Caribbean Spice Paste

I love the fact that no matter what ethnic food I have a craving for, I can usually find a restaurant in my city that serves it. But right now, many restaurants, especially the local family owned ones that did not make it during the Covid-19 lockdown, have closed permanently. One of my favourites was actually a food truck that served the best Caribbean food. I did not see them at all this summer. Hopefully though, next summer they will be up and running. But, until then, here is a spice paste recipe to fill the hole left by their absence.

Ingredients

Four Scallions

Two to four Scotch Bonnet or Jalapeno Peppers - Use less peppers if you prefer it to be mild; use more if you want it to be hot.

Six cloves garlic

One three inch piece of Garlic

Two Tablespoons of lime juice

Two Tablespoons of Tamari

Two Tablespoons of Brown Sugar

One Tablespoon Pumpkin Pie Spice

One teaspoon dried Thyme

Oil, Coarse Salt

Directions

Trim the ends off the scallions and mince fairly finely. Do not worry too much about neatness as they will be going into a blender. Just small enough that it can be processed without the final product being too chunky. Set aside.

Mince your garlic fine and add to the scallions.

Peel your ginger and chop finely. Add to the scallions and mix well

Pour your lime juice over the scallion mixture. Mix well

Add the brown sugar to the scallion mixture. Stir to coat the brown sugar.

Add the spices and blend well.

Place all in your blender. Puree. Add oil one tablespoon at a time, as needed. So the mixture can blend well. You should end up with a fairly thick paste.

Notes

If you cannot find Scotch Bonnet peppers, you can use Jalapeno Peppers instead.

If you can't find tamari you can substitute it for gluten free soy sauce.

If you are on a low sodium diet you might want to use the soy sauce anyway. Soy sauce is salty but Tamari can be saltier yet. There are also low sodium soy sauces available on the market but I am not sure if any of them are gluten free. If anything I water the soy sauce down so I still have the colour but use less soy sauce.

Pumpkin pie spice sounds like an odd addition and I had my doubts at first and while it is not exactly the same as the original taste, this spice blend is very close.

This spice blend is great on any protein you can think of. I personally love using this as a marinade for chicken but pork or beef would work as well.

I have only been to once to the Caribbean. It was such a beautiful place to visit. The one thing I had to get used to was the day ending abruptly at six pm. Here in Canada, I am used to long summer days and shorter days during the winter. In the caribbean, the sun rises at six am and sets at six pm with very little deviation if any. I have always seen movies where they show people at resorts going out for dinner at what appears to be the dead of night and thought maybe it was a cultural thing. But no, it was probably only six or seven at night. Where I live the sun can set anywhere from four thirty pm to nine pm depending on if it is winter or summer. I found it a little jarring that the sun set so fast when I was there. Kind of a blink and you will miss it kind of fast