Hi everyone! Welcome back to Tasting My Heritage! I really hope you’ve been enjoying my recipes these past weeks because I’m so excited to give you something new to try. For a lot of my recipes, I’ve been basing them on recipes my parents would make for me but this week we’re making something that was never made for me. I have been wanting more Jamaican food inspiration because as I’ve mentioned previously in my newsletters, my parents mainly made Pakistani food for me growing up (with Jamaican food sprinkled in there occasionally). This week we’ll be making Jamaican jerk shrimp tacos but I’m using some different seasonings than my Jerk Chicken recipe.
For this recipe, I used my aroma rice cooker (although that step is optional) and the stovetop to cook my shrimp. I also used my mini nutribullet blender for the marinade.
Ingredients:
- Small bag of frozen shrimp that is already deveined, peeled, and has the tail off
- Mini soft tacos
- Canola oil (or your oil of choice)
- Half of a large yellow onion, diced
- The juice of three limes
- One fourth cup of orange juice
- Two spoonfuls of light brown sugar
- About two teaspoons of garlic powder
- A teaspoon of allspice
- A small squeeze of ginger paste (fresh ginger would be great)
- A teaspoon of cinnamon powder
- A teaspoon of seasoned salt
- A teaspoon of paprika
- Half a teaspoon of cayenne powder
- One fourth teaspoon of ground cloves powder
Step one: Chop your yellow onion and add oil to your pan. Once the oil is heated up, add your diced onion to the pan and let it cook down until it’s brown and soft.
Step two: Once your onion is brown and soft, set it aside to cool down slightly before you add it to your blender. After it’s cooled a bit, add it to your blender, along with the juice of three limes, one fourth cup of orange juice, two spoonfuls of light brown sugar, about two teaspoons of garlic powder, a teaspoon of allspice, a small squeeze of ginger paste (fresh ginger would be great), a teaspoon of cinnamon powder, a teaspoon of seasoned salt, a teaspoon of paprika, half a teaspoon of cayenne powder, one fourth teaspoon of ground cloves powder. Blend all of that up until it’s smooth.
Step three: Defrost your frozen shrimp in cold water and once it’s ready, pour it into a gallon freezer bag. Add your blended marinade of seasonings to the bag and let it marinate in the fridge overnight or as long as you can. I marinated mine for five hours but I actually wish I let it marinate a bit longer.
Step four: After it’s been marinated, there will be a lot of extra sauce left over. So just be aware of that. Add oil to your pan and let it warm up. Add your shrimp to the pot and let it cook for about six minutes total. A general rule of thumb for shrimp is about 2 minutes on each side or until it begins to turn pink, but with this marinade, the shrimp will already be browned so it’s not as easy to tell when it’s done.
Step five: Add your cooked rice to your mini tacos and dress the taco with the shrimp. Top it off with salsa or any topping of your choice. I topped mine off with my homemade fresh, spicy, mango salsa. Recipe will be coming soon for that. Enjoy!!