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

Graham Crackers

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Graham Crackers

The Reverend Sylvester Graham from Connecticut, USA was an advocate of healthy nutrition. He lived from 1794-1851 and was a Temperance man. He also believed that food should contain no seasoning or stimulant that might inflame the blood.

He had many controversial theories about food and although he lived for only 57 years, some of his theories had more longevity. He vigorously promoted the use of his special flour – Graham flour – for which he eschewed the wheat germ but retained the bran. Graham flour is still a speciality flour today, but now nobody removes the wheat germ – indeed, with the advances in nutrition information, we now know that the wheat germ is more than the mere stimulant that Reverend Graham thought it was. It is valuable not only for the Vitamin E which it contains, but it is a source of protein (½ cup of natural wheat germ supplies 19 grams of complete protein which is more than 3 eggs), many of the B vitamins, unsaturated fatty acids and iron.

We also now know that the bran which the good gentleman so conscientiously advocated is very important to the diet. Bran, the residue after the whole wheat flour has been ground and sifted is coarse cellulose which provides good bulk for the diet, just what the doctor orders for “regularity”.

The Graham cracker became well known by the 1880’s and is probably best know as the main ingredient in the Graham cracker crumb crust, a blend of cracker crumbs, melted butter and sugar. This crust which is a crumbly, crunchy, textured alternative to the rolled-out pastry crust is at its best when filled with chilled desserts – a cream pie filling, a fruity gelatine concoction, even an ice-cream mixture, but most certainly a cheesecake.

Here is an easy dessert: you need a cracker crumb pie crust, a can of drained fruit – preferably berries (blueberries, for example) – or crushed pineapple; but fresh strawberries or orange segments will do nicely. You will also need 2 cups of sour cream (or as a substitute 1 cup cream and 1 cup plain yogurt combined) and ¼ pound cream cheese and sugar.

Crust: Combine 1 ¼ cups whole-wheat (Graham) cracker crumbs, 1/3 cup melted butter and ½ cup sugar. Press the mixture into a 9” pie plate using the back of a tablespoon and finally a smaller plate for a smooth and even surface. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned at 350° F.

Filling: Mix together the cream cheese, sour cream and ¼ cup sugar. Top with the mixture into a cooled pie crust, top with the drained fruit and sprinkle with a dessert spoon of extra sugar, more or less. Chill thoroughly before serving.

© Elizabeth North 08/02/1995

Coconut

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Coconut

Island folk know a thing or two that know-alls from the metropolitan centres don’t. One thing we know about is the coconut. We know for example, that coconuts grow on trees, we know that the clear liquid inside the coconut is coconut water and that coconut cream and coconut milk are what you get when you grate a fresh coconut and squeeze it with a little or a lot of water. A lot of people who don’t have the opportunity to live with coconuts getsconfused about things like that. Ask any of the tourists who visit us. Sometimes though, we don’t know what good we’ve got. We often take this fabulous fruit for granted.

Coconut can add so much flavour and textural interest to many of the dishes that we prepare: add thickness and flavour to curries and gravies, to sauces and soups; add to cereals and pastries and desserts of one kind or another. If it were handy, we would probably use more of it, but to go to the trouble to crack a coconut and extract the flesh and then to grate it and go on to make coconut milk takes a certain dedication. Frozen coconut cream and canned coconut, and more recently coconut milk powder, are all on the market for those of us who cannot find the time. But with modern appliances like the blender and the food processor, today’s cook does not have to suffer the pain her grandmother had, skinning her knuckles on a sharp grater.

Really, there is nothing like the right tool for the right job. In Asian countries a grating machine that screws on to the end of a table like a meat mincer is used very successfully. It has a number of curving, serrated blades, which meet at a central point like a citrus juice extractor. First they remove the juice from the coconut by piercing the eyes with a screwdriver (or ice pick), then they saw or crack the coconut in half. Then they stand in front of the grating machine, one hand holding the coconut half with the grating blades inside it and the other hand turning the handle on the machine. The coconut is grated right inside its shell! No danger of stabbing oneself with knives or skinning knuckles as there is, when one uses the grater and the conventional method. Why can’t some enterprising entrepreneur manufacture (or import?) some of these?

Here is a tip when you extract coconut cream in the blender: Use the least amount of water that is necessary to cover about a cup of coconut bits in the blender container. Blend thoroughly, then strain reserve the grated coconut. Pour back the same liquid into the container with another cupful of the coconut bits, and continue to process the remaining coconut bits with the same amount or very little liquid. You end up with fairly thick cream. The grated coconut can now go through a similar process with more water to make a lighter, less rich coconut milk and here is an important hint to remember when cooking with coconut cream: Because coconut cream contains some protein, it curdles and separates out when it is boiled. This does not matter in some dishes, but in others where a creamy consistency is desirable, the addition of a little cornstarch helps to prevent the curdling. In any case, it is best to simmer coconut cream, and not to cook it at higher temperatures.

The Amazing Coconut Pie is a simple treat. Combine 2 cups milk with ¾ cup sugar. 2 tablespoons flour, 4 eggs, ¼ cup butter or margarine and ½ teaspoon vanilla in the blender container. Cover and blend on low speed, stopping and starting occasionally, for 3 minutes. Pour into a 9” pie pan. Let stand for 5 minutes, then sprinkle on 1 cup grated coconut. Bake at 350° F for 40 minutes.

© Elizabeth North 26/06/1995

Hors D'Oeuvres

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Hors D’oeuvres

When one thinks of auspicious beginnings, the first thing that comes to mind is rumaki. These are delightfully delicious morsels that you can serve on your hors d’oeuvres platter. They are really chicken liver and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, marinated first then grilled on wooden picks.

First the marinade: In a bowl, combine ½ cup Soya sauce, 3 tablespoons medium dry sherry, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, 2 garlic gloves that have been crushed and minced, ½ teaspoon grated ginger and hot pepper sauce to taste.

This marinade is enough for one pound of chicken livers, which are about 12 to 15 chicken livers. Each chicken liver should be cut in half and patted dry in paper towels. Drain a can of water chestnuts and press a water chestnut against each liver half. Wrap each with half a rasher of bacon and secure with a wooden pick.

Add the rumaki to the marinade and let them marinate in a covered bowl in the refrigerator overnight.

Put the rumaki on a rack and grill them on a preheated grill about 3 inches away from the heat. Grill them, turning once for 4 to 5 minutes or until the bacon is crisp and livers browned on the outside but still pink inside. The rumaki may also be done in a hot oven (450° F) for 5 minutes.

Great beginnings deserve classic endings. What better than a macedoine of fresh fruits spiked with liqueur.

Get out your beautiful glass bowl. In it, put the fresh fruits of the season: pineapple slices cut in quarters, navel orange segments cut in bite size pieces, paw paw slices, mango slices, ripe banana slices. Add seedless white grapes and maraschino cherries.

Layer the slices of fruit with a sprinkling of fine white sugar and pour over a generous amount of your favourite liqueur. An aged rum is a good substitute. Chill for at least two hours and serve in elegant dessert glasses decorated with mint leaves... those little touches make all the difference to eating well.

© Elizabeth North 22/12/1994

Ways with Bread

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Ways with Bread

There are many ways with bread, whether you bake it, buy it or only eat it. And whether you like it fresh from the oven or just a little bit stale, bread is very likely on your table every day. Cooked and ready to eat – it is the staff of life some say – it is also a very convenient food, especially if it is already sliced or is a ready roll.

Bread will stale faster if you keep it refrigerated. Keep it at room temperature for more than a day or two in our climate however mould will grow readily, especially if it is left in a tightly closed plastic bag. If you have space in the freezer, it is best to keep your extra loaves there. If bread is slightly stale however, you can refresh it by dampening slightly and putting it in a warm oven. This applies to rolls as well as loaves. But when your bread becomes stale, don't regard it as a tragedy and a waste of your money: all it means is that the bread has changed its status. What you have now is raw material for croûtons to serve with soups and salads, bread crumbs or bread pudding.

Quite a few of us stick up our noses at bread pudding. But there is bread pudding and bread pudding. The classic Bourbon Street Pudding, is a gourmet's bread pudding which is best served directly from the oven, smothered with Bourbon Sauce. If you do not have Bourbon for the sauce, use whiskey, or rum.

For the pudding you need:

4-5 cups ¾ “ cubes firm bread with crust

2 cups milk

½ cup raisins

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Bourbon sauce

Butter a shallow 2 quart baking dish generously and spread the bread cubes in it. Pour over 2 cups milk and stir until the bread cubes absorb the milk. Sprinkle with raisins. In a small bowl, mix eggs, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Pour over raisin bread mixture and stir until evenly distributed. Put the baking dish in a larger pan with hot water that comes half way up the sides of the baking pan and bake in a preheated 325° F oven for 45 minutes or until the pudding is set, puffed and the top golden brown. Serve warm with Bourbon sauce.

Bourbon Sauce: Cook ¾ cup heavy cream with 3 tablespoons butter over medium heat until the butter melts. Add ¾ cup brown sugar and stir until the sauce comes to a rolling boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the bourbon until well blended.

Kapridutara is bread pudding that is a fruit lover’s delight. It comes from Lebanon where a keen sense of thrift is part of the heritage. The recipe is designed to use up stale bread and fruit that is past its prime.

You need:

6 slices of bread

1 banana (sliced)

1 apple (cored and sliced)

½ cup raisins

¼ cup chopped walnuts

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups water

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

Toast the bread on a baking sheet in a 325° F oven for 15 minutes; cut in small cubes. In a large mixing bowl combine toast cubes, bananas, apple, raisins and walnuts. Mix brown sugar, water and cinnamon together and add it to the bread/fruit mixture tossing to coat evenly. Bake uncovered in 325° F oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve warm or at room temperature with cream, if desired, or with cream and fruit liqueur.

How to make croutons: Sauté small cubes of bread in melted margarine or butter, or butter/vegetable oil combination. For herbed croutons, sprinkle lightly with parsley or minced chives, or with any herb of your choice while still hot. For cheese croutons, sprinkle with grated cheese. Garlic croutons can be made with fresh garlic (lightly fry the garlic in the butter/oil, remove it from the oil, then add the bread crumbs and sauté them). Or sprinkle garlic powder while you sauté the bread crumbs.

© Elizabeth North   09/04/1996