For those with a taste for spice, food from Jamaica will be right up your alley! We love to cook with pepper, and it is liberally used in many of our Jamaican dishes. Escoveitched fish is one of these. You can tone it down to suit your palate, but quite frankly, if there's no pepper, you'll have to call it something else, as it won't be true escoveitch!
The word escoveitch comes originally from the Spanish word "escabeche", which means pickled. The dish is thought to have been introduced into Jamaica when Spanish settlers came to the island in the early 16th century. Whole or sliced fish is fried and then covered with a spicy marinade, which acts as a natural preservative. It was a convenient dish in the days before electricity, as it could be left for over a day without refrigeration.
It is traditionally eaten with bammy, which is the oldest prepared food in Jamaica. Made from cassava, bammy was eaten by the Tainos, the people who Columbus found when he landed in Jamaica. Other side dishes which go well with escoveitched fish are festival (a dumpling made with cornmeal, flour, sugar and salt), johnny cakes (fried flour dumplings), roasted breadfruit, or hard-dough bread.
Here's a recipe for Escoveitched Fish, a mouthwatering Jamaican dish.
Ingredients
2 lbs fresh fish, whole or sliced
1/4 cup flour, with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper added
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed pimento (allspice) grains
Oil for deep frying
Escoveitch Marinade
1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1 large/2 medium onions, sliced into rings
1 carrot, sliced into strips
1 chocho, peeled and cut into strips (Substitute sweet pepper or more carrot if chocho not available)
4 whole pimento grains
Sliced hot pepper to taste
Make diagonal slashes in fish. Mix together the salt, black pepper and crushed pimento. Place a little of this mixture inside each slash. If using whole fish, rub the mixture inside the fish itself. If using sliced fish, rub the mixture over each slice.
Dust the fish with the seasoned flour, and deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Set aside.
Place all the ingredients for the marinade in a pot, and bring to a boil. Boil for about half a minute. Don't boil too long or vegetables will lose their crunch. Pour the marinade over the fish.
Your escoveitch fish is ready! Eat it right away, or wait until the next day. No need to refrigerate, unless you plan to keep it longer than a day (which will be hard to do, as it looks and smells so delicious).
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