Manchester Caribbean Carnival 2010

Last weekend we had the annual Caribbean Carnival in Manchester. The event was held at a local park (Aleandra Park) and there were a lot of cultural events as well as contemporary shows featuring local hip hop and r&b artistes.

However, as this is a food blog, I will just report on this event from a culinary point of view.

There were a lot of stalls there with traders selling their wares with a caribbean theme. However, every third stall is one selling food and they were almost all selling the same dishes. By far, the most popular is Jerk Chicken - barbequed chicken marinated with jerk (jamaican herbs and spices) seasoning.

Here are a couple of pics from a stall.
Also watch the video link above to see what the event looked like.




We did not stay long but managed to bring home a couple of delicious treats.

Jerk Chicken with rice and salad. Not heavily flavoured but very nice!



Jamaican Curried Goat. Also very nice ... the closest comparison I can think of is Yeo's canned curry beef ... similar but nicer!

Jamaican Curried Goat

Here is my first attempt at a Jamaican Curried Goat ... it has got to be called this way, and not "Curry Goat"! First had this at a local Caribbean takeaway and loved it. It tastes a lot lighter than Indian or south east asian curry, mainly because it does not contain any cream, yoghurt or coconut milk. Somehow, almost refreshing in taste, and still full of flavour. Then when I saw it being done in a cookery programme, I thought I just had to have a go myself as it was so simple.

First, I marinated the meat overnight with Jamaican Curry Powder (tbh, I have no idea what makes this different from other curry powder, but I thought I'd try it anyway!), thyme, chopped onions, chilli peppers, garlic, ginger, and capsicum.








Then the lot is added into a West Indian Dutch pot, and browned. After that, add water and stew for however long it takes to make it semi tender. This depends on your meat. You can use tender lamb which will take less time, or old mutton which will take hours!




After that add carrots and potatoes. Continue stewing and this will thicken the ssauce for you.




And when the meat is finally tender, serve with rice!