Cuisines
Caribbean recipes
Allspice, scotch bonnet, and slow heat.
16 recipes
Jerk Chicken
Chicken marinated overnight in scotch bonnet, allspice and thyme, then cooked slowly over smoke until the skin is lacquered almost black.
Escovitch Fish
Whole fish fried until the skin shatters, then dressed hot with vinegar, onion, carrot and scotch bonnet so it pickles as it cools.
Rice and Peas
Rice cooked in coconut milk with kidney beans, thyme and a whole scotch bonnet left in the pot and never broken.
Curry Goat
Goat shoulder burned into curry powder and then cooked for two hours, until the meat gives and the sauce is thick enough to coat rice.
Fried Plantain
Very ripe plantain sliced on the diagonal and fried until the sugars caramelise at the edges and the middle goes to custard.
Ackee and Saltfish
Salt cod soaked and flaked into sautéed onion and pepper, then folded through ackee at the very last moment so it does not break up.
Conch Fritters
Chopped conch in a loose batter with sweet pepper and scotch bonnet, dropped into hot oil and eaten standing up with a squeeze of lime.
Brown Stew Fish
Fried whole fish simmered briefly in a dark sweet-savoury gravy built on browning, onion and thyme, and served with the sauce spooned over.
Festival
Slightly sweet cornmeal dumplings rolled long, fried until crisp outside and cakey within, and eaten with anything fried or jerked.
Grilled Pineapple with Rum Syrup
Pineapple wedges charred over high heat and spooned with a dark rum, lime and brown sugar syrup reduced until it just coats.
Daiquiri
Three ingredients and nowhere to hide: white rum, lime and sugar, shaken hard and drunk cold and straight up.
Mojito
Mint pressed rather than pounded, with white rum, lime and soda over crushed ice, so it tastes of the leaf and not of the stalk.
Piña Colada
Rum, pineapple and coconut cream blended with ice until thick enough to hold a straw upright.
Painkiller
Dark rum with pineapple, orange and coconut cream, shaken rather than blended, and finished with far more grated nutmeg than seems reasonable.
Planter's Punch
One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak — the old rhyme, built on dark Jamaican rum and drunk long over ice.
Caribbean Rum Punch
A jug punch on the old sour-sweet-strong-weak ratio, spiced with nutmeg and Angostura and made to sit on a table rather than a bar.