Solomon Gundy is a popular Jamaican fish pâté made with smoked red herring or mackerel combined with hot peppers, onions, and spices. The dish is traditionally served with crackers as an appetizer or a snack. It is recommended to pair the appetizer with avocado slices or roasted breadfruit, and it is especially popular to serve Solomon Gundy with a cup of tea on the side.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb. Smoked Herring
- ½ doz. Allspice balls (pimentos)
- ½ cup Vinegar
- 1 Large Onion (chopped)
- 1 Scotch Bonnet Pepper or Habernero Pepper
- 1 Stalk Scallion
- ½ tsp. Thyme
- 4 tbsp. Oil
- 1 tsp. Sugar
Instructions:
Bring water to boil and then add the smoked herring to the water. This process will remove some of the salt from the fish. Allow the fish to boil for about 15 minutes.
Discard the water.
Warm the vinegar with the pimento balls and sugar on a low fire and stir occasionally to help the sugar dissolve. Do not boil the vinegar.
In the meantime, remove the bones from the smoked herring. You may not get to remove all the bones but do as many as you can.
Now add the chopped onion, oil, peppers, scllion, and thyme to the electric blender. Puree for 1 minute.
Make sure that the sugar is dissolved into the warm vinegar and then remove the pimento seeds.
Add the fish and vinegar solution to the rest of the ingredients already in the blender. Puree for another minute and your Solomon-a-Gundy should be ready by now.
It is your choice to make this “dry” or smooth by increasing or decreasing the puree time in the blender.
You can serve this with crackers, bread, or potato chips. A dip can also be made from this by adding mayonnaise or cream cheese…the sky’s the limit on this one.
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