Pepper Pot stew
The Caribbean combo of thyme, allspice, habanero, nutmeg and cloves always remind me of sunshine and good times, and when I first saw Levi Roots making Pepper Pot stew on TV years ago, I really wanted to try it. His enthusiasm for food was infectious.
I used lamb neck, cooked on the bone, for extra flavour. The recipe is a bastardisation of one from the BBC, adopted for what I had in the cupboard. I’d slide a tin of butterbeans in there if I had them.
This is easily cooked in any pot, I used my InstantPot because it was easy.
You will need
- About 400g of beef or lamb. Not too fatty
- An medium onion, peeled and sliced
- A few spring onions, finely sliced
- A sweet pepper (mine was yellow), sliced into 2cm squares
- A large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
- A handful of fresh thyme
- 6 allspice, crushed
- 10 black peppercorns, crushed
- 2 bay leaves
- A piece of ginger as big as my thumb, finely sliced
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
- A tin of coconut milk
- A stock cube
- A teaspoon of Marmite
- A handful of frozen spinach or a bag of fresh spinach
- Habanero chillis. I used one big and 3 small. It was very hot.
- 200g of plain flour
Do
- Brown the meat in a few teaspoons of oil in a hot pan until well browned
- Add the spices, garlic, ginger and onions (not the spring onions)
- Stir and sizzle for a few minutes
- Add the coconut milk, stock cube, 600ml of boiling water, and the Marmite
- Reduce the heat to a gentle rolling boil and cook for 30 minutes or until the meat is pretty tender.
- Mix the flour with enough water to form a stiff dough
- Add the sweet potato and teaspoon sized blobs of dough
- Top up the water if needed
- Cook for 10 minutes and then add the spinach,
- Cook for another 10 minutes or until the dumplings and potato are cooked
Result
Smells like summer, hot as hell (which is great on a hot day weirdly), there’s plenty of chunks for your fork and enough “soup” that some rice won’t go a miss.
