Recipe
Jamaican jerk paste with allspice
- Herb:
- Allspice Pimenta dioica
- Method:
- Culinary use
- Plant part:
- Fruit
About 15 minBeginnerRecipe science profile
Procedure
- Toast 2 tablespoons of whole allspice briefly in a dry pan until fragrant and crush in a mortar.
- Blend with 4 spring onions, 2 garlic cloves, 1–2 chillies (traditionally scotch bonnet), a teaspoon of thyme, a teaspoon of brown sugar, a pinch of nutmeg, the juice of a lime and 2 tablespoons of oil.
- Season with salt; the paste should be thick and dark green-brown.
- Rub into chicken or pork, marinate overnight and grill slowly; keep leftover paste in the fridge.
Extraction
- Herb:
- 2 tablespoons of whole allspice berries for a batch of paste for 1 kg of meat
- Solvent:
- dry roasting, crushing, blending with onion, chilli and lime
- Shelf life:
- 2 weeks in the fridge
- Target compounds:
- eugenol (up to 80 % of the essential oil) and other phenols are released by crushing and enter the marinade's fat
Notes
A kitchen recipe with no particular risks; it contains hot chilli. Allspice is a single berry, not a blend — it was named for a scent that recalls clove, cinnamon and nutmeg together.
Why it works
Toasting and crushing open the berries' oil glands and release eugenol, which dissolves in the marinade oil and gives jerk its signature scent on the grill. Zhang & Lokeshwar summarise laboratory antioxidant and antimicrobial data on eugenol; the catalogue holds no clinical claims for allspice.
Literature
- Zhang L, Lokeshwar BL (2012): Medicinal Properties of the Jamaican Pepper Plant Pimenta dioica and Allspice. Curr Drug Targets 13:1900–1906 — Review of composition (eugenol) and laboratory data; clinical studies are lacking.
Related
Allspice — Herb card
Culinary use — Processing method detail