Caribbean Food Made Easy by Levi Roots Mitchell Beazley

Ackee is a fruit and probably one of the most expensive imported Caribbean foods. It has an amazing silky texture, bright yellow colour and there’s nothing else like it.

 

Serves 4

Ingredients

300g / 10oz skinless, boneless salt cod
200ml / 7 fl oz vegetable oil
3 spring onions, green ends only, chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
½ red pepper, cored, deseeded and finely chopped
½ green pepper, cored, deseeded and finely chopped
1 Scotch bonnet chilli, deseeded (unless you want to be a real hotty) and chopped
1cm / ½ in piece fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
4 fresh thyme sprigs, each broken into small pieces
1 garlic clove, chopped
3 tbsp spicy tomato ketchup or Love Apple Tomato Sauce
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
540g / 1lb 5oz can ackee in salted water, drained and rinsed to remove all the salt

Method: How to make ackee and saltfish

1. Rinse the salt cod in warm water to dissolve the salt, then put into a pan and cover with warm water. Bring to the boil and boil for about 5 minutes until the salt dissolves. Drain and rinse again, then gently break up the salt cod into 2cm / ¾ inch-sized pieces.

2. Heat 100ml / 3 ½ fl oz of the oil in a duchy or large casserole dish for a couple of minutes. Tip in the vegetables, cover and cook very gently for 10 minutes. Add the spicy tomato ketchup and cook for a further 3 minutes.

3. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan, add the salt cod and cook for 5 minutes, then turn over and cook the other side.

4. Drain 5 tbsp of the oil and juices from the vegetables.

Levi's Tip:

I like to chop my vegetables small so that the saltfish is the most important part – it's not vegetable stew.

5. Remove the salt cod from the pan and break it up into chunks. Add to the vegetables in the duchy.

6. Season with black pepper and add the drained ackee. Cover, but leave a small gap so you can pour off 50ml/2 fl oz of the liquid if you need to – the finished dish should not be very runny. Leave to cook gently for a further 5 minutes until the ackee is tender and the flavour of the black pepper comes through.

© Levi Roots' Reggae Reggae cookbook