Balkan version of a hamburger patty (pljeskavica sa kajmakom) or simply tucked into pita bread with cevapcici sausages.

But don't count it out in simmered beef or veal shank meat (ribic u kajmaku) or in Karađorđeva Steak, created by Serbian chef Milovan Mića Stojanović.

Another way to serve kajmak is in popara, a dish made with leftover or fresh bread, hard cheese, kajmak and milk or water. It is a substantial meal often served for breakfast.

More About Kajmak

If you've never tasted kajmak, also spelled kaymak, it's hard to describe the flavor. Describing the texture is easy—it's light, fluffy and similar to whipped cream cheese. Only it doesn't taste like cream cheese. It tastes faintly of a stronger cheese but at the same time, it's sweet. Some compare it to clotted cream.

This new, unaged or fresh cheese, with a shelf life of about two weeks, is not only common in Serbia as an appetizer or served with bread instead of butter, but also in other parts of the Middle East, the Balkans, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Turkey, It just goes by different names.

When the kajmak is allowed to mature, it has a stronger, sharper salty taste and is yellow in color with a shelf life of about six months and is known as skorup. It is often used for a savory pastry (pita) known as gibanica.

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
145	Calories
14g	Fat
3g	Carbs
3g	Protein

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 20
Amount per serving
Calories	145
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 14g	18%
Saturated Fat 8g	40%
Cholesterol 43mg	14%
Sodium 147mg	6%
Total Carbohydrate 3g	1%
Dietary Fiber 0g	0%
Total Sugars 2g
Protein 3g
Vitamin C 0mg	1%
Calcium 82mg	6%
Iron 0mg	0%
Potassium 63mg	1%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.