Happy New Years + Shots from a Jamaican Market

Happy New Year to you all! Between the cookbook deadline, holidays and travel, I have been a bit MIA, but I wanted to wish you all a very happy and healthy 2013. AND I wanted to share some pretty cool shots from an open-air market I visited in Jamaica. This is a true local spot and gave me a great snapshot of what’s traditionally used in real Jamaican cooking.

This is fresh sorrel used to make a delicious, tart drink. You also may know this as hibiscus, if you’ve ever had the tea. I’ve always seen it in dried form, so good to know what it looks like fresh!

Talking that talk!

This is a major part of the cuisine, the national fruit of Jamaica, ackee. It’s often eaten with saltfish and related to the lychee and longan actually. Unripe, it can be toxic.

A little spice shopping – here is fresh nutmeg with its wrapper, mace.

The ubiquitous scotch bonnet pepper! I love it, but that heat is deadly. I was shocked by how much went into Jerk seasoning – such a key flavor.

Half Manuscript Deadline and Playing with Ingredients

This week I have been a complete catastrophe! Half of my manuscript is due, and I am writing my booty off to make the deadline (broken finger and all). I spent the entire week cooking and writing….and revising and writing again! Being a stress basket aside, I did experiment a bit with some ingredients and wanted to share my findings with you all.

In this photo on the left is sumac, in its whole, dried berry form. I use sumac all the time in za’atar and have only really seen it already ground. I had some thoughts about using it whole but after biting into it I changed my mind. It has a small pit, not unlike a pomegranate, but much tougher since it’s dried. The flavor is incredible though – tart and floral, and I’m happy to grind it and keep it moving.

On the left is hibiscus, and I have been on a full-on West Indian kick this week! Dried hibiscus is called sorrel there and used to make a tart soft drink of the same name, spiced with cinnamon and clove and usually served around the holidays. I played around with it for my dessert section of the book and am pumped about how it all came out.

I also cooked up some oxtail for a pasta dish and killer peas and rice. I have never used a recipe to make nor given much thought about how much of anything goes into these dishes. I’m on automatic when I cook them, so it’s really been interesting for me – translating my body’s memory of cooking into measurements and finite amounts. Does it taste the same? I don’t know!! I’m being crazy – they do….they came out full-flavored and I can’t wait until I see them in the book.

I’m throwing this photo in because I love the stuff and have been messing with it in all sorts of recipes. I’ll just say – you’ll never look at French dressing the same!

Scones with Sorrel Flower Jelly

When someone says “sorrel” these days, what typically springs to mind is the green leafy vegetable, or herb to some, that has trendily showed up on menus in the past few years. Though it might be delicious in jelly form, that is definitely not the sorrel in this recipe…I’m actually referring to the sorrel flower I mentioned in a previous post that’s used to make a popular West Indian drink.

The first time I tried sorrel was with my husband at the Trinidadian-Chinese spot in Brooklyn I wrote about a few months back. It’s a blood-red drink – tart, sweet, floral with an underlying taste of cloves. Unusually delicious. The sorrel flower is actually hibiscus, so it’s not a far stretch from your basic hibiscus tea. And similar to tea, sorrel is made from steeping the flower with sugar and spices. A similar drink is also widely consumed in parts of Africa where it’s known as roselle orbissap rouge in Senegal or even karkadeh in Egypt. Jamaicans use ginger to flavor the sorrel, but you know I had to stay true to the Trinidadians, so I stuck with their tradition of cinnamon and clove.

I actually trekked over to the (deep) BK to a small West Indian market to find dried sorrel petals for this recipe, which was totally unnecessary I found out during my last trip to some of my favorite ethnic grocers in the city. You can typically find the dried form in health food stores and in various ethnic markets.

In any case, a jelly is a mildly unusual but interesting use of sorrel and, it turns out, delicious. How cool is that – to make your own homemade and seasonal jellies and jams. This one, I like to layer with a little mascarpone or Devonshire cream on the scone to balance out the sweetness. The scone is buttery and delectable but plain Jane as far as scones go, a great basic scone recipe to which you can add any variation of ingredients. That was purposeful – I really wanted the flavor of sorrel to shine though. Enjoy.

Ingredients

Yields 6 ½ cups jelly and approximately a dozen scones (depending on size)

Sorrel Jelly:

4 ½ cups water

1 ½ cups dried sorrel flower

1 cinnamon stick

6 whole cloves

6 cups granulated sugar

1 3 oz pouch liquid pectin (I used Certo brand)

Basic Scone:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

1 stick butter, cold, cut into cubes

2 eggs, cold

½ cup heavy cream, cold

Procedure

For the jelly, bring water to a boil with the cinnamon stick and cloves. Add sorrel and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let sit overnight. In certain places, sorrel may even be allowed to sit for several days to achieve the desired flavor.

Strain sorrel mixture into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add sugar, stir to dissolve, and bring back up to a boil. Add liquid pectin and boil for 1 minute . Be very careful at this point – it easily boils over. Remove from the heat and immediately pour into sterilized jars. Jars, prior to being filled, should be heated in a pot in simmering water and kept hot until filled with the jelly.

Although the sugar helps preserve the jelly, processing the jars in a boiling water bath after filling with jelly will help seal the jars for longer preservation. Place jars back into the water pot and make sure that the water covers the jars by 1 to 2 inches. Boil for 5 minutes, remove, and cool. Unopened, the jellies will be good for about 1 year. Once opened, the shelf life is about 3 weeks.

For the scones, preheat the oven to 375? F. Combine all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a stand mixer. Add diced, cold butter and mix on low until the texture resembles sandy peas. It’s important that the ingredients stay cold as this creates a flakier texture for the resulting scone. Combine eggs and cold, heavy cream and pour into the mixer bowl slowly with the mixer on low. Be careful not to overmix – you just want the dough to come together. Overmixing will also result in a tougher, less flakier scone.

Roll out dough on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin until about ½ “ thick and cut out with whatever cutter shape/size you like. I say approximately a dozen scones because it varies with how you choose to size your scones. You can also brush with an egg wash at this point if you like to make the tops deeper brown and shiny. Bake for about 15-18 minutes until the scones are uniformly golden brown. Cool on a rack for another 20 minutes or so.

Serve scones warm with a bit of the jelly and some cream.

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