Mockingbird Hotel

I have no connection with the hotel but I do like the idea that a hotel understands about hot sauces and grows their own peppers and makes their own sauces. This hotel sits in the Blue Mountains overlooking the ocean above Port Antonio on the North Coast and bills itself as an eco hotel and it looks the part.

Its a place I might stay if I ever went to Jamaica. The food is billed as zero miles, i.e, they either grow their own or buy from very local farmers. What a lovely idea. I have always thought food from where you are is better for you, but this idea also encompasses low carbon. A huge truck using dirty diesel didn’t drive 2000 miles to deliver it for you to cook!

Ooft! Hot Sauce — Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce

BUY NOW Can’t afford or spare the time for a trip to Jamaica right now? Well get the taste delivered to your door by buying our lovely aged scotch bonnet sauce LINK TO BUY

Blue Mountain Coffee

The Blue Mountains are the famous home of the worlds finest coffee. The Mockingbird hotel serves the real thing so you can taste it right where its grown. How amazing is that! Coffee that’s is very hard to find although many claim to have it, often its mixed with other coffees as it is so expensive.

Blue Mountain in UK

I looked around the UK coffee scene and found many places selling Blue Mountain coffee. But read the small print as almost all were a hybrid grown in Kenya using “Blue mountain” plants. So basically Kenya coffee with pretension. Whittards seem to be the only place in the UK selling real Blue Mountain Coffee – LINK TO WHITTARDS

Jamaica Food

The food is all locally produced. Jamaicans like hot sauce and use it extensively in their cooking and on their plate. Jamaican food is very good once you remove the whole “jerk” story. Go and try curry goat, escoveitch Fish or ackee and saltfish. These are the real treats.

Ackee and Saltfish breakfast

Wandering around the supermarket you may have come upon the Caribbean section and seen tins of strange looking fruit called Ackee. Once opened you are looking at something that looks so much like scrambled eggs you will wonder if the right thing is in the tin. Combine this with salted cod fish usually available from supermarkets as well makes one of the worlds great breakfast dishes that heralds from Jamaica but is eaten throughout the Caribbean.

The Jamaicans have created a lovely tasty breakfast with ackee and saltfish. Ackee is a fruit from a large tree and is poisonous if eaten unripe. So its best to buy tinned ackee available from most supermarkets that carry international foods. They are expensive around £4.50 a tin but the consistency and taste cannot be duplicated.

Boil about 1/2 lb of saltfish and drain (if its the very dry saltfish you may have to soak it overnight in water). In a frying pan slow cook an onion sliced, a sweet pepper sliced and a hot pepper chopped until they go translucent and soft (about 5-10 minutes slow).

Add a tin of tomatoes and some fresh thyme and maybe a little water. I also add a teaspoon of sun dried tomato paste and a tsp of sugar. Let this mixture cook slowly until reduced and tasty, add black pepper. then add the shredded saltfish and let this cook into the mix for 5 minutes before topping off with the ackee. Once the ackee is added don’t stir much as it breaks up.

To make the dumpling take 8oz plain flour and add a tsp of salt and a tsp of sugar. Then mix with water to a soft consistency and knead for about 2 minutes. Boil; a saucepan of salted water and divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten with the hand or a rolling pin into saucer shapes and drop into the boiling water and cook for 15 minutes. Serve with Ooft! hot pepper of course! click button below to buy

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