Roast Yam and Saltfish

the Jamaican roadside plate: yellow yam roasted in its skin over a coal fire until smoky and floury, split open and eaten with salt cod fried with onion, tomato, and scotch bonnet

Origin: Trelawny & Jamaica

From the journey of Yam.

Jamaica's yam is the yellow yam, and the parish that grows it is Trelawny, which raises the greater part of the island's crop and celebrates it every Easter Monday at the Trelawny Yam Festival with yam cakes, yam puddings and, inevitably, a yam-eating contest. Along the roads of the yam country, vendors set up coal fires under sheets of zinc and roast whole yams in their skins, selling them hot with a piece of roast or fried saltfish. The yam comes out smoky and dry-floury, and the salt of the fish is the seasoning. Both halves of the plate are inheritances. Yams came to the Caribbean from West Africa in the holds of the slave ships, as provisions and then as a plantation crop grown by the enslaved on their own provision grounds; salt cod came from the North Atlantic as cheap protein for the same plantations. What Jamaica made of the pair is its own.

Ingredients

Yam

  • 1.5 kg yellow yam, scrubbed, in large pieces with the skin on

Saltfish

  • 400 g salt cod, soaked overnight in several changes of water
  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil or coconut oil
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 2 tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 scotch bonnet pepper, deseeded and sliced
  • 4 sprigs thyme
  • 1 red or green bell pepper, sliced
  • Black pepper

Method

  1. Drain the soaked saltfish, cover with fresh water, bring to the boil, and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, cool, and flake, discarding skin and bones. Taste: if it is still very salty, boil once more in fresh water.
  2. Heat the oven to 200°C, or light a charcoal grill. Set the yam pieces on a rack, skin on, and roast for 45 minutes to an hour, turning once, until a skewer slides in easily and the skin is blistered and charred.
  3. Meanwhile heat the oil and fry the onion, bell pepper, and thyme for 5 minutes until soft.
  4. Add the tomatoes and scotch bonnet and cook to a thick sauce, then fold in the flaked saltfish and warm through. Season with black pepper.
  5. Split the yam pieces open, scoop the floury flesh from the skin, and serve hot with the saltfish over or beside it.

Notes

Yellow yam is sold in Caribbean and African grocers; white yam roasts as well but is drier still. The saltfish needs no salt added at any stage; taste before you think about it.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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