Ackee and Saltfish Recipe from HER THREE LIVES
This meal is Jamaica’s national dish and is often served for breakfast. Jade, Greg’s Jamaican American girlfriend, serves it to him in the book HER THREE LIVES. It features ackee, a fruit of West African origin with a red, waxy outer skin that opens up to reveal large black seeds, yellow fruit, and a bit of red fibrous material in the center.
NOTE: Ackee, sadly, cannot typically be obtained fresh in the United States as it gives off a poison that can make you sick if it is opened before it is ready. It is available canned at most West Indian and some Asian grocery stores. Author Cate Holahan gets hers in Englewood, NJ. In Jamaica and other tropical countries, you can get it fresh.
Ingredients:
1 Canned, Parboiled Ackee
½ pound boneless salted codfish
½ cup neutral oil (vegetable, grapeseed, canola, sunflower, etc.)
5 cloves garlic
1 spring thyme
4 green onions (scallions)
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 handful of cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes, sliced in half.
¼ Scotch bonnet pepper, seeds removed
A pinch of ground black pepper
Directions:
- Wash the salt off the salted cod and then soak it for 1 hour in hot water. Drain that and then soak again in another pot of hot water for another hour. Two hours total. If you don’t do this, the cod will be inedible.
- As the fish is soaking, chop the garlic, green onions, and bell peppers. Carefully chop the Scotch bonnet, making sure not to touch anywhere near your face while you’re working with it. Wash your hands thoroughly after. It’s a hot pepper.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic for thirty seconds. Then add the thyme for another thirty. Finally, add all the peppers and tomatoes, then continue to sauté for about five minutes.
- Add the codfish for another five minutes, stirring as needed.
- Add the canned the canned ackee, cook for another couple minutes.
- Stir in a pinch of pepper.
This meal can be served with a starch such as fried breadfruit, Jamaican Festivals (fried dough), or fried dumplings.
Her public life
Jade Thompson has it all. She’s an up-and-coming social media influencer, and she has a beautiful new home and a successful architect for a fiancé. But there’s trouble behind the scenes. To Greg’s children, his divorce from their mother and his new life can only mean a big mid-life crisis. To Jade, his suburban Connecticut upbringing isn’t an easy match with her Caribbean roots.
A savage home invasion leaves Greg house-bound with a traumatic brain injury and glued to the live feeds from his ubiquitous security cameras. As the police investigate the crime and Greg’s frustration and rage grows, Jade begins to wonder what he may know about their attackers. And whether they are coming back.
As Greg watches Jade’s comings and goings, he becomes convinced that her behavior is suspicious and that she’s hiding a big secret. The more he sees, the more he wonders whether the break-in was really a random burglary. And whether he’s worth more to Jade if he were dead than alive.