BY NOEL CUNNINGHAM
Cold weather calls for stews and soups and this week I’m sharing with you a delicious seafood soup that you will enjoy throughout the fall and winter. It’s easy to make and it’s loaded with flavours that will have you going back for more. Just like every culture soup plays a very rich part in the Caribbean gastronomy over the years. No event large or small is complete without a warm cup of soup usually served in a foam cup. Popular soups include kidney beans, pigeon peas, split peas, mannish water which is a soup made from goat meat. Caribbean soups are considered a hearty affair because it is served mostly as an entree and is filled with yams, potatoes, small dumplings along with two or three different kinds of meat. In Jamaica, Saturday is known as soup day. Soups would be the meal of the day in almost every household. On the weekend you can see food vendors selling soup on the corner or at events often made from chicken feet and pumpkin. This has been a part of our street food culture for years.
This seafood soup is loaded with fish, shrimp, ground provision and dumplings. This soup got its rich flavour from the seafood and the spices used. This Jamaican soup is the perfect Saturday soup or for a chilly winter evening. For this recipe, you can use any seafood you have available I used fish heads I have to make the stock then add shrimp with the shell and heads on for flavour. You can always add a pack of seafood mix or lobster if you like to take this soup up a notch.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp. coconut oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- Fish head
- Water
- 2 potatoes, diced
- 1/2 lb. yams, peeled and diced
- 2 corn on the cobb sliced
- 1 lb. pumpkin, diced with skin on
- 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 scotch green bonnet pepper, cracked
- 1/2 cup chopped scallion
- 2 sprigs thyme
- 1 packet fish noodle or tbsp. fish base, sieved
- Shrimp, head and shell on
- Pimento berries
- Salt and pepper to taste
For dumplings/spinners
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. salt
- Water as needed to form a dough
Directions
In a heavy bottom pot heated with coconut oil sauté, onion and garlic until translucent for about 3 minutes. Then add the fish head and allow to cook then add water halfway in the pot and allow to come to a boil. (This will give you a tasty stock in 20 minutes) You can remove fine fish bones from stock by straining it or allow to cook if you desire if there are no small bones.
Add all the veggies and allow to cook. Meanwhile make dumplings by combining all the ingredients to form a dough then add small dumplings to the pot. Once your dumplings start to float and your ground provision starts to cook season your soup with the remaining ingredients to the desired taste then add shrimp and allow to cook for 5 minutes before turning off the flame and enjoy.
