Molasses and Mixed Spice Tea Bread

Because it is fat-free, and uses "heavy" flours, this is very dense and not overly moist bread. It is suitable for people who either do not like the taste of honey or are unable to tolerate it. The combination of maple syrup and molasses give the bread a balanced sweetness, and goes well with the taste of the dried fruits. It is best cut in thick slices, and enjoyed with a lot of butter. The shelf life is short, even in an airtight container. It’s best sliced and the slices frozen for use as needed. The slices warm up well in a microwave wrapped in a dampened paper towel, and using low power to reheat. The flavors in this bread will go well with either tea or coffee, and eaten as a breakfast bread or an afternoon snack.

 Ingredients

• 225g dark raisins, sour cherries and blueberries, in roughly equal proportions, coarsely chopped (makes slicing the bread easier)
• 300ml strong black tea (Use 2 teabags to the volume of water. Steep for 5 minutes)
• 75g Maple Syrup and Molasses mixed half and half
• 2 lightly beaten medium eggs
• 200 gms wholewheat flour
• 50 gms Flax Meal
• 25 gms ground oatmeal
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ½ tsp salt
• 2-3 dashes Black Pepper
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp granola for sprinkling (optional)

  Method

1. Put the chopped dried fruit in a bowl. Pour molasses and maple syrup over the fruit. Brew 300ml strong tea and add to the mixed fruit, maple syrup and molasses in the bowl. Cover and leave to soak in the fridge overnight. The next day, remove from fridge and bring to room temperature.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix well with a whisk.
3. Lightly beat the two eggs and add this to the soaked fruit mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well with a spoon making sure to incorporate all the flour at the bottom of the bowl.  Do not over mix.
4. Transfer to a greased loaf tin. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of your favorite granola mix over the top (if desired). Bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour, 10 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Serve sliced with lots of butter!

Cantonese Jamaican Steamed Fish – My version

Cantonese Jamaican Steamed Snapper

 After slavery was abolished in Jamaica, workers were needed to work on the sugar plantations and provide other services. The British introduced the system of indentured labour and imported workers from all parts of the British Empire, including Malaya, Hong Kong (British Canton), and India. These workers, coming from tropical and semi-tropical regions of the world, found many of the ingredients needed to cook their traditional dishes. However, they also had to find ways to incorporate others as substitutes for what was not available. This resulted in the fusion of culinary styles that we see in modern day Jamaican cuisine. The use of the Habanero Chili pepper gives it a unique Jamaican flavor. One such dish is Cantonese Steamed Fish that my childhood friend’s mother used to make regularly. Her style of cooking was Hakka but it is Cantonese influenced since the Hakka Chinese who came to Jamaica in the 19^th century, came from Hong Kong. I have added a few other flavors to spice things up as the traditional dish is very simple, using few flavors, ginger, scallions, soy sauce and garlic. I have added shallots, lemongrass, and altered the cooking technique in addition to the steaming and hot oil sizzle at the end. The techniques I have added are to ensure more complete extraction of all the flavors from the herbs. Since fish does not take a long time to cook, this cooking technique ensures that the flavors are infused into the fish at all steps of the cooking process. 

Ingredients

1 ½ lb Red Snapper or other fish

1 stalk of lemongrass, use only inner, tender parts. Cut into strips

5 stalks green onions

1 red Habanero Chili pepper

1 thumb sized piece of ginger root cut in batons

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1 shallot, thinly sliced

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ tsp sugar

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine

3 tbsp cooking oil

1 tbsp sesame oil.

Method

1. Cut the herbs as shown in the photo.
   
   
   
   
   They are cut in large pieces, not minced as they only impart their flavor, and are not eaten
2. Cut the green onions in half. The white parts will go at the base of the steamer to act as a platform on which the fish rests. Slice the green parts and put in a separate bowl.
3. Make 1-2 slashes in the fish down to bone. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar. Place in steamer on top of the green onion stems. Sprinkle the other ingredients (except the sliced green onions) on top of the fish, ensuring that the Habanero slices are at the very top. (See photo)
   
4. Drizzle the Chinese cooking wine over the fish and put in steamer. Steam for 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish. It is done when the meat flakes easily.
5. Remove steaming dish from steamer. Remove as many of the herbs (except the Habanero slices) as you can without breaking the fish into pieces. Put these in the cooking oil/sesame oil mixture and gently sauté until they release their fragrance and flavor the oil. Discard the herbs but keep the oil.
6. Drizzle the Soy sauce over the cooked fish. Sprinkle the sliced green onions over the fish. (See photo)
   
7. Heat the oil in a wok until it starts to smoke, then pour the hot oil over the fish making sure that it sizzles the Habanero and sliced green onion leaves. Garnish with cilantro and serve immediately.

 

 

Spicy Kale and Bacon “Mix-up”

Spicy Kale and Bacon

I struggle to find ways to eat more Kale. I got tired of steaming it with butter, or eating in raw in salads. This recipe is inspired by the Jamaican way of cooking “Callalloo”, a green leaf vegetable used throughout the Caribbean. It’s not done exactly the way it is cooked in Jamaica but instead combines other seasonings to get a unique taste, especially from the addition of the Japanese Rice Wine Vinegar. It makes a quick and satisfying breakfast. Because it has a slightly tart taste (in addition to being spicy), it is best paired, and balanced with a sweet root vegetable like Korean Yam or Caribbean Sweet Potato (Bonaito).

 Ingredients

2 ½ -3 cups coarsely chopped kale

3 slices thick cut bacon, cut in ½ inch pieces

1 tbsp cooking oil

1 shallot

3 cloves garlic

2 Thai Chili

1 Roma Tomato

1 tsp dried Jerk seasoning

½ tsp salt

1 tsp dried thyme

2 green onions, green parts only, sliced thinly

½ tbsp Marukan Japanese vinegar (I use this because it is less acid than ordinary vinegar)

1 tsp Worcester Sauce

Method

1. Cut bacon in ½ inch strips. Render this down in a frying pan with the oil until the bacon pieces are crisp, and most of the fat has been rendered. Remove the bacon bits, and discard all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat/oil.
2. Put garlic cloves, Thai chili pepper, and shallot in a small chopper and pulse chop finely. Do the same with the Roma tomato.
3. Fry the chopped seasonings in the pan with the mixed bacon fat/oil until shallots start to sweat. Be careful not to burn the garlic.
4. Add the chopped kale, sliced green onions, jerk seasoning, dried thyme, salt, Worcester sauce, and vinegar to this. Cover and steam for about 5 minutes. Add the bacon bits, and steam for another 5-10 minutes until kale is cooked to desired tenderness.

 

 

Vietnamese Grilled Pork with Lemongrass-Thit Nuong-My Spiced up version

Vietnamese Grilled Pork with Lemongrass-Thit Nuong-My Spiced up version

Sliced and still moist

 

There are many recipes on the internet for this dish. My version uses a Red Habanero chili in addition to the Thai Chili to give the meat a spicy, fruity flavor. I do not remove the seeds from the Habanero but it's advisable for people who are not accustomed to spicy food to remove them. The other ingredients are all pretty traditional, and are found in most of the recipes I came across on the net. I also cooked it using a variety of techniques (steam bake, and broil) since I do this in the oven, not on a grill. This makes it more suitable for urban dwellers that live in apartments. I slice the cooked meat thinly, and eat it in a lettuce wrap with rice vermicelli, mint leaves, cilantro, basil leaves, Sriracha sauce and Vietnamese Do Choa pickle. It’s a perfect Summer dish. I also use it in noodle soups to spice up the canned broth that forms the base for the soup.

Ingredients

 2 ½ lb pork butt or shoulder. I got some thick sliced pieces with fat in it. 

 1/4 cup minced Lemongrass 

 3 tsp brown sugar 

 4 tbsp fish sauce

  2 tsp ground black pepper 

  3 thai chili

  1 Jalapeno chili 

  1 red habanero chili 

  4 -5 cloves garlic, minced 

  3-4 shallots, minced.

    2 -3 green onions white and green part

    2 tbsp sesame oil

    2 tbsp thick soy sauce (not regular soy sauce. This is Soya sauce mixed with molasses, making it thicker and gives a good char to the meat. If you can’t get this, use a combination of equal parts of molasses and dark soya sauce)

Juice of 2 limes

Method

1. Make cuts in the meat with a cleaver. Do not cut all the way through. The idea behind this is to increase the absorptive area of the meat so that it takes up the marinade better.
2. Put the lemongrass (cut away tough outer covering), shallots, green onion, peppers, garlic, sugar, and fish sauce in a small chopper. Puree to a paste. Pour over pork in plastic bag and add black pepper, thick soy sauce, and sesame oil. Mix well. Marinate in refrigerator overnight.
3. Remove pork from bag, reserving marinade. Scrape off as much of the marinade mix as possible (see photo).

   

   Ready for first broil

   Place pork on a rack in a roasting pan, and place under broiler to char the meat. (see photo).

   

   Slight char after first broil

   When charred, place meat strips in roasting pan (lined with foil). The meat is not cooked at this stage so handle like you would raw meat.
4. Pour marinade over the charred meat and use the lime juice to wash out any remaining marinade in the bag.Pour this over the pork as well.
   

   

   Marinade poured over pork, ready to be covered and baked

   5. Cover the roasting pan with foil. Bake covered at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour.Remove foil (see photo) 

   

   After baking for 1 hour covered

   and place under broiler to obtain final char on both sides of the strips.

   

   Final broil

   Slice and eat in a lettuce wrap with the herbs and rice noodles(see photos)

Plate of herbs, Thai Basil, Cilantro, Mint and Pickled Cucumbers

Rice noodles with sesame oil

Iceberg lettuce

Wrap with pork, herbs, noodles, and sriracha

Spicy Pepper Chicken with Sweet Thai Chili Sauce

Spicy Pepper Chicken

By now, people reading my blog will know that I like very spicy food. I like to use pepper flavors from all over the world, blend them together to try and find the combinations that work. I could use the peppers in their raw state and make my own sauces but I also like to experiment with ready made pepper sauces to see how they play with one another in recipes! The end result I try to get is not having any one pepper sauce flavor dominate the taste but instead get the flavors to act like the different notes in a glass of wine. Naturally, such spicy food has to be balanced with the right amount of sweetness to make the end result lip-smacking good! This recipe uses pepper sauces from Peru, Jamaica, and Thailand, and also a variety of Chinese and Japanese seasonings. Because the Sweet Thai Chili Sauce is not spicy enough, I kick it up a notch by using the Guilin Chili Sauce from China. While it is probably better to do this on an open grill, it can also be done in an oven with just a few more steps in the process!

 Some ingredients you need:

Ingredients

2 ½ lbs chicken thighs (about 6), bone in, skin on

Marinade

½ tsp Jamaican Meat seasoning (Jamaica)

½ tbsp dried jerk seasoning (Jamaica)

1/2 tbsp wet jerk seasoning (Jamaica)

1 tbsp Worcester sauce (England)

1 tbsp Sriracha pepper sauce (Asia)

1 tbsp aji Panca paste (Peru)

1 tbsp aji amarillo paste (Peru)

1 tbsp thick soya sauce (this is a mixture of soya blended with molasses. It gives a nice char to the chicken skin) (China)

1 tbsp marukan vinegar (this is a Japanese vinegar with 4.5% acidity, not the usual 5% as is found in standard vinegar)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp pickapeppa sauce (Jamaica)

Sauce

 1 cup Thai Sweet chili sauce for Chicken ( I like the "Flying Horse" brand)

1 tbsp Guilin chili sauce

Method

1. Make 2-3 cuts in the chicken thigh on both sides, down to the bone. Place in a 1 gallon plastic Ziploc bag

2. Mix all marinade ingredients together and pour over chicken thighs. Massage well through the plastic. Marinate in refrigerator overnight. DO NOT add the Thai Chili sauce and Guilin sauce at this point!

3. Remove thighs from bag and broil in a roaster pan with a rack until the skin develops a char on both sides, as seen in the photo below.The chicken is not cooked at this stage so handle it as you would any raw meat.

4. Remove from under broiler and transfer to smaller baking dish so that the thighs fit closely together. At this point, pour the sauce mixture over the chicken and cover with foil. 

5. Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 1 hour. Take out of oven oven and remove foil. 

6. Place baking dish with chicken and sauce under broiler, and broil until the sauce starts to bubble and the skin starts to char. 

7. Remove from under the broiler. Pour sauce into a small saucepan and reduce until the volume is decreased by half. Plate and serve. 

After sauce reduction, sauce thickens and coats the chicken.

Apricot Sour Cherry Chutney

Pork chop, chutney, baked plantain and pickled cucumbers

This is a very quick and easy way to whip up a very tasty condiment to go with a thick cut pork loin chop, seasoned and cooked to your taste.
Ingredients
 6 dried Apricots
4 Tbsp dried sour cherries
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 Green Habanero pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Garam Masala
Thin slice ginger root
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
Method
1. Coarsely chop the dried apricots, cherries, onion, garlic, habanero pepper and ginger root. I use a small chopper to do this
2. Put all in a small saucepan and add the vinegar, salt, Garam Masala, and sugar
3. Bring to a boil and immediately turn down the heat to low. Simmer covered for 10 -15 minutes. If any is left over, it will keep in the refrigerator for a day or two.

Apricot and sour cherry chutney

Banana Chayote Squash and Mango Bread

Banana Chayote Bread

Living in Jamaica in the 1970s proved challenging for someone who liked baking cakes and breads. The importation of many items that used to be readily available in the 1960s, ceased, and one was forced to turn to making do with local ingredients that were not really made to do the same things. One had to figure out how to use things of similar texture but which had a different taste, in recipes. This bread is a result of that time when the motto was “Tun you hand” or make do with what you had. Fortunately, bananas, spices, coconut oil were readily available. All purpose flour and granulated or “white” sugar were luxuries to be had at supermarkets by buying “under the counter” or if someone would bring it back from a monthly shopping trip to Miami. These items were also available at US Dollar based stores in tourist areas on the North Coast, established for tourists and expats to purchase items. If you really wanted the items badly enough, and had a couple of US Dollars to spare, the items could be had a grossly inflated prices if you were prepared to drive from Kingston to the North Coast often. Brown sugar was often all that was available in ordinary grocery stores, and the flour readily available then was known as “counter flour” which I suspect was bread flour. This is why I have added flax and oatmeal as that type of flour is heavier, and more dense and glutinous than the lighter, all purpose variety. Zucchini could be grown there but I suspect that not many people thought about doing that even though it used to be readily available in supermarkets just a decade before. In its place, I have used the Chayote Squash or Cho-Cho as it is known in local Patois. This member of the squash family is grown and eaten throughout Central America and the Caribbean, and it became the substitute when “American” apples were no longer imported. The texture of the raw Chayote is like that of a Pear but the vegetable itself is tasteless. It does however take up the flavor of whatever juice or sauce in which it is cooked. Soaked in apple juice for 1-2 hours, it became pieces of “apple” used in pies, crumbles etc. All in all, as challenging as those times were, doing without a lot of things probably resulted in my making a healthier version of the bread!

The chopped dried mango makes a nice contrast

The Mango makes a nice contrast

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup oatmeal

¼ cup flaxmeal
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp allspice

Dash of Cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar

½ cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 medium ripe banana, mashed (about 1 cup)

Thumb sized piece of root ginger, peeled and finely grated

Juice and zest of 1 lemon (In Jamaica I used a small sour orange, known in local Patois as the “Civil” Orange, possibly a corruption of the term for Seville Orange. We used it to make Bitter Marmalade)
3/4 cup peeled, seed removed, coarsely shredded Chayote squash
1/2 cup chopped dried mango

Chayote cut open

Chayote

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one loaf pan and set aside. I also line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt
3. In a separate bowl, add the Lemon juice, zest, grated ginger, chopped dried mango, and shredded chayote squash to the mashed bananas. Doing this prevents the mashed banana from turning brown, and also helps soften the chopped, dried mango pieces.
4. In a large bowl, use the whisk attachment of your stand mixer to mix the eggs. Add the sugar and oil and whisk until it takes on a pale color, and is mixed. Change to the paddle attachment for your mixer. Add in the banana mixture and mix well. Add the flour mixture and stir gently with a wooden spoon or on low speed on your stand mixer until no flour remains. 
5. Pour mixture into prepared loaf pan. Bake until a bamboo skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes, depending on your oven. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, and then remove the bread from the pans and place on wire rack to cool completely before serving. Slice and serve. The bread keeps well when wrapped and frozen. Thaw just before use by reheating slowly in a microwave using low power.