Great Jamaican Recipes
60 videos • 4,080 views • by by Best Jamaican Products And More Great Jamaican Recipes. Here Are Twenty Jamaican Dishes Served every day on our Island 1. Jerk Chicken is the most popular Jamaican dish known worldwide for its authentic Jamaican jerk flavor. Using spices such as the pimento, scotch bonnet pepper, scallion, onions, and thyme. There are some with their secret ingredients but those are the basic ingredients. Served jerk pan style or authentic original style roasted over coals on top of the pimento wood. 2. Jerk pork is second and uses similar seasonings as the jerk chicken. Not as popular as the chicken because it’s more expensive, the most known place in Jamaica to find jerk pork is in Boston, Portland. Because of the popularity of the jerk pork found in Boston, people from all over the island will name their dish “Boston Jerk Pork” which would increase sales, as it is believed that the best-tasting pork originated in that part of the island. 3. Red peas (kidney beans) soup is made with salt beef and/or pigtails. Pigtail in Jamaica is cured with salt and has to be soaked overnight or pre-boiled for a few minutes to get some salt out before cooking. The dish is made with the peas, taro, yellow yam, dumplings and scallion, pimento, thyme, and pepper. You have a choice to use coconut milk or not, depending on your taste. 4. Steamed fish. In Jamaica, this is actually stewed fish. It is mostly done on the beach, especially Healthshire and some other very popular beaches around the island. Scallion, pimento, pepper, thyme, bammy, and sometimes carrots and potatoes are done with this dish. Every cook has its own steam fish style so everywhere you go you get a different flavor 5. Fried fish and fried bammies. In case you are wondering, bammies are made from cassava. Cassava has been in Jamaica for a very long time and was the main staple of the Arawak Indians. The root is grated or milled, squeezed dry and they made into a flat (1/2 to ¾ in thick cakes). Bammy is tasty food and is very popular with fried, steamed, or roasted fish. 6. Roast fish. This is really a fish steamed in foil. The fish is seasoned and stuffed with callaloo (the Jamaican spinach) and steamed on a grill. You can season with the jerk spice and it becomes jerk fish. 7. Stewed peas. Most households make this dish once per week every week. It’s made with red kidney beans called red peas here in Jamaica. We cook the peas with the pigtail and salt beef until all is soft then we add our seasonings and cook until gravy is formed. This is quite similar to the soup but the soup has more water while this is served with rice. The soup is a dish by itself. In the stewed peas, we put some tiny little dumplings called spinners. The taste of the stewed peas and soup are distinctly different. 8. Chicken foot soup. The feet of the chicken is used to make soup. We use pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, Cho-Cho, yellow yam, and a packet of soup powder mix that comes in different flavors. 9. Manish water. This is a soup made from the head, feet, and tripe of the ram goat. In some countries, it’s known as Billie goat. It is very important to use the ram goat because it gives a different flavor than the “she-goat” (yes, that’s what we call a nanny goat). Another important ingredient in mannish water is young bananas. You slice the bananas thinly with skin and all and cook them in the soup. Ingredients include yellow yam, dumpling, potato, pumpkin, and carrots. You can add other things if you like. Use a ram goat noodle to flavor the soup! 10. Cow cod soup is another manly soup that only the strongest of men eat. In Jamaica we don’t say “eat soup”, we say “drink soup” because soup must have a lot of fluid that we drink from the soup bowl. In case you are wondering what the cow cod is, it is the testicles of the bull. We call both male and female cows, even the bull, but it’s really bull cod soup. Add your ingredients to your preference. 11.Curried goat. This is maybe the third or fourth most popular dish but it is not 100% Jamaican. The idea of the curry is Indian but the method of making the dish is Jamaican. The Indians will burn their spices in the oil before adding the meat. Jamaicans add their spices directly to the meat, rubbing in the flavor with their hands. We make sure the oil is smoking than we add the meat and cover the pot. We stir the meat ever so often to keep it from burning. When we are satisfied that the seasoning has penetrated the meat enough and it has a good color, we add a little water. If there is fluid in the pot from steaming the meat, we let it cook in its own juices until ready to eat. Serve with white rice and boiled green bananas. 12. Curried chicken is a very popular quick meal that friends make when they are on the river at a cookout or after a football match. It is done similarly to the curried goat but cooked much quicker. The chicken is cut into small to medium or even bite-sized pieces.