Whether cane, apple cider, red wine, or white, the Jamaican cook and vinegar are inseparable. It provides the tangy tongue-kick in the escovitch sauce that accompanies fried fish, a convenient and tasty way to preserve fast-spoiling Scotch bonnets, and is essential for cutting the fat in some of our meatier dishes.
This sauce of charred sugar is used to lend color and darkling-scorchy-sweet-umami flavor to both savory dishes like brown stew chicken—pan-fried chicken quarters cooked down in a sweet, schmaltzy sauce)—and sweet treats like the aforementioned spice bun. Typically I buy Kitchen Bouquet’s prepared browning sauce, but it can be manufactured at home easily enough—it’s essentially a salted caramel sauce—and in savory contexts can be effectively replaced with a high-quality dark soy sauce. Here’s a good example of a basic browning recipe.
As we end this whirlwind tour, you might wonder why I haven’t mentioned rum. Some truths, dear reader, are too self-evident to state. Now, grab your bottle, get in that kitchen, and thro’ down like the champion I know you can be.
