Cooking, recipes, how to

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Akee And Salt Fish

Ok the original story behind this post is that I picked up a can of akee from Cermac foods near me here in Chicago. My nieghborhood is like a mini UN here Devon Av was once a Jewish neighborhood and they moved to the suburbs and are on the North Shore areas like in Niles, Skokie, Willmete, Winnetka and Glencoe. There are some that live other there near Sacremento and Pratt over there.

Next the neighborhood has changed somewhat. However some Jewish are still here and they are Russian and Ukrianian Jews but there are more Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, African, Mexican, from South American countries and even from the Carribean too especially from Haiti and Jamaica. There are stores that cater to these ethnicities here in my neighborhood and again I can find everything here. So on this can of akee I paid 10 bucks US for this can which is insane because I wanted to know what it tastes like. So I got it and my mother would have fainted and would be squacking about the price. Oh and there are some German items at these stores too like a can of fried herring in vinegar which I think is extreemly delicous.

This can had on the label on how to make akee and salt fish. First you will need to get some bacalou or a package of salted pollak which is very similar to cod and will do just nicely. There is the dried smoked fish or the herranka but you do not need that at all. If I can’t find bacaloa which is the dried salted cod or the dried salted pollak in a package which is what I use to make bacalitos or salt cod fritters which is Puerto Rican if you remember this post. The akee can gave me the recipe on the label and silly me I did not save the label on the can when I piched it in to the garbage is my fault but I seen one similar on line to the one on the can and I am going to tell you on how I made it.

I prefer just to take 1 gallon or 4 liters of water and throw 1 handful of nido in it along with the bacaloa or the dried salted pollak and cover and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Drain the next day to remove all of the salt out of it and you may want to check it to see if it is still to salty then boil them 3 times and drain each time to remove more of the salt. It is best if you use a colander for this or a huge strainer. Rinse with cold water each time. then place this in medium mixing bowl and cut in to this bacalao or dry salted pollak in to tiny pieces after the final time it is drained and rinsed with cold water. Set this aside.

Now In a mini processor add either 1 habenero or scotch bonnet cut in half and deseeded, 1 onion or shallot, 1 tomato, 1 bell pepper of any color, rough chopped and 4 cloves of garlic. Close mini processor and pulse to blend to make a stew base like that you would for African dishes but for this dish only. In a large cast iron skillet you will need to rinse it and place it on the stove on high heat and let the water dry out of it to make it hot. Add 1/4 cup of either olive oil or sunflower oil. While waitng for that to heat up then open the can of akee and drain it and rinse it 3 times as well. Shake it out in a strainer to make sure the water is completly out of it. Add 1 pinch of peppercorns to mortar and pestle, add the contents from the mini processor and the mortar and pestle, 1 pinch each of paprika thyme and pink salt. Stir add your rinsed akee from the can and either the cooked bacalao or salted pollak if using. I used the red bell pepper for the stew and chopped 1 each of green, orange and yellow bell peppers to make it more colorful. They were chopped in to tiny pieces.

Cook for 5 minutes because everything is pretty much done for you. About the akee It is poisonous when it is unripe and so is cassava and we will talk about more what I learned about cassava later because this post is all about Jamaicas’s national dish. It tastes almost like eggs to me and pairs wonderfully well with this salt fish. I do not mind making this again and again, over and over. You can eat it with rice or even with fonio and fonio is safer for diabetics like me to eat then rice as much as I love it and man I used to put rice away a lot. So after my diagnosis over a year ago now that I had to adopt to new eating habbits and it is doing me just fine. The fonio you can find at many African markets. And again this is a very yummy dish.

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