Browse recipes

Chickpeas simmered in coconut milk with thyme and allspice, finished with spinach. Mellow, quick, and entirely from cans and a bag of leaves.

Pineapple cut into rings, dried, dusted and dropped through a thin sparkling batter into hot oil, so the outside shatters and the fruit inside turns hot, syrupy and startlingly sharp against the sugar.

Very ripe bananas mashed into a spiced batter and fried into soft, craggy rounds. Ten minutes, and the blacker the bananas the better.

Rice cooked in coconut milk with kidney beans, thyme, allspice and a whole chili left in for perfume rather than heat. The side dish that turns any plate Caribbean.

Chunks of fresh coconut boiled in ginger sugar until the syrup thickens, then dropped in spoonfuls and left to set hard. Chewy, sticky and very Jamaican.

A fierce, unfermented ginger beer: fresh ginger blended, steeped and strained into a syrup, then topped with soda water. All of the heat, none of the waiting.

Red lentils collapsing into coconut milk with Caribbean curry powder, thyme and sweet potato. Ready in half an hour and thick enough to eat with a fork.

Greens stewed down with coconut milk, thyme and okra until soft and glossy. Mellow, rich and green. The Caribbean answer to creamed spinach.

Roasted jerk-spiced jackfruit shreds like slow-cooked meat, over coconut rice and black beans. Big flavors, mostly from a jar and a tin.

Fresh pineapple blended with ginger and lime into a thick, golden punch. Sweet, sour and hot all at once, and it takes ten minutes.

Curry powder bloomed in oil until it perfumes the whole kitchen, then chickpeas and potato simmered in coconut until soft and golden. Warming, cheap and quietly fiery.

Very ripe plantains fried until the sugars caramelize into dark, sticky edges and the middles turn to custard. Three ingredients and about ten minutes.

Grated sweet potato baked slowly with coconut milk and warm spice into a dense, sliceable pudding with a dark, sticky top.

Hibiscus steeped with ginger, clove and orange peel. The Caribbean Christmas drink, deep red and warmly spiced rather than simply tart.