In most homes in Jamaica soup is usually cooked on Thursdays or Saturdays. It’s usually beef soup, pepper pot soup, chicken soup, fish soup or (fish tea), peas soup which is made with different kinds of (beans, lentils, pigeon peas, red peas). Jamaicans puts different vegetables in their soup as well as other things like yam, coco-yam, breadfruit, banana, potatoes and other ground provisions, along with dumplings (plain flour dumplings or mixed with cornmeal). This depends on the type of soup you are making. There is also the manish water soup made from goat head and intestines. You will find the manish water soup mostly at the dance halls where they are keep a dance or a party. All these soups are very delicious! Below is a pot of fish soup.
Recipe
Servings of 6
1 lb of fish head or whole fish (Use fish with less bones)
2 quart cold water
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 sprig green thyme or 1/4 tsp dried thyme
2 stalks escallion
3-4 green bananas
4-6 irish potatoes cut in 4 pieces each
sprinkle of dried pepper (scotch bonnet preferred)
1 cup pumpkin cubes
Preparation
(1) Boil fish in water with salt for about 20 minutes
(2) Take fish out of liquid and remove all the flesh from the bone and set aside
(3) Take the fluid that the fish was boiled in and strain through to remove any bone
(4) Put both liquid and fish back in pot and continue boiling
(5) Add irish potatoes, pumpkin and garlic
(6) Cut up green bananas in 1 inch thick circles (wash and don’t peel) add to pot along with rest of ingredients
(7) Cook for another 30 minutes stirring occasionally.
Note: You can add dumplings, carrot and other vegetable to your likeness