Nuts

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Nuts

The edible kernels of so many of the nuts that Nature provides are munched in solitude while reading a good book, or in the company of others with cold beer and laughter before the main meal. But not often are nuts the main part of the main meal.

Cashew nuts, peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, pine nuts, Brazil nuts, hazel nuts (also called filberts) are only a few of the nuts with culinary possibilities.

Called ground nuts, earth nuts or monkey nuts, peanuts are grown in nearly every hot country and used to provide oil or paste (butter) which are both used in cooking. Peanut butter on toast for breakfast or peanut butter sandwiches for lunch are staples for Western bachelors with limited cooking skills, but peanut butter also makes a delectable sauce for cooked vegetables (bean sprouts, shredded cabbage and green bean) that are often served with stir-fried beef strips in an Indonesian restaurant. There is also peanut butter in a mouth-watering Nigerian chicken stew.

Here is a breakfast treat: Walnut French Toast

Combine 1/3 cup milk, ¼ cup flour, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons brown rum, 1 teaspoon sugar and a pinch of salt in a blender. Pour the batter in a shallow dish, cover it and let it stand for 1 hour. Meanwhile, finely chop 1 ½ cups walnut and put them in another shallow dish. Remove the crusts from 6 slices of stale bread and cut them diagonally. Soak the bread on both sides in the batter and dip each side in the walnuts to coat them. Sauté the bread on both sides in clarified butter, in a skillet until golden. Transfer to paper towels to drain and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

The following sauce for your spaghetti makes a quick and easy supper. There is nothing to equal it. Again you will need the blender. Add 1 cup loosely packed basil leaves fresh, ½ cup pine nuts (walnuts substitute well), and 2 gloves garlic. Blend well; use a spatula to scrape down the sides and blend again. Add ¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese then add ½ cup olive oil while blending on low speed. Toss with pasta and serve with jerked sausages or jerked chicken and a green salad.

© Elizabeth North   24/01/1995

Pack a Picnic Basket

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Pack a Picnic Basket

Organize a two or three car group of friends and relatives (safety in numbers), pack a picnic basket, and drive. Head for some place in particular, but keep your eyes open for some quiet, but not secluded, side road where you can park safely and have some lunch. Set out a pretty tablecloth (or sheet) or serve straight from the insulated boxes in the car trunk.

You need two of those insulated plastic boxes: a hot box and a cold box. Prime your boxes before you fill them with the picnic fare. For your cold boxes, leave some ice in them from the night before. In the case of the hot box, warm it up with hot water before you pack the food that you want to keep warm for an hour or two.

Fricasseed chicken and rice and peas, your typical Sunday fare, makes great picnic food. Unless you prefer curry goat and rice, or individual chicken pies. Simple salads (sliced tomatoes with chopped fresh basil with oil and vinegar dressing… salt and pepper to taste) and accompaniments like pickled eggs or pickled beets go nicely with lettuce, washed, dried and kept in a plastic bag in the cold box. Wine, beer (those who drive should not drink alcohol), lots of lemonade or your favourite fizzy go in the cold box along with oranges and watermelon.

Coffee in an insulated jug is almost obligatory and those who will not do without dessert will want gingerbread or sweet pastries like gizzadas or plantain tarts. Throw in as well a few munchies like pieces of coconut and nuts.

We’ve got just the gingerbread for the picnic. Heat ½ cup water and add ½ cup molasses, 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter. Mix well and cool to room temperature. Sift together 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, ½ teaspoon cinnamon powder in a large bowl. Add the liquid mixture and 2 teaspoons grated ginger (more if you like your gingerbread with bite) and 1 egg, well beaten. Mix until the egg and flour mixture are well combined then pour the batter into a grease paper lined 9”x9”x2” pan and bake in a slow 300°-350° F oven for one hour or until done.

Sift icing sugar over the gingerbread and serve it with lemon curd.

Lemon Curd

Combine 4 egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup (½ stick) butter and the strained juice of 2 lemons in a heavy saucepan. Cook the mixture over a moderately low heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the custard is thick enough to coat the spoon. Do not let it boil. Transfer the custard, cool, then chill it, covered with a piece of buttered wax paper. Makes about 1 cup. Keep this in the cold box on the way to the picnic.

Whatever you do, don’t forget the knives and forks and spoons… and the plates. And don’t leave a mess behind at your picnic site: take along a trash bag and take it back home with you.

© Elizabeth North   10/01/1995

British Beef

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: British Beef

The meat of meats for the English has always been Beef. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie and all that solid, sustaining food that dates from the time of the Tudors has characterized the British menu over the years. Mention roast beef charred on the outside and tender and moist on the inside and you have the expatriate English among us thinking of home. British beef is taking a beating lately, and all the upheaval over the mad cow disease has gone right to the heart of every true-blue Englishman. There is still some good beef left in England, we are told, even if it is only a matter of faith and trust; certainly, there will always be Englishmen who are willing to eat it.

Let us hear from the esteemed Alexandre Dumas on the subject of British Beef which today is full of irony. He was writing in 1869: “I saw the birth of the bifteck (beefsteak) in Paris after the three-year occupation by the English in 1815. Before that our cookery had been as far apart as our opinions. It was therefore with some trepidation that we saw the bifteck surreptitiously insinuate itself in our cuisine. However, since we are an eclectic and unprejudiced people, we soon perceived that although the Greeks bore this gift, it was not poisoned, and we handed the bifteck its certificate of citizenship. However there is still a big difference between an English beefsteak and a French bifteck. We make ours from the fillet of the sirloin, while our neighbours cut theirs from the rump. But in England this part of the steer is much more tender than in France, because they feed their cattle better and slaughter them younger. They slice it about an inch thick, flatten it a bit, and fry it on special cast-iron skillets over coal rather than charcoal. The true bifteck fillet should be grilled over hot charcoal and turned only once, to conserve the good juices… “The rump of the English beef (and I eat with renewed pleasure every time I go to England) is infinitely more savoury than the cut we use in biftecks. It must be eaten in an English tavern, sautéed with Madeira or anchovy butter or served on a bed of cress with vinegar…

“In general,” he continues. “the meat of ruminants is better in England than in France, because they are given particular attention in feeding and care. Nothing can compare with those whole roasted beef quarters that are trundled about on the miniature railways that separate the guests of an English tavern. Those pieces of beef veined with fat, weighing up to a hundred pounds, from which one cuts one’s chosen portion, have no peer for the stimulation of the appetite. The English grow beef so fat the cattle seem to have lost the use of their legs and walk on their stomachs. The cattle breeders and the feeders make the animals drink up to 20 gallons of water a day. Where English cooking is weak is in the sauce department. But large fish and butcher’s meat are infinitely finer in London than in Paris”.

Comparisons may be invidious, but we do have some pretty good beef in Jamaica these days. There are some beef farmers who are taking their business seriously. We even export some of it, but apparently not to Britain or to France. Here is Dumas’ own Beef a la Mode, a la Bourgeoise. Do give it a try. “Take, preferably, the centre cut of rump and lard with bacon. Put in a heavy covered pot with 2 carrots, 4 onions (1 with 2 cloves stuck in it), garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Pour over it, a large glass of water, ½ glass of white wine or 1 tablespoon of brandy, and cook slowly until tender (5 or 6 hours, at least). Skim the fat off the gravy, then strain. Serve.”

© Elizabeth North 28/08/1996

Open Up Your Life

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Open Up Your Life

Open up your life and experience fresh new influences. These need not be far reaching changes like a new job, a new car or a new husband. Little changes can be quite significant.

First, put a little spice in your life. Pimento is a good one to try because it is ours. Jamaica pepper, Columbus called it, when he took it back in triumph to Europe believing it to be black pepper. And the French call it ‘quatre epices’ because of its distinctive flavour, pungent and aromatic, delicate and fragrant, tastes like a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg and mace which have been strongly spiced with cloves. The pimento is also called allspice.

Use it with a light hand to flavour delicate sauces for fish and eggs; use it generously whole for pickling, curing and corning meat; use it ground or whole in stews and sauces and gravies. Put a little in your baking – when you steam a dark pudding, when you make an otaheiti apple pie, or rush through a quick coffee cake. Let this wonderful spice influence your life.

Chicken Breasts in Honey & Pimento Butter: Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper, minced garlic and a little hot pepper. Add some sherry, cover and marinate for at least 2 hours at room temperature. Meanwhile, combine honey and pimento in a small bowl: (½ teaspoon ground pimento to 1 tablespoon honey, and add some softened butter, whipping to make a paste. Bake the chicken in a moderately hot oven for about 40 minutes or until chicken is tender. During the last 10 minutes, spread the honeyed pimento butter over the chicken breasts and serve with parsley potatoes or rice and a tomato and lettuce salad. Add a glass of white wine. 

© Elizabeth North     27/12/1994

Marinades,Seasoning

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Marinades & Seasoning

Marinades, seasoning ingredients and flavour enhancers that are made beforehand – say every week or every three days – are handy helpers for the gourmet on the run. You dash home from a meeting and have just enough time to do a quick stir fry for the family or to grill a couple of steaks for yourself and your companion before you are off again to another meeting or a night on the town.

At the top of the list is garlic in oil. Minced garlic in oil to cover it in a jar in a refrigerator does three things: it saves time, it saves your fingers (no more garlic on your fingers when you close the deal with that all-important client!) and it flavours your food beautifully. Add it to the pan before you cook, add it near the end of cooking if you want to keep some of that robust garlic flavour; put it on French bread before you crisp it in the oven, add it to oil and vinegar for a quick salad dressing. Olive oil gives great flavour but any oil will do. Garlic butter made beforehand and rolled in wax paper and sliced when needed is a variation on the theme. Keep this in the freezer for slicing with a hot knife.

Ginger in lime juice is good on fish and good on chicken too. Peel the ginger and grate it. Put it in a bottle and cover the ginger with strained lime juice. Add a pinch of salt to help preserve it. This also goes well in your drink; adds a certain something to the lowly glass of lemonade, does wonders for a fruit punch or any other concoction you want to try.

Having beurre manie (flour kneaded with butter) on hand is almost as good as having money in the bank. When the sauce should be slightly thickened at the last moment beurre manie is what you need. Knead equal amounts of butter and flour into a smooth paste and keep it in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator for a few days. Use about a tablespoon of the mixture at a time… you can add more if you want it but adding too much at first may spoil your sauce. Stir it into the sauce bit by bit a few minutes before serving: just allow enough time to simmer so that the flour will be cooked.

Last but not least, sherry peppers. It is the final touch to a memorable bowl of stew or soup or omelette. It had its beginnings in the 19^th century when it was called pepper wine by the Royal Navy who used it to disguise the abominable taste of their shipboard rations. Today, discriminating cooks use it as all-purpose seasoning or to enhance flavours. You can buy a bottle at the supermarket but there is nothing like making your own. Use scotch bonnet pepper from your very own garden or bird pepper, the hottest of them all. Simply steep the hot peppers (be sure to wash and dry them first) in a sauce bottle with an appropriate drip/pour spout in a medium dry sherry. You may also add a few herbs or spices if you like: a sprig of thyme, a few pimento seeds or a stick of cinnamon. Leave it to mature a couple of weeks before you start to use it.

Cornmeal

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Cornmeal

Cornmeal is good food. It is a staple for many persons in many countries around the world. It used to be a stable for many more of us in Jamaica until it seemed suddenly to loose its status and came to be thought of as an inelegant food “suitable only for dogs”. And while some of us stuck up our noses, the dogs have been enjoying themselves. That is not to say that very many of us humans have not been enjoying cornmeal also. In fact, some of us have been busy devising special cornmeal recipes.

An astute shopper will find that there are different grades of grinds of cornmeal on the market – the finer grind which some prefer for porridge and others like for cornmeal pudding (pone) packaged usually in 2 pound bags, and also pre-packaged brand-name products that offer a variety of textures. The dedicated cook will know that each produces a different type of product whether you make dumplings, turned corn meal, corn bread or biscuits. And there is much more that can be done with cornmeal – pancakes, muffins, pastry – cornmeal can be used to substitute for some, though not all, of the flour in many recipes.

As main dishes go, cornmeal and fish is a tasty combination. Browned stewed fish (brown stew fish) used to be almost everybody’s choice but more of us now are enjoying fried fish and festival. Some may, who have come directly under the influence of our “small island” brethren and sistren, have developed a taste for coo-coo which is really a version of fungi (what we now called “turned cornmeal”) and which had its roots in Africa. But let us not forget the Italians. Polenta is what they call their turned cornmeal which is simply cornmeal simmered or steamed (but not turned in the fiendish way that fungi or coo-coo must be turned) until it is a thick mass. Just like the English hasty pudding, it is served hot with cheese, and perhaps with a spicy, saucy chicken. And like our “turned meal” (t’un meal) it may be cooled in a mould then sliced and perhaps refried.

Then, there is “blue drawers” or dukunoo (or dokono), a sweet which is wrapped in banana leaves that are first made pliable with hot water, then steamed. “Blue drawers” too comes straight out of Africa and there is a version called paimi or conokies made in some other West Indian islands with pumpkin and coconut and raisins added. There is too a savoury version made with meat and seasonings.

Here now is Turned Cornmeal with the gourmet’s touch: Turned Cornmeal with Mushrooms. You need 5 tablespoons butter, 4 ounces fresh sliced mushrooms (dried, reconstituted mushrooms will substitute), 2 gloves garlic (finely minced), 2-3 sprigs of parsley (finely chopped), 2-3 sprigs fresh dill, salt and pepper to taste, and about ½ pound cheddar cheese, shredded.

Melt the butter in a skillet and add the minced garlic. Add the sliced mushrooms and sauté over a low heat for about 1 minute. Add the parsley and the dill and cook for about 4 minutes longer. Season with salt and pepper. Keep warm.

Start making turned cornmeal using about 4 cups of chicken stock (or stock cubes and water) to turn 1 cup of cornmeal. Cook for about 40 minutes or until done.

Mould the cornmeal in a shallow rectangular baking pan which has been thoroughly buttered. To serve, cut the cornmeal into square, top with grated cheese and a good spoonful of the herbed mushrooms.

© Elizabeth North    01/03/1995

Rabbit

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Rabbit

Ever since Peter Rabbit and Bugs Bunny, rabbit as meat for the table has been in decline. The rabbit as loveable(?) cartoon character seems to have made us all squeamish about eating rabbit! Which is not altogether understandable. We are happily eating chicken notwithstanding our own Percy, and Big Bird on Sesame Street.

Rabbit meat, low in cholesterol and versatile, is a most neglected source of protein. Farmed rabbits (as compared with wild rabbits) are fairly light in colour, almost like chicken, and the flavour not much different. Rabbit meat is economical, especially if you farm the rabbits yourself. Consider though that most backyard rabbit farmers are loathe to eat their produce – the sight of the cute, furry bunnies as meat on the table apparently can be difficult to take. It may not after all be possible to eat everything that you grow! But there are others of us who will eat it.

Supermarket packs of jointed rabbit meat used to be available here some twenty or so years ago when there was a rabbit revival in Jamaica. Nowadays, perhaps only the 4-H Clubs (if they still exist!) and the Animal Husbandry class at the Technical & Vocational Schools are likely to be involved with rabbit farming. Rabbit is good meat and more of us should take and interest.

In Britain rabbit used to be very popular. They used to make rabbit stews and pies; rabbits were also potted and roasted depending on their age. But in recent times, myxomatosis, a viral disease in rabbits, has put some Britons off their rabbit. I France they braise rabbit with garlic and wine; in Italy they roast it with sage, or with mustard or with wine; in Spain, they cook it with saffron rice, or they enrich it with chocolate, of all things.

The creative cook with an eye on economy as well as gastronomy could really get cooking with rabbit: rabbit casserole with minced black olives… braised rabbit with red wine and chestnuts or with beer and prunes. The Spanish influence in many of the Caribbean’s rabbit dishes is obvious in the addition of garlic, olive oil, sherry and pimento-stuffed olives. In the Leeward Islands, rabbit is sometimes curried the way we do goat in Jamaica. The following recipe is also from the Leeward Islands.

If you can find a rabbit, try Rabbit & Peanut Stew. Start with some salt pork, about 2 ounces, cut into pieces. Render it and use it to sauté 2 ½ lbs rabbit meat, cut into bit size pieces, until brown. Add chopped onion and minced garlic and sauté lightly. Add some stock (chicken stock will do) or water and herbs: bay leaf, marjoram and thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer until the rabbit is tender. Cooking time will almost certainly depend on the age of the rabbit. In the meantime make a sauce with 3 or 4 ounces of peanuts, 2 hot peppers (seeds and membranes removed) and about ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg. Combine the three ingredients in a blender until smooth, (no blender? Use peanut butter and hot pepper sauce and add the nutmeg), and add enough water or stock. Simmer gently for 15 minutes and taste for seasoning. Add the rabbit pieces and simmer until heated through. Serve with plain rice and a colourful salad.

If you have not been lucky to find a rabbit, try this recipe using goat or chicken… but keep looking for the rabbit!

© Elizabeth North   01/05/1995