• Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Snapchat
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

MsMarmiteLover

  • Food
    • Recipes
    • Vegetarian
    • Vegan
  • Travel
    • France
    • Italy
    • Spain
    • UK
  • Wine
  • Gardens
  • Supperclubs/Events
  • About
    • Published Articles
    • Books
  • Shop
    • Cart

Caribbean Veganuary

January 28, 2019 Leave a Comment Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized, Vegan

Caribbean ingredients pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

I recently went for a tasting menu supper club at The Mango Room, a Caribbean restaurant in Camden, run by restaurateur Derick Blake, that has been around for 20 years. This makes the restaurant virtually an antique in the fast-paced hospitality industry, where restaurants go bust every year. Apart from the fantastic cocktails, the menu also showed that Caribbean cuisine, hailing not just from Jamaica, but also Trinidad, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and other islands, can be light and modern.

In January, we celebrate ‘Veganuary’, when people are encouraged to try veganism for one month. There is a long tradition of vegan cuisine in the Caribbean: committed Rastafarians are vegan, eating ‘ital’ food (rasta dialect for ‘vital’), and very religious rasta will only eat from wooden or clay cutlery and crockery.

The Mango Room serves several vegan dishes, including Ackee and Avocado with Spinach, Plantain, Tomato and Olives; Okra and Coconut Risotto with Fried Plantain, Cherry Tomatoes and Crispy Leeks. 

A popular vegan recipe, Rice and Peas, is a mainstay of Jamaican cuisine. ‘Peas’ are beans, and the further south, the darker the legume. Caribbean islands near to the Southern states of America will often use the black-eyed peas as I have. Jamaicans use the pinto bean. Islands closer to South American will use the small black turtle bean. The smaller the pea, the sweeter it is.

Despite the simplicity of the dish, to make it well requires time.

Rice and peas with fresh coconut

Jamaican Rice and Peas recipe

Print

Jamaican rice and peas recipe

Course Mains
Cuisine Jamaican
Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 200 g dried black eyed, pinto or black turtle beans
  • 1/2 onion, peeled
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled, 1 whole and 1 sliced
  • 4-6 pimento, all spice berries
  • 2 spring onions, finely sliced
  • 1/2 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
  • 50-75 g creamed coconut
  • 2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 scotch bonnet chilli
  • 1/2 fresh coconut, peeled and sliced
  • 2 slices of fresh ginger
  • 500 g basmati rice
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • Sea salt, rastas do not eat rock salt and pepper

Instructions

  • Soak the beans overnight in filtered or cooled boiled water from the kettle, adding the onion and garlic halfway through.
  • Drain, discard the onion and garlic and tip the beans into a heavy pot or casserole. Add the pimento berries, sliced garlic to the beans and cover with boiling water. 
  • Simmer over a low heat for 45 minutes, then add the spring onions, red pepper and simmer until the beans are cooked. Don’t let them get too soft, they should smell sweet and creamy.
  • Pour just enough hot water over the creamed coconut packet to dissolve, then add to the beans. You can add more or less if you prefer – I find too much coconut cream makes the rice greasy. 
  • Add the thyme, soy sauce, whole Scotch bonnet, fresh coconut and ginger and simmer, covered for 15 minutes. Fish out and discard the Scotch bonnet. 
  • Wash the rice and, once it is free of starch, add it to the beans and stir with a fork. Add about a litre of water and the coconut oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Cook, covered, over a low heat, until the rice is soft and fluffy, checking on the water levels but without stirring.
  • Pic:Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Plantain fritters

In the Caribbean, the creole word for banana is ‘fig’, just as it was for the ancient Romans. Some say that the banana was the forbidden fruit from the bible, rather than the fig, for banana leaves can easily be made into clothing unlike the fig leaf.

There are at least 20 kinds of ‘fig’. The standard yellow banana that we eat in the UK is the Cavendish banana. 

For the below recipe, make sure you buy ripe yellow plantains rather than green. Normal bananas won’t work, the texture is not sturdy enough.

Serves 6

2 large, ripe yellow plantains, peeled

1 green chilli, finely sliced

3 tbsp plain flour

Handful coriander leaves

Vegetable oil for frying

Salt

Mash the plantains by hand or in a food processor. Add the chilli, flour, coriander and some salt.

Heat a couple of centimetres of oil in a deep frying pan. Use a tablespoon to scoop the plantain mixture into the oil. Continue until the mixture is used up.

After a few minutes, turn over the fritters. When both sides are golden brown, remove to kitchen paper to drain. Serve with hot sauce as a dip.

Ackee with capers

Caribbean vegan: ackee with capers  pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Ackee fruit are rather like eggs: soft, sweet and yellow. They are usually served with saltfish; here, capers provide the saltiness.

3 tbsp olive oil

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

1 tin ackee

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp capers

Salt and pepper

Heat up the oil in a shallow frying pan, then fry all the ingredients together. Serve hot.

Recent posts

Smoked haddock chowder recipe in Suffolk

March 17, 2023

Jewish Italian food; artichoke season

March 11, 2023

Tinned fish recipes

February 11, 2023

Previous Post: « Starry starry soup recipe
Next Post: Andre Simon Awards: the Niki Segnit interview »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

Subscribe to my mailing list

msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Doing a spring budget recipe cooking demo for @bre Doing a spring budget recipe cooking demo for @brentcouncil Willesden library. I’ve been doing this a few times a year for the last few years. Wouldn’t it be great if they had a kitchen set up permanently. Libraries are community centres and could be used to teach how to cook from scratch.
Mother’s Day flowers from @siennamarla who is ex Mother’s Day flowers from @siennamarla who is experiencing her own first Mother’s Day with Ophelia. I’m still living in chaos & work was slow yesterday due to rain. Only another month…
Last week I did a wild foraging walk with @luciath Last week I did a wild foraging walk with @luciathewildkitchen in Kent @kent_downs_aonb just outside Canterbury. I’m going to help out during her May wild asparagus workshop. This chef lived in France, is a brilliant forager and cook. Her campfire meal of lentils, wild garlic raitha and a dukkah of alexanders, Parmesan was genuinely delicious not worthy like so much foraged food.
I did a bushcraft workshop with @naturalpathwaysbu I did a bushcraft workshop with @naturalpathwaysbushcraft Hannah Nicholls in Kent. An all female group, this felt very empowering and I must get myself one of these fire sticks. @kent_downs_aonb
Me @hamyardhotelsoho where I participated in a BRI Me @hamyardhotelsoho where I participated in a BRILLIANT block printing workshop with @mollymahonblockprinting it was a belated birthday present from @siennamarla The hotel is gorgeously designed, look at the fabric wallpaper behind me. Every corner is a feast for the eyes. Lunch was included and unlike many hotel restaurants the food was so tasty (and vegetarian), perfectly judged in quantity. Congrats to the chef. I got so excited on Friday I bombarded my timeline with stories which may have been a tad overwhelming. I’ve had a great week, going to Kent @kent_downs_aonb to meet foraging chef @luciathewildkitchen and bushcraft teacher hannah @naturalpathwaysbushcraft so it’s been one of extremes, from urban high glamour to roughing it outside in frosty countryside. I’m loving life as a journalist and photographer, I get to meet so many inspiring people. At home things are a bit grim because I’m having building work done and for almost 3 months I’ve lived in rubble, without heating, and sometimes without cooking or hot water. So these days out are fab for my mental and physical health. I will be posting more on Kent, Molly Mahon, Ham Yard hotel and the building works. #springiscoming🌸 dress by @designerfriday
Artichoke lasagne. I made a white lasagna with bec Artichoke lasagne. I made a white lasagna with bechamel, Parmesan, mozzarella and artichokes. I prepped the artichokes from fresh but you could use jarred. I had this @nonna_betta in Rome. It was so good I had to figure out how to make it myself. #artichokes #carciofi #romanjewishfood
Hags by Victoria Smith @glosswitch on twitter. On Hags by Victoria Smith @glosswitch on twitter. On the demonisation of middle-aged women. We are all karens now. We’ve passed our last fuckable day. This book, an easy read, not an academic one, is brilliantly written, with an ice cold anger at the way women over 40 are erased, told to shut up. Yes we call the manager. We are sticking up for ourselves. We don’t take shit anymore. We aren’t beholden to being liked by men, being girl-friend material anymore. Embrace your hagdom. You can buy your own flowers. #books #feminism #hags
Carciofi alle giudia, artichokes, Roman Jewish sty Carciofi alle giudia, artichokes, Roman Jewish style. I learnt how to prepare these from @silvia_nacamulli a local Jewish Italian cook and teacher, who recently wrote a book ‘Jewish flavours of Italy’ available from @green_bean_books you need the right type of artichokes: mammole are currently available @natoora via @ocadouk have some lemon quarters to rub on the newly exposed parts of the artichoke and put them in water with lemon juice to stop them going black. #you take off many of the outer leaves until they are half pale green. Then cutting in a circular upward stroke, you take off the hard green purple tops of leaves. It ends up looking like a peony. Cut off the fibrous parts of the stalk. Smear salt and pepper inside the flower. Fry at 150c for 15 minutes. Remove and drain, open up to look like a sunflower. Then fry again at 180c until the outer leaves are golden and crispy. Serve immediately. Divine! #jewishitalianfood #carciofi #artichokes #mammole #artichokeseason
@silvia_nacamulli has just brought out a fantastic @silvia_nacamulli has just brought out a fantastic book ‘Jewish flavours of Italy’ . She lives local to me so I went round to see how she prepares artichokes for the famous carciofi alle guidea and artichoke stew. You need mamole artichokes that are in season now from @natoora I’ll be publishing a longer video on YouTube and a piece on her cooking in the @hamandhigh
Whipped feta dip is so simple: a block of feta, a Whipped feta dip is so simple: a block of feta, a couple of spoons of yoghurt, some lemon juice, whizzed up. Add black pepper or herbs. #5minuterecipes
This is what I’ve been doing for the last month. This is what I’ve been doing for the last month. Want to replace window overlooking garden with a wider, lower one but struggling to find something nice. All new sash windows look kinda fake. #vintagewindows #building #exposedrafters
Baking for the builder: cranberry pie with cream. Baking for the builder: cranberry pie with cream. Just because you are a builder it doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate pretty pink china and home baking. #builders
My piece is The Great Read: My piece is The Great Read:
Naples at Christmas- discovering piennolo di vesuv Naples at Christmas- discovering piennolo di vesuvio,the Christmas 🍅, which lasts up to a year fresh. It’s given boxed as gifts around Christmas being the only local fresh tomato available. It dresses all the Christmas pizzas and pastas. It’s grown on volcanic Vesuvius soil and sparsely watered. As a result it has thick skins, and a sweet intense flavour. #tomatoes #italy #naples
Not cooking much at the moment due to a thick laye Not cooking much at the moment due to a thick layer of dust over my kitchen. This will be my dining room/photography studio. Done on a whim.#unplanneddemolition
Another picture of my granddaughter Ophelia in a n Another picture of my granddaughter Ophelia in a nest of apricot tulle (found at portobello market). Isn’t she lovely? #granfluencer
Broccoli Stilton soup. This freezing week is defin Broccoli Stilton soup. This freezing week is definitely a week for soups. My friend @jimfrommanc is staying & needs his hot lunch.
Cheese on toast with crushed chilli 🌶️ in Ven Cheese on toast with crushed chilli 🌶️ in Venice the fresh food market sells bouquets of colourful chillies. I’ve still got mine, drying in an enamel jug. #travelandfood
The Christmas tomato or piennolo di vesuvio. Read The Christmas tomato or piennolo di vesuvio. Read all about it: https://msmarmitelover.com/2022/12/christmas-in-naples.html  Got a couple of bunches hanging in my kitchen. #naples #campania #tomatoes🍅 #travelphotography
Opheliagram. This morning I photographed her in an Opheliagram. This morning I photographed her in an Italian outfit I bought in Naples on a William Morris playmat which looks great and is practical for tummy time. So many things are different about parenting now. Parents use apps to track feeding, pooing, weeing etc. You don’t bathe them anymore for the first few weeks because you want to leave the vernix ( the white waxy stuff they are covered in at birth) on their skin as long as possible. Nappies now have a line on them that turns blue if they’ve done a pee. White noise apps to help them sleep. New technology guides new parents. As well as ancient probably prehistoric customs being rediscovered. #granfluencer #grandaughter I’ve tagged in @siennamarla and @jamescalmus as the authors of this baby.
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Archives

Copyright © 2023 msmarmitelover