Flavor Guide: Island Herb Blend (Green Seasoning)
Fish seasoned in our Island Herb Blend (Caribbean green seasoning)
The basis of Caribbean cooking
What’s something that you’re guaranteed to find in the kitchen of every Caribbean household? Us Trinis have a knack for keeping bottles of Angostura bitters in our kitchen cabinets, but that’s not it. Any Caribbean family worth their salt, always has some green seasoning on hand. It is the base of all the cooking that we do, and it brings out such a nice flavor to our dishes. Green seasoning is a pureed blend of fresh herbs and spices that often serves as a marinade for meat and fish dishes. Depending on how it is used, it can also be added to rice, bean, and vegetable dishes as well.
Each Caribbean country has their own way of making green seasoning, and their own twist. In Haiti, it’s known as epis. In Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking countries, it’s known as sofrito. This all-purpose seasoning is really versatile and marries happily with many dishes. Some common herbs present in green seasoning is shado beni (chadon beni or culantro), onions, garlic, and cilantro. Of course, everyone makes their own green seasoning differently. Since green seasoning depends on the use of fresh herbs, what goes into it varies by batch.
How it’s made
Making green seasoning is a refreshing process. Let’s set the scene. Imagine a kitchen filled with piles of fresh, green herbs. For us, we’ve been lucky to source most of our herbs for our green seasoning from local farms in Prince George’s County, Maryland and Washington, DC. We’ve coined our green seasoning as Island Herb Blend. One thing you notice when opening up a bottle of our green seasoning is the delicious aroma that wafts from the inside. It’s the same aroma you’ll notice when you pluck fresh herbs from a garden. To make our green seasoning, we blend our piles of freshly washed herbs with aromatic bulbs and roots such as onion and ginger. To preserve the mixture, it is then blended with apple cider vinegar. As you can imagine, our kitchen is very fragrant at the end of this process.
An alternative to sodium
Unfortunately, without the benefit of additional herbs and spices, we tend to overuse salt. We’ve mentioned that green seasoning is such a great way to add that extra flavor to food without all that sodium. Too much sodium in the diet can lead to health conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. We made the conscious decision to leave salt out of our Island Herb Blend, because we believe it’s up to you as the consumer to control your salt input. If you’re someone who uses a lot of salt in your diet, we encourage you to start slow and replace some of the salt you use with our Island Herb Blend. Eventually, you’ll be able to be less dependent upon salt, and realize the power that fresh herbs and spices brings to dishes.
How to use
So, by now you may be wondering how exactly you can use green seasoning. As it is a puree, it is fairly easy to use. When using as a marinade, we recommend adding two teaspoons to every pound of meat, fish, or vegetables that you have on hand. The flavor of green seasoning intensifies the longer it is left, so oftentimes, we’ll leave food to marinate overnight. However, you’ll still get a good flavor even if you marinate your food for thirty minutes. When adding to beans and rice, we tend to err on the lighter side and use less. Of course, the amount of green seasoning you add to your food will depend on personal taste.
We’ve created a handy video to show you just how easy it is to marinate chicken. See below and let us know if you’ve tried it!
Recipe ideas
If you’d like to move beyond just marinating and put green seasoning to the test, try the recipes below!
Feed the Malik’s Herb Roasted Chicken Thighs - instructions
Caribbean Steamed Shrimp with Spicy Mango Chutney - instructions
Mango Chow - instructions + video
Grilled Kabobs - instructions
Hot Curry Chicken Tenders - instructions
Spicy Mango Glazed Chicken Wings - instructions
Rice and Peas - instructions + video
Spicy Black Bean Chili - instructions + video
Caribbean Boiled Corn (Corn on the Cob) - instructions + video
Curry Chicken Wings - instructions + video
Camella’s Kitchen is run by two ladies from Trinidad and Tobago. Based out of Prince George’s County, Maryland, we’re living our sauciest lives by bringing our bold Caribbean flavors to you! How will you #BeCamellaSaucy? Tell us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube!
