Next week, many Philadelphia restaurants will be participating in Caribbean Cuisine Week.
The week, held from April 8th – April 10th this year, helps raise funds to send over 700 high school athletes from Trinidad, Jamaica, St. Vincent and Grenada to attend the 2015 Penn Relays.
The Penn Relays is the largest track and field meet in the United States and draws over 110,000 people to Philadelphia each Spring.
CCW partners with restaurants throughout Center City by encouraging the Chefs to prepare Caribbean inspired dishes and offer as specials. The restaurants will donate 5% of food proceeds from the three day period to help bring the students to Philadelphia.
The list of participating restaurants can be found here. One of the restaurants participating, 48th Street Grille in West Philly, invited some local bloggers to check out their offerings. 48th Street Grille is a Caribbean-American restaurant led by Executive Chef Carl Lewis Sr. who is originally from Jamaica and brings the flavors and spirit of his home to his food.
Appetizers included garlic roasted shrimp, jerk chicken quesadillas, 5 island wings, and my personal favorite, conch fritters.
We were also treated to quite a few of their entrees, including sweet chili glazed salmon, jerk chicken, and savory curried chicken, which were all amazing. I am fairly certain I had dreams about the curried chicken sauce that night (I loved it so much, I didn’t even take a photo! boo), while my fiance was wowed by the flavors and tenderness of the jerk chicken.
In case we weren’t full enough, we were also served mashed yams with scallions, green beans, and braised cabbage.
I wanted to share with you a Caribbean-inspired recipe given to me by CCW, in case you don’t live in the area and can’t participate next week.
I turned this recipe for Curry Shrimp in Coconut Milk into a main dish by serving it over coconut rice, but it also would work well as an appetizer.
Ingredients:
- 2 (14 oz) cans lite coconut milk, divided
- 1.5 cups uncooked rice (or about 1 can full)
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- 1 cup onion, chopped
- 1 1⁄2 tablespoons curry
- 1/2 cup bell peppers, diced (I used an assortment of green, red, and orange peppers)
- 1/2 cup plum tomatoes, diced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
- 1 1⁄2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined