As I mentioned, I needed allspice to make Jamaican jerk, only of course that’s just a vague description of what I actually made. For one thing, jerk is more like a marinade. We don’t eat much meat, but have ample use for all kinds of sauces and condiments, so I made something more like a steak sauce.
I started out with the Jamaican jerk recipe CD gave me some years back: allspice, garlic, soy sauce, only no soy sauce because I’m allergic to soy, molasses, only no molasses because you cannot get it here but boiled down sugar beet syrup, cinnamon, spring onions, only I skipped them because I later added onions, nutmeg, dried fruit like cranberries, only that I used fresh nectarines and chillis, thyme, all blended together.
Yep, that’s me. If the survival of planet earth hinged on my ability to follow a recipe you’d better start packing. For the chillis I bought some Habaneros and I wanted to throw one into the blender, but then thought that it was prudent to start with half a Habanero because you can always add more. Good decision. It instantly went to the level of hot I like (which is probably too much for the rest of the family) and it’s got such am agreeable hotness. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, but sometimes chillis have this hotness that lingers for ages. Your mouth keeps burning even if it wasn’t that hot in the first place until you have some milk and this detracts from the actual taste of the food. These are hot, but 10 seconds later it’s gone. I actually kept spooning it into my mouth to see if the taste needed refinement without actually adding anything in between…
To turn it into a sauce I peeled and deseeded a pound of tomatoes, lightly fried onions in olive oil, added the tomatoes and let it stir for a while. Then I partly strained the jerk so there wouldn’t be too many coarse particles and let everything simmer for about half an hour. Interesting things happened. For one, the jerk turned very dark. That happened almost instantly, probably because the air boiled out. After about 10 minutes my disappointing nectarines picked up and gave some real fruity aromas to the whole thing. After 20 minutes the tomatoes vanished completely. I’m sure they’re adding taste and structure, but you would never guess it has tomatoes in it. Finally, the hotness was greatly reduced. Maybe Mr could eat some now. All in all I have two glasses of sauce now and I tried it on some vegan burgers yesterday and it’s just all I ever wanted.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
And because the light and the bubbles in the pot were just too pretty, here#s a video:
Bon appetit!
I like hot, spicy food (although judging by this post not as hot as you do), but hot, spicy food does not like me. Not so much during the eating mind you. The unpleasantness comes mostly much later and at the opposite end of the digestive tract.
Is there any possibility of a rough approximation of a recipe? It sounds wonderful, and would suit my spice-loving family down to the ground.
Jeannette
No problem, I don’t think that CD minds me sharing the ggodness
1 handful of allspice
1-2 tbs molasses (as I said, I can’t buy that here)
1-2 tbs soy sauce
maybe a bit of vanilla
garlic, 4 cloves or more. I tend towards more
a bunch of spring onions
-> blend
1 stick cinnamon (or a teaspoon of ground cinnamon)
2 teaspoons black pepper corns (personal preference: smoked malabar pepper)
nutmeg to taste
2 teaspoons of dried thyme. I don’t have thyme, so I use oregano
-> blend
chillies to taste. Cd suggested Scotch bonnets, but I’ve made it with all kinds of chillies
always blend
some fruit. CD said “Barbados cherries or West Indian cherries” but I never heard of them and can’t get them here. I usually use some fresh stone fruit as to me they’re adding the right amount of sweetness and acidity, but I guess that’s personal taste.
For my steak sauce variety I left out the scallions and lightly fried regular onions, added chopped tomatoes (about a pound fresh) and reduced the volume by letting it simmer for a while.