Recipe for the week - Jamaican Jerked Pork Chops

I love collecting recipes..."

"....from those copied from my mother's old recipe books to those exciting new ones picked up while travelling abroad.I love talking and writing about food too. Compiling a book of Caribbean recipes a few years ago, I was given many exciting recipes by kind hostesses, I now have a superb collection of delicious Jamaican recipes.

Many are traditional but there are some which I have adapted, using old ingredients to create modern and stylish new ones, such as, Ackee Wrapped in Smoked Salmon Parcels. Jamaican cooking is simple and delicious, making good use of the abundant local ingredients available - fresh vegetables, seafood straight from the sea, aromatic herbs and spices, flavoursome hot peppers, yams, bananas and potatoes, all from small rural farms. And of course, there is the rum - white and dark rum - the main ingredients in Jamaica's popular punches! Delicious too in flavouring roast pork dishes and puddings.

For me, there is nothing more pleasurable than cooking for family and friends and trying out the latest recipe, the anticipation of presenting the food, decorating the table with pretty china, gleaming silver and sparkling glasses and arranging bowls of fresh flowers in every conceivable spot. I have added some of my favourite recipes here and hope you will enjoy them too."

My receipe this week is Jamaican Jerked Pork Chops and I will be introducing a new receipe every week.

This is a simple and delicious recipe and friends always ask me to serve it when I invite them round for supper. Once you have made the marinade for the pork chops in advance and coat the pork chops to absorb all the flavours for at least an hour you are on your way!

4 pork chops (trimmed but with some of the fat left on)

For the marinade you will need:

A tablespoon of pimento berries
a Scotch Bonnet pepper or four red chillie peppers finely chopped
2 bunches of Spring Onions or Escallion, washed and roughly chopped
2 dried Bay leaves
2 sprigs of thyme, chopped
4 large cloves of garlic
a small teaspoon of salt

Put all the ingredients for the marinade in a mortar and use the pestle to crush them to a thick paste. The salt helps to liquidise the garlic and spring onions. Once you have a thick paste coat the pork chops generously and leave them covered in the fridge. When you are ready to cook the pork chops, scrape off the marinade and put them in a roasting pan with a little oil in a hot oven say, gas mark 6 for about 45 minutes turning them at least once. Serve with boiled rice or a Cannelli Bean and tomato Stew and a green salad.

To drink: a bottle of chilled Rose or a crisp Sauvignon Blanc


Jenny Mein