I’m about to do a month-long detox, with the goal of tidying things up in my stomach. Kind of like spring cleaning, but bigger. So before that happens, I’m getting all my vices out. I’m currently in the airport leaving Barbados, where I was for 10 days of work (yes, work). But it’s Crop Over here, which means is an even bigger party than it usually is, and I’ve drank my fair share of rum, ate more than my fair share of mahi-mahi and probably enjoyed my weight in local papayas, mangoes and watermelons.
The other thing I’ve loved is dunking those fruit (that most of the time I didn’t even have to peel, because someone else did…) in local Bajan pepper sauce. The Barbados version of hot sauce an almost-purée of onions, vinegar, mustard, turmeric and scotch bonnet hot peppers. Sometimes there’s garlic or maybe a touch of minced ginger or lime juice, but that’s the base. I say “almost-purée” because most sauces still have little bits of chili or garlic in there, which gives some texture.
It’s completely addictive, especially because scotch bonnet isn’t that hot a pepper. On the Scoville scale, it’s way below habañeros. So mostly you get a kick of heat at the end of whatever you’re eating and unless you’re French or Colombian (I love stereotypes, obviously), you won’t find it that hot.
So when I saw this recipe on the Guardian website from Yotam Ottolenghi for BBQ sea bass with scotch bonnet pepper sauce, I knew I’d love it. You could slip in a little mustard powder or turmeric to the dipping sauce, but it’s perfect as is with just pepper, garlic, green onion and lime juice.
The only change I made was using sustainable trout instead of sustainable sea bass, mostly because Ottolenghi suggests turning these into tacos, and I had these awesome trout tacos at Maïs, a Mexican restaurant in Montreal, a couple years ago. Some things stick with you.
I’m also a big believer in the idea that if you’re going to barbecue, you should do multiple things on the grill at once, to take advantage of that energy usage. So I rubbed carrots in olive oil, crunchy sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and threw it on to slowly caramelize. They’ll do that nicely if you don’t peel them (use organic), just like sweet potatoes. Ah, sweet maillard reaction.
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