Food File: the weekly food news round-up

Jamaican Jerk

Alistan Munroe’s family left Jamaica in the 1960s, but they brought with them their family recipe for jerk seasoning – a hot, sweet, fragrant mix of onions, ginger, garlic, Scotch bonnet peppers, thyme, and dried spices including nutmeg and dried chilli pepper. It can be used as a dry rub or a wet marinade.

Munroe added brown sugar, soy sauce and olive oil to make a marinade and is now making and selling it in four varieties, light, medium, bold and ghost (the hottest).

It can be used on meat, fish and vegetables and for best results leave it to work its magic overnight. The medium-strength marinade turned a couple of very ordinary chicken breasts into a tasty supper and seemed to tenderise them as well as adding flavour.

The former designer turned food producer has created very slick packaging for his product, which is made in Dublin. “I wanted to create a look that was simple, a balance of modern and classic, the colours are inside the jar,” he says.

Munroe’s Jamaican Jerk Marinade costs between €5.50 and €7.50 for a 320g jar, depending on the stockist (so it’s obviously worth shopping around).

Stockists include Black Pig, Ennis Butchers, Fallon & Byrne, Food Room, Lilliput Stores and Morton’s. For a full list see munroes.net.

Hungry for culture

Art and food collide at Summer Rising, a programme of events at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin over two weekends this month. The Hare Café brings its mostly raw, plant-based menu to IMMA next Saturday, July 19th (set menu, €20 for adults and €10 for children). The following Friday, July 25th, chef Jess Murphy of Kai restaurant in Galway will be serving dinner in the Great Hall, in a setting designed by artist Mark Garry (tickets, €50). Cake Café offers a three-course lunch in the gardens on Saturday, July 26th (€20). House cafe in Cork and Jennie Moran of Luncheonette, the restaurant at NCAD, present food and cocktails for IMMA's summer party on Sunday, July 27th. There will also be food workshops and children's events, to book see imma.ie.

Alternative pods

Just when we’ve got used to having a choice where to buy your coffee capsules, along comes a gadget that could do away with the not very environmentally-friendly pods altogether. This Swiss-designed stainless steel coffee capsule can be filled with your choice of coffee and reused indefinitely, as long as you remember to stock up on coffee. The makers claim it is compatible with “practically any” Nespresso machine. There are a couple of Krups-made models with a one-pin notch that it won’t work with. The capsule costs £32.95/€41.13 from proidee.co.uk, which will ship to Ireland.