Authentic Recipes from Jamaica
By John DeMers and Eduardo Fuss
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About this ebook
Jamaica is the mountainous Caribbean island famed for its coffee and its beaches. But with its abundance of homegrown ingredients and its many cultural influences, it has developed a remarkable cuisine all its own. To visit the Jamaican kitchen is to discover the sumptuous flavors of spicy jerk pork, sweet tropical juices, complex curries and lush desserts.
This cookbook offers the island's best recipes--both the traditional and the new--from Jamaica's hottest chefs and restaurants, including Norma Shirley of Norma at the Wharfhouse, Everett Wilkerson of the Sans Souci Lido and James Palmer at Strawberry Hill.
Authentic Recipes from Jamaica presents over 60 full-color recipes with photographs shot on location. Lively essays by food writers John DeMers and Norma Benghiat on the island's culture and history, explanations of special ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes make this the most complete guide to Jamaican cuisine you'll find.
Jamaican recipes include:
- Pepperpot
- Baked Plantains
- Pepper Shrimp
- Ginger Tamarind Chicken
- Spinach Salad with Breadfruit Chips
- Sweet Potato Pone
- Jamaican Limeade
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Book preview
Authentic Recipes from Jamaica - John DeMers
Published by Periplus Editions, with editorial offices at
61 Tai Seng Avenue #02-12, Singapore 534167.
Tel: (65) 6280-1330; fax (65) 6280-6290.
Email: [email protected]
Website:www.periplus.com
Copyright © 2005 Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0536-2 (ebook)
Printed in Singapore
Distributed by
North America, Latin America and Europe
Tuttle Publishing, 364 Innovation Drive
North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436
Tel: (802) 773-8930; fax: (802) 773-6993
Email: [email protected]
Japan and Korea
Tuttle Publishing, Yaekari Building 3F,
5-4-12 Osaki, Shinagawa-Ku, Tokyo 1410032
Tel: (03) 5437-0171; fax: (03) 5437-0755
Email: [email protected]
Asia Pacific
Berkeley Books Pte Ltd
61 Tai Seng Avenue #02-12, Singapore 534167
Tel: (65) 6280-1330; fax (65) 6280-6290
Email: [email protected]
All recipes were tested in the Periplus Test Kitchen.
Illustration credits:Detail on front cover is from Two Daughters
by Margaret Robson. Photo on page 11 by Mark Downey. All other photos by Eduardo Fuss. Ceramic figurines on pages 1, 2, 3 and 15 by Orville Reid. Painting of a Jamaican scene (endpaper) and painting of a Jamaican kitchen on page 25 by Fiona Godfrey.
All photos in this book were shot on location in Jamaica. The publisher would like to thank the following hotels and restaurants and their staff who helped with this project: Terra Nova, Ciboney, Firefly, Good Hope Plantation Great House, Grand Lido Negril, Grand Lido Sans Souci, Jake's Village, Norma at the Wharfhouse and Strawberry Hill.
Contents
Food in Jamaica 4
A Diversity of Cooking Styles 15
Jamaican Coffee and Rum 18
The Jamaican Kitchen 21
Authentic Jamaican Ingredients 22
Basic Recipes
Festival 26
Johnnycakes 26
Pie Crust 26
Beef Stock 26
Chicken Stock 26
Fish Stock 29
Curry Powder 29
Appetizers
Ackee and Saltfish 30
Stamp and Go 32
Seafood Fritters 34
Plantain Chips 34
Mango Salsa 34
Steamed Callaloo Pastries with Ackee sauce 37
Coco Breads 38
Soups and Stews
Red Pea Soup with Spinners 38
Pepperpot 41
Gungo Pea Soup 43
Curry Pumpkin 43
Pumpkin Soup 44
Bammie 44
Oxtail and Beans 47
Fish and Shellfish
Run Down 48
Baked Plantains 48
Baked Breadfruit 48
Scotch Bonnet Grilled Fish 50
Pepper Shrimp 50
Smoked Marlin Salad 53
Brown Gravy Fish 54
Turn Polenta 54
Steamed Fish and Tea 56
Roasted Red Snapper with Vegetables 59
Spanish Town Scotch Bonnet Shrimp 59
Fried Fish with Coconut 60
Sautéed Callaloo 60
Meat and Poultry
Braised Blue Mountain Lamb 62
Curried Goat or Lamb 65
Beef Tenderloin with Ackee and Vegetables 66
Garlic Lime Pork Tenderloin with Grilled Pineapple 68
Spicy Meat Pies 68
Sunday Roast Beef 71
Pan-fried Yams 71
Jerk Pork or Chicken 72
Pickled Peppers 72
Roasted Cornish Hens with Thyme 74
Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Shallots 74
Ginger Tamarind Chicken 77
Rice and Peas 77
Fricasseed Chicken 78
Chicken Roti Roll-ups 81
Red Stripe Chicken 82
Soy Ginger Chicken 82
Vegetables
Four Bean Salad 85
Vegetable Stew 85
Spinach Salad with Breadfruit Chips 86
Callaloo Quiche 89
Stuffed Plantain Boats 90
Desserts
Plantain Tarts 93
Crunchy Banana Bread with Peanuts 94
Banana Fritters 94
Tropical Fruit Mousse 96
Sweet Potato Pone 96
Coconut Pecan Drops 98
Glzadas 98
Otaheltl Apples Poached In Wine 100
Totoes 102
Gingerbread 102
Rum Cake 105
Tropical Coolers
Tropical Fruit Smoothies 106
Strawberry Syrup 106
Pineapple Ginger Drink 108
Carrot Drink 108
Beet Drink 108
Jamaican Limeade 108
Tamarind Cooler 109
Sorrel Drink 109
Soursop Drink 109
Caribbean Sky 110
Mango Daiquiri 110
Pink Lady 110
Yellow Bird 110
Complete list of recipes 112
Measurements and conversions 112
Food in Jamaica
Beneath misty mountain peaks lies a land of infinite complexity
Jamaica is a lush tropical place offering intense adventure amidst one of the most tangled cultures on the face of the earth. It vibrates with the rhythms of reggae, is enlivened by the spices of pepperpot and jerk, and shimmers with the bright colors of flowers and paint. To think of Jamaica is to picture an island paradise of steep, cloud-bedecked mountains and jewel-like blue lagoons—a land of holidays and relaxation. But there is much more to this island.
Jamaica stands out among the islands of the Caribbean for several reasons, first for its sheer size: it is the third largest island in the Caribbean. With an area of more than 4,000 square miles (1,540 square kilometers), Jamaica is one of the few Caribbean islands with extensive agriculture, thus adding depth and variety to its cuisine while liberating its people from subsisting on imported foodstuffs.
The second reason for its uniqueness is the complex ethnic makeup of its people, who came, or were brought to Jamaica because of its vast tracts of tillable soil. Today's Jamaicans are the descendants of the Amerindians, European colonists, African slaves, and those who came later—Irish Indians, Germans, Chinese, Arabs Lebanese and Syrians.
Jamaica's cuisine is the product of this diverse cultural heritage, and its food tells the story of its people. The cuisine's unique flavors include mixtures of tanginess and burning hot chilies, the rich complexity of slowly stewed brown sauces, the spice of intense curries and the cool sweetness of its many tropical fruits. Some of the most authentic examples of the island's food are found in the most humble roadside eateries. And some of its best new fusions can be discovered in the island's hotels and restaurants, prepared by chefs who are joining traditional flavors with new ingredients.
ABOVE: The Spanish and British exported colorful and delicious food products from Jamaica with the help of thousands of slaves brought in from West Africa, the ancestors of today's Jamaicans right: A typical island breakfast of Run Down (recipe page 48), boiled green bananas and potatoes
This book aims to unravel Jamaica's multi-faceted culture and make it come alive for you. Whether you have visited often or never, these pages will cast light on the island's history, culture and, most of all, its cuisine. The recipes offered here run the gamut of the island's offerings—from the most humble, but tasty, fried bread to its spiciest jerk chicken.
Perhaps by reading in these pages about Jamaica, you will begin to share the pleasures of this multilayered island paradise, which is as complicated as its stormy history and cultures, as beautiful as its rare wildlife and flowers, and as unforgettable as its easy yet knowing Caribbean smile.
Native Caribbean soil
From its primal beginnings, Jamaica was ripe for harvest. The fairest land ever eyes beheld,
scribbled an eager new arrival in his journal. The mountains touch the sky.
This visitor was hardly the last to be awestruck by Jamaica's beauty, but he was probably the first to write anything down. The year was 1494. The visitor was Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World, and he had come to claim this fairest land
for God, for himself, and for Spain.
Hardly a set of eyes has settled on these mountains, waterfalls and hills that roll and dive down to the palm-fringed sand, without the beholder thinking he or she was seeing the biblical Garden of Eden. It is important, however, to understand the workings of nature and of humanity that have shaped Jamaica. Known to Jamaica's first residents, the Arawaks, as Xaymaca (land of wood and water), the island was just that before the arrival of Europeans. It featured the two elements in its name— both important to the Arawaks and anyone else hoping to settle here—but little else except a tangle of mangroves. For all the human suffering they brought, the Spanish and British also covered the island with colorful, edible vegetation. The tropical fruits and flowers of this beautiful island are transplants from places such as India, China and Malaysia. Still, nature has been bounteous, offering its many colonists fertile fields in addition to beauty and other resources. The colonizers visited many other Caribbean islands, leaving most of them as spits of sand dotted with a few palm