Callaloo
This is a dark green leaf plant grows to heights of 2 feet. The leaves are large and thick. Jamaicans use this plant to cook breakfast. Prepare the callaloo by stripping the skin from the stems. Then put to wash with a tablespoon of salt into water.
After that, shred the callaloo and seasoned with onion, scotch bonnet pepper, pimento seeds and some salt. Put the Callaloo to steam in a stew pot with 1/2 cup of water and some oil. In 8 to 12 minutes, you will have Jamaica’s callaloo for breakfast.
This dark green vegetable breakfast is delicious with boiled green bananas. They are both rich with iron.
Bok Choy and Chicken
Another name for bok Choy is pop chow, in Jamaica. This is also a dark green leaf plant. It grows no more than a foot. Another name for bok choy is Chinese cabbage. After cooked, it is accompaniment with boiled yellow yam or dumplings. Bok Choy is nice with boiled green bananas as well.
When I cooked bok choy with chicken, I used nothing but natural herbs and vegetables. Most Jamaicans prepares this meal on Sundays, in the morning before they go to church. Bok Choy and Chicken is a healthy choice for ordinary Jamaicans.
Cow’s Liver (Brown Stewed)
For most people Liver is not a food. However, Cow’s liver has 338 percent of the daily value of vitamin A and 988 percent of vitamin b12. Jamaicans cooks liver by brown stewing it. First, prepare and season the liver with scotch bonnet pepper, natural herbs, and vegetables. Put it to stew for 30 minutes. You have to experience this true Jamaican exotic cuisine for yourself. The taste is unique.
Cow’s Kidney (Brown Stewed)
The method to cook kidney is the same as cooking liver. However, the taste of kidney is unique. It is difficult to describe the taste. Indeed brown stewed kidney is an exotic cuisine. That the Caribbean people love to eats.
Curry Chicken
This cuisine is accompaniment with boiled yam, potatoes, pumpkin, dumplings, and ripe plantain for breakfasts. Curry Chicken is cook at lunchtime and dinnertime; however served with white rice. This cuisine is flavorful with white rice.
Curry is a mixture of several spices. Turmeric is the main spice. People who eat turmeric regular have lower rates of some cancers. The compound that makes “curry” yellow is good for fighting skin cancer. Curry may help protect the aging brain.
In curry, there are pigments, which are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities. Curry Chicken is nice with white rice. People bought this meal at dance halls and party functions as well.
Fricassee Chicken
Jamaicans also called this cuisine brown stewed chicken. Fricassee Chicken carries a taste you will never get bored. I always feel satisfied when I eat this meal. I can eat fricassee chicken every day. For most Jamaicans, this is also a choice for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Turkey Neck (Brown Stewed)
If you are low with money, this food is best for cooking. This meal is affordable. The turkey neck is brown stewed in the same way as fricassee chicken, except for a few details.
Cut the meat into small pieces. Then unlike the chicken, you need to pressure cook the turkey neck for 5 minutes; then stew it down with herbs and vegetables for 20 minutes.
Alternatively, the turkey neck is cook in a stew pot for one hour. Finally as a chef, I realized turkey cooked with plenty scotch bonnet pepper is best. It really enhances the taste. Any pepper is good.
Banana Fritters
When I was a little boy, my mother cooked banana fritters regularly. You could eat banana fritters alone. Although usually served with fried eggs, bacon or sausage.
Jamaica’s Banana fritters are a favorite with the children. It has over ripened mashed bananas, flour, baking powder, sugar, and water. With the right proportion, it will form liquid dough. From that, you would fry little dumplings. It is no bigger than your palm, half the size of a McDonald’s hash browns.
Cornmeal Porridge
A warm bowl of Cornmeal porridge will boost your energy in the morning. This porridge is a favorite for most Jamaicans for breakfast. When I prepare cornmeal porridge, I used coconut, instead of cow’s milk. Do you know what grits is? Well! If so, this porridge is the same. The only difference is that the cornmeal porridge has a smooth texture. Moreover, it tastes like corn flakes.
Some of the other porridge we like is peanut porridge and hominy corn porridge.
Ackee and Codfish with Roast Breadfruit
The ackee is a yellow fruit with a black hard seed on the top. It is big as your thumb and usually they come three fingers to a pod. The fruit is unique that no one can eat it before its harvest. To show the ackee, the pod will burst open with the sun light, and then it is fit to eat. This is so important! When the ackee fruit is available in the market, before people buy it, they can see the ackee pod is open.
The breadfruit is a large round green fruit. It is large as a basketball or little as a large grapefruit. The fruit is ready to roast when it is fit, or when the breadfruit is ripening. The fruit grow on a tree as big as oak tree. Jamaicans roasts the breadfruit over a wooden fire. It can roast on the stove top as well.
Together with ackee and codfish, the roast breadfruit is Jamaica’s national dish. This dish is flavorful and delicious.
The ackee fruit is dangerous, wild, exotic, and beautiful. While the breadfruit is hard and handsome; yet sweet, tender and smooth. Just like the people of this beautiful island Jamaica.