Recipes By Ashley Lonsdale
14 recipes found
Chicken Soup With Corn and Spinners
This recipe is a more streamlined take on a Jamaican Saturday soup, a simmered-until-tender marriage of beef or chicken and starchy vegetables. Thanks to a few strategic moves, this recipe takes only one hour but tastes like the result of an hours-long endeavor. Simmering bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs in chicken stock fortifies the soup, coaxing out gelatin from the bones and releasing fat from the skin to create a rich foundation. Instead of cutting corn kernels off the cob, the corn cobs are cut into pieces, which are less fussy to prepare, and more fun to eat — with hands, as nature intended! Handmade dumplings called spinners thicken the soup further and add a chewy bite.
Ginger-Lime Cucumber Salad
Cooling, refreshing and supremely easy to make, this cucumber salad spotlights spicy ginger, bright lime juice and a blend of fresh herbs to emphasize its green color and flavor. The most essential ingredient, an often-overlooked component in the cucumber universe, is patience. Marinating cucumbers, even if only for 10 minutes, allows new and distinct flavors the opportunity to penetrate the juicy flesh, resulting in a more savory outcome. Make this salad a couple of hours before serving, or even the night before, to allow the dressing its most optimal influence. Spoon this salad over freshly toasted, crusty bread, with or without a few slices of gravlax, along with the juices that inevitably pool at the bottom of the salad bowl.
Tamarind-Glazed Chicken Thighs
In this rich, schmaltzy chicken roast, the energetic pucker of tamarind joins forces with the sweetness of orange juice to create a refreshing glaze. Tamarind is one of those magical ingredients that adds complexity through fruity, caramel and sour notes. Although prepping fresh tamarind is a straightforward task, jarred paste is becoming more widely available and is oh-so-easy to use. Ensure your chicken thighs are bone-dry before seasoning and searing to get a deep, even color on the skin and the flesh, which is a crucial first step in developing the flavor of the dish. Finishing the chicken thighs slowly in a low-heat oven guarantees tender, juicy results.
Sizzled Scallion Rice With Sardines
This sardine rice recipe unites some likely kitchen inhabitants, such as onions, garlic and leftover rice, to make a quick, allium-perfumed weeknight dinner. Since fat is an excellent courier for flavor, giving the olive oil time with the aromatics and sardines ensures a satisfying amount of each ingredient's fragrance and flavor throughout the rice. Is it fried rice? Technically, yes, but the taste drifts toward the Caribbean. The dish stands alone, as any seafood fried rice can, but would also welcome a soft-boiled egg on top, if you’re up for getting another pot involved.
Spiced, Dry-Brined Mushrooms
Dry brining is a technique typically used to tenderize and flavor meat by harnessing two simple but powerful culinary tools: salt and time. This vegan recipe applies the process to mushrooms, along with a fragrant spice blend and olive oil to aid in flavor, color and texture. Just thirty passive minutes can produce a meaningful metamorphosis for these mushrooms, releasing excess moisture and allowing the mushrooms to brown deeply. Once pulled from the oven, the mushrooms can be stuffed into a roti with pickled onions and cucumbers, served on a mezze platter next to muhammara and hummus, or enjoyed however you please! Oyster mushrooms are a fantastic choice, but maitake, baby bella, portobello or a blend of each will work well, too.
Spice Muffins
Deep, complex flavors from molasses and stout distinguish these muffins from the typical sweeter varieties, and nutty brown butter and spices like cardamom, allspice and cinnamon bring a toasty warmth. Those familiar with Jamaican spice bun will be pleasantly surprised to find many parallels between that cake and these muffins. The chewy, spicy tendrils of crystallized ginger — which are optional in this recipe but highly recommended — stand in for the traditional fruit mix and further amplify the ground ginger in the batter.
Curry Shrimp and Sweet Potato
Inspired by the charms of Caribbean curry shrimp, this recipe provides a quick and adaptable path to dinner. Once the base recipe has been memorized, any number of substitutions can be made for the shrimp and supporting vegetables. The formula is simple: While shrimp marinate in curry powder, a medley of onions, bell peppers, garlic and chiles sweat their way to succulence. Sliced onions are added in two steps — once at the beginning and again at the end, with the shrimp — to offer both a mellow sweetness and a more pungent bite. This curry can be served on its own, but prefers to be spooned over freshly steamed rice.
Spinach and Gungo Pea Soup
When the winter soup rotation starts to feel a bit stodgy, reach for this more-green-than-bean recipe. Also labeled as pigeon peas, gandules or whole toor, depending on where you may purchase them, gungo peas are earthy and starchy, with a flavor similar to black-eyed peas. Bacon, in the form of both rendered bacon fat and crumbled bacon bits, offers smoky and savory notes to the soup. Seemingly endless piles of baby spinach finish the soup just before a portion of it is blitzed with an immersion blender, which adds body and encourages even more melding of flavors than the long simmer.
Cabbage With Spiced Rum Butter and Scallions
Steamed cabbage is easily the unsung hero of any Jamaican takeout container. This recipe mimics the well-seasoned Caribbean side dish with a few additions and subtractions. Regardless of its edits, this particular steamed cabbage is a top choice to nestle next to rice and peas, brown stew chicken, fried plantains or all three. A spiced butter enriched with rum adds a few extra layers of flavor, and an entire bunch of scallions, along with onion and garlic, provide plenty of savory allium notes. Instead of including a more typical blend of carrots, bell peppers and other vegetables, the cabbage takes center stage as the star of the dish. Steaming the cabbage with the least amount of added moisture takes some attention and monitoring, but the concentrated flavors are worth the effort.
Saltfish Fritters
A festive fixture in the Caribbean, these fritters — which are sometimes referred to as stamp and go in Jamaica — are fun to eat, relatively easy to make and best served piping hot. The rewards for a direct line from pan to plate are crispy edges and fluffy, chewy centers, thanks to a little lift from baking powder. For entertaining success, prepare the salt cod and seasoning ahead of time, and then simply mix and fry the batter as guests arrive. If possible, use coconut oil for frying to add an additional layer of tropical aroma. Serve fritters as is, or with a spicy dipping sauce like pepper sauce.
Rice and Peas
This steamed pilaf of rice and red kidney beans (also known as “red peas" in Jamaica) is a beloved companion to many Caribbean classics like oxtail, curry goat and escovitch fish. It is also supremely satisfying on its own with a simple pat of butter. Coconut milk, onion and thyme mingle with the beans as they cook, creating an earthy broth that eventually plumps the rice and gives it its signature hue. Sometimes, the coconut milk is prepared from scratch, but the canned version requires much less effort and adds a similar richness. Some may prefer to pressure cook their beans for speed, but this version calls for an overnight soak (which speeds up the cooking process and helps the beans cook evenly) and some good old-fashioned patience.
Spicy Molasses-Stewed Winter Squash
Sweet, starchy slices of roasted kabocha squash are stained in a dark brown gravy in this vegetarian recipe, which can serve as a side but also makes a stunning centerpiece. Onions, bell peppers and soy sauce sing a savory melody, and fruity tamarind balances the dish with welcome acidity. Kabocha squash is a sturdy winter squash that does very well in this preparation, but other winter squash varieties like acorn, butternut or red kuri can be stewed to success. Skip the peeling if you're not fussy, and save the seeds for roasting as you would pumpkin seeds.
Summer Fish Tea
Fish tea is an endlessly flexible soup recipe found across the Caribbean, consisting of fish, starchy vegetables like pumpkin and yellow yam, and seasonings, which can all vary depending on the cook. Some prepare it with a helpful packet labeled "fish tea flavored soup mix," while others prefer making it from scratch with fresh fish heads. This weeknight version lands somewhere in the middle, showcasing tender-crisp summer vegetables like corn and green beans in a delicate broth scented with ginger, allspice and juicy hunks of snapper. If Scotch bonnet chiles are unavailable, habanero will work. Making a small puncture in the whole pepper will allow some heat to permeate the broth, but not an overwhelming amount. For a spicier soup, make a larger incision. To make this soup preparation even faster, you can cut the vegetables for the soup while the broth simmers.
West Indian Kedgeree (Coconut Curry Rice With Cod)
Rice plumped in spiced coconut milk, delicate steamed cod and fudgy egg yolks unite in this tropical take on kedgeree. A British derivative of South Asia’s ever popular khichdi, kedgeree keeps the golden spiced rice and swaps lentils for fish in a dish that’s one of many culinary byproducts of England’s former colonization of India. This interpretation begs for yet another leap across the ocean to the West Indies, where coconuts, scallions and curry abound. Traditionally, kedgeree calls for smoked haddock, but fresh cod is milder and requires less preparation, saving cleanup time. Salting the cod ahead of time lightly cures it, enhancing flavor and texture and giving a nod to salt cod, a popular ingredient in the West Indies.