Read The Sugar Mill Caribbean Cookbook Online
Authors: Jinx Morgan
The Sugar Mill Caribbean Cookbook (3 page)
Beach Breakfast
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Surf Sider Eggs
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Lobster or Crab Eggs Benedict
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Salt Fish Scramble
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Sultry Chile Soufflé Roll
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Rum French Toast
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Banana-Stuffed French Toast
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Piña Colada Pancakes
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Gingerbread Pancakes
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Tropical Fruit Waffles with Pecans and Toasted Coconut
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Sweet-Potato Waffles with Orange Butter
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Coconut Bread
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Pineapple Bran Muffins
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Tropical Fruit Platter with Mango Silk Sauce
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Gingered Fruit Compote
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Pineapple in Rum Cream
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Sunrise Smoothie
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Kiwi Yogurt Cooler
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Papaya Yogurt Smoothie
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This spicy combination of Caribbean black beans and eggs gives any morning a zingy lift-off.
Â
| 6 | slices bacon, diced |
| â
| cup chopped onion |
| â
| cup minced red or green hell pepper |
| 1½ | cups (1 15-ounce can) cooked black beans, drained, liquid reserved |
| Salt and pepper to taste | |
| Sazón seasoning to taste (optional; see "Sazón [>] ") |
| 3 | ripe plantains or green bananas, peeled and sliced diagonally |
| Vegetable oil |
| 1 | jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced |
| ½ | yellow onion, minced |
| 3 to 4 | ripe fresh tomatoes or 7 to ounces canned plum tomatoes, chopped |
| 2 | tablespoons tomato sauce |
| 2 to 3 | sprigs cilantro or parsley |
| Salt and pepper to taste | |
| Lime juice to taste | |
| 6 to 12 | eggs, poached or fried |
| Grated parmesan cheese | |
| 6 | lime slices |
To prepare the beans, cook the bacon until the fat is rendered. Add the" chopped onion and pepper, and cook until they are limp. Add the black beans, and mash some of them with the back of a spoon. Cook the beans over low heat, moistening the mixture with the reserved bean juice as needed. Season the beans with salt, pepper, and, if you like, Sazón seasoning. Keep the beans hot.
To prepare the plantains, heat ½ inch oil in a skillet, and fry the plantain slices on both sides until they are golden brown. Drain them on paper towels.
For the sauce, stir together all the sauce ingredients. Season with salt, pepper, and lime juice.
To assemble each serving, spoon a portion of beans onto a plate. Place one or two freshly poached or fried eggs on top. Arrange plantain slices on the side, and spoon a small amount of sauce beside the egg. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, and garnish with lime slices.
Serve at once.
Â
Makes 6 servings
Sazón, a seasoning mixture containing ground annatto seeds, cilantro, and other Caribbean seasonings, is available in many Latin American markets and from Goya Foods, Inc., Secaucus, New Jersey 07094.
Surfers and sailors like to start the day at the Sugar Mill with this heavyduty breakfast of poached eggs on a beef-and-spinach bed topped with a smooth cheese sauce.
Â
| ½ | cup flour |
| ¼ | cup butter |
| 1¼ | cups milk |
| â
| cup grated cheddar cheese |
| Salt and pepper to taste | |
| 1 | pinch nutmeg |
| A few drops hot pepper sauce | |
| 1 | tablespoon vegetable oil |
| 1½ | pounds ground beef |
| 1 | medium onion, chopped |
| 1 | large garlic clove, minced |
| 1 | teaspoon salt |
| 1 | tablespoon minced fresh oregano, or ½ teaspoon dried oregano |
| 1 | teaspoon ground nutmeg |
| ¼ | teaspoon ground black pepper |
| 1 | package (10 to 12 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed to remove excess liquid |
| ½ | cup grated parmesan cheese |
| 6 to 12 | poached eggs |
To make the cheese sauce, combine the flour and butter in a saucepan, and cook the mixture about five minutes over low heat. Stir in the milk, and whisk vigorously as the sauce thickens. When the sauce is thick, add the cheese and seasonings. Keep the sauce warm. (It may be reheated over hot water or in a microwave.)
Heat the oil in a heavy skillet. Add the beef, and cook it until it is brown and crumbly. Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook, stirring, until the onion is limp, about 5 minutes. Add the salt, oregano, nutmeg, and pepper. Add the spinach, and continue cooking and stirring until the liquid has evaporated. Add the cheese. Spoon the mixture into six ramekins. Top each serving with one or two freshly poached eggs, and spoon on the hot cheese sauce. Serve immediately.
Â
Makes 6 servings
The elegant oval of a skillfully poached egg is a whole lot easier to attain if the egg is very fresh. Most of us, however, have only store-bought eggs of uncertain vintage on hand and so must use a few tricks to make the eggs behave.
We find that a little vinegar in the cooking water (about 2½ tablespoons vinegar for every quart of water) helps coagulate the surface of the white. Stirring the water into a small whirlpool and slipping the egg from a dish into the vortex also helps the egg form a neat shape.
If you're nervous about preparing poached eggs while your guests are waiting, simply cook the eggs at your leisure a day or two ahead, submerge them in a container of cold water, cover the container, and refrigerate it. When you're ready to serve breakfast, slip the eggs into simmering water, heat them for 2 minutes, and remove them with a slotted spoon.
Start the day the elegant Caribbean way with lobster swathed in lime hollandaise in an island version of classic eggs Benedict.
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| 1 | tablespoon butter |
| ½ | cup sliced green onions |
| 1 | pound cooked lobster or crab meat, drained |
| 4 | English muffins, split and toasted |
| 4 | large eggs |
| ½ | teaspoon salt |
| ½ | teaspoon grated lime zest |
| 2 | tablespoons lime juice |
| ½ | cup butter, melted |
| Loose-leaf lettuce | |
| 8 | poached eggs |
| Paprika | |
| 1 | cup chopped fresh tomatoes |
Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, and add the green onions. Sauté them, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Add the lobster or crab meat, and cook until it is thoroughly heated. Keep the mixture warm.
To make the lime hollandaise sauce, whirl the eggs, salt, lime zest, and lime juice together in a blender. While the machine is running, slowly add the hot melted butter. Whirl until the sauce is thick and smooth. You can keep it hot in the top of a double boiler over simmering water.
Arrange the English muffin halves on individual plates lined with lettuce. Spoon the lobster or crab mixture evenly over the muffin halves. Top with poached eggs, and spoon on the lime hollandaise sauce. Sprinkle each serving with paprika, and garnish with-chopped tomato.
Â
Makes 4 to 8 servings
"Salt fish and ackee" is a favorite breakfast in Jamaica, but ackee is a tricky fruit. Until it bursts open and "smiles," revealing its yellow meat and characteristic black seeds, it's poisonous. When cooked, ackee is very similar in taste and pearance to scrambled eggs. So we prefer to live a little less dangerously by making a similar dish using the less exotic egg.
You can make your own annatto oil for this recipe (see "Annatto"), or substitute plain oil with a pinch of saffron or turmeric added.
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| â
| pound dried, salted codfish |
| 4 | cups water |
| 2 | tablespoons vegetable oil |
| 3 | onions, minced |
| â
| cup tomato sauce |
| 3 | tablespoons annatto-seasoned oil (see "Annatto [>] ") |
| 12 | eggs, beaten |
| Salt and pepper to taste |
Cover the salt cod with cold water, and let the fish soak for 4 to 12 hours.
Drain the fish, and place it in a saucepan with the 4 cups water. Boil the fish 15 minutes.
Drain the cod, and rinse it in fresh water. With your fingers, shred the fish, discarding the skin and bones.
Heat the 2 tablespoons oil in a skillet. Add the onions, and cook them slowly until they are golden and tender. Stir in the codfish. Add the tomato sauce and annatto oil. Pour in the eggs, and cook the mixture over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time to scramble the eggs. Season with salt and pepper, and serve immediately.
Â
Makes 6 servings
T
hese rusty-red seeds, also known as achiote, are used by Caribbean cooks to color cooking oil a bright yellow-orange. A great inexpensive substitute for saffron, annatto also imparts its own delicate flavor. In the United States, butter and cheddar cheeses owe their sunny appearance to the pigmentation provided by annatto seeds. Annatto seeds are available in Caribbean and Latin American markets.
To make annatto oil, heat 1 cup vegetable oil in a saucepan, and add ½ cup annatto seeds. Heat the oil gently, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, or just until the oil turns a rich red-orange. Strain out the seeds. The oil will keep indefinitely in a sealed glass jar in the refrigerator.
Salt fish and ackee. Jerked pork and rock lobster. Blue Mountain coffee and curried goat. Rum and Red Stripe beer. Jamaica's cuisine is as diverse as the people who populate this cosmopolitan island, where a bounty of tropical foods is seasoned with the flavors of Spain, Africa, India, and China as well as the Caribbean. Jamaica's traditional dishes are a happy fusion of many ethnic influences.
Jamaica's cooks must also be both poets and wags, for how can we otherwise explain the names of some of their dishes? Where else can you eat duckunoo (a pudding made from cornmeal, coconut, sugar, and spices steamed in a banana leaf)? And if you don't like that name you can call it by another. The dark blue color imparted by the banana leaf and the shape of the fold leads some to call this dessert blue drawers.
Matrimony is a fruit salad made with star apples and oranges with cream. Mannish water is a highly seasoned soup believed to be a, well, let's say, a tonic, and as such is often served at weddings. Run-down is salted codfish (salt fish) simmered in coconut milk that's been thickened to custard consistency. Stamp and go is Jamaica's name for the Caribbean's popular salt-fish fritters
.
Some dishes, though available on other islands, are intrinsically Jamaican Salt fish and ackee is the Jamaican national dish, available all over the island at all hours of the day. When the fishing wasn't good in the old days, Jamaicans depended on salt cod, and liked to pair it with ackee, a fruit that, when cooked, tastes remarkably like scrambled eggs
.
Rice and peas with coconut is often called the Jamaican coat of arms, and homesick Jamaicans living in the United States dream of their native island when they smell the fragrance of spices, onions, and coconut simmering on the stove. Some Jamaican culinary inventions were inspired by recipes brought by colonizers. Britain's Cornish pasty, a meat- and potato-filled pastry, became today's Jamaican beef pattyâminus the potato and plus enough West Indian seasonings to fry most Anglo-Saxon tonsils.
One of our favorite dishes is Jamaican jerk, which is almost as popular on the island as rum and reggae. Created by the Arawaks and perfected by the Maroons, jerk pork is the ultimate island barbecue. Jerked food is hot, but it's flavors are also complex and exciting. They dance like a spicy festival in your mouth. Scallions, onions, thyme, Jamaican pimento (allspice), cinnamon, nutmeg, and fiery Scotch bonnet or bird peppers combine in a pungent medley that is rubbed on the meat before it is slowly cooked over a smoky open fire