Caribbean Recipes
145 recipes found
Griot (Spicy Pork Shoulder)
Pikliz
In Haiti, this spicy cabbage, carrot and chile-laced pickle, which is pronounced pick-lees, is traditionally served with rich meats and fried foods, like the pork dish griot. Its bright, fiery tang mitigates the heaviness and balances out the flavors. It’s also a wonderful condiment to serve with rice and beans, noodles, roast chicken, or other gently flavored dishes that need a little zipping up. Like most pickles, it will keep for weeks in the refrigerator. Make sure to take care when handling the chiles; gloves are recommended here.
Jerk Seasoning
A rub is a dry spice or spice and herb mixture used to coat the meat before grilling, adding not only strong flavor but a bit more crunch, especially if you toast, mix and grind the spices yourself.
West Indian Lamb Curry
Curried goat is a popular dish in the West Indies, but lamb makes a fine substitute here in the United States, where goat meat is hard to find. This version, by the chef Martin Maginley from the Round Hill resort in Jamaica, is deeply flavored with allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers, but not overwhelming spicy. If you have time to make it the day before, it gets better as it sits, and gives you a chance to scoop some of the fat off the top of the stew before reheating over a low flame. And if you can procure goat, use it here in place of the lamb.
Grilled Chicken Thighs With Sauce Au Chien
Coconut Cream
Guinness Stout Ice Cream
Palomilla
Black Cake
Although black cake is descended from the British plum pudding, for Caribbean-born New Yorkers and their children, who number more than half a million, it evokes nostalgia for the islands, where the baking was a solemnly observed annual ritual. The cake is baked just before Christmas and eaten at Christmas dinner and afterward, in thin slices, for as long as it lasts. Because of the soaking of the fruit and the use of brown sugar and a bittersweet caramel called browning, black cake is to American fruitcake as dark chocolate is to milk chocolate: darker, deeper and altogether more absorbing.
Avocado Mousse With Shrimp Sauce
Clam Fritters
This is a recipe for classic New England clam fritters prepared as conch fritters are in the Bahamas, with a low zip of jalapeno heat and a high one of lime juice. I serve them with my version of the ubiquitous mayo-ketchup sauce of the Lucayan archipelago. These fritters are terrific when prepared with freshly shucked clams, but if you don’t want to open clams by hand, they are still excellent with lightly steamed ones. A deep cast-iron skillet placed over a gas grill allows you to fry the fritters outdoors if you like, reducing kitchen mess. Or if you don’t wish to fry, you can treat the batter as if it were for pancakes. The flavor abides, if not the full crispiness.
Jamaican Janga
Platanos Maduros (Fried Yellow Plantains)
Here, two simple ingredients yield huge, complex results. There's something about frying deep yellow plantains in oil that brings out their sweetness. The crisp outside yields to a soft, sweet center, the complement to a platter of rice and beans and garlicky pork. But, to be honest, they're so good, they might not even make it to the table.
Fried Plantains With Herbs
Platanos Verdes (Fried Green Plantains)
Plantain Soup
Banan Peze (Crisp Fried Plantains)
Salt water is the key to making these golden, starchy disks crisp and salty. Smashed and fried plantains are a popular staple around the Caribbean, where they are called tostones, patacones or, in Haiti, where this recipe comes from, banan peze.
Haitian Cornmeal Porridge (Mayi Moulen)
About as humble as a dish can be, with simple ingredients and cooking instructions no more complicated than boiling water, this Haitian recipe may shock you with its deliciousness — a base of warming, garlicky polenta-like porridge topped with a velvety purée of black beans and coconut milk (see the corresponding recipe for black-bean sauce). Slices of nutty avocado offer a gentle contrast in texture and another element of richness. It was adapted from the Haitian cooking instructor Cindy Similien-Johnson, who remembers it being made in her grandmother’s house.
French West Indian Sauce Chien
Fish Martinique
Stuffed Crabs Caribbean Style
No-Fuss Jerk Chicken
Jerk chicken — spicy and grilled — is a dish for which Jamaica is justly famous, though it is made across the Caribbean basin and has been for more than 400 years. The pungent marinade includes lots of allspice (called pimento in the islands), black pepper and clove, but gets an even bigger kick from ultra-spicy yellow Scotch bonnet peppers, similar in shape and intensity to habanero chiles. You can certainly grill it in the island manner. But this easy recipe puts the chicken in the oven instead, which fills the kitchen with intoxicating flavors. Vacation on a plate.
Chilled Melon Soup with Jerked Pork