It’s the end of the summer and the corn is going cheap. I bought four cobs for a quid in Peckham yesterday and a frankly quite staggering twelve red peppers for the same. Twelve. Not joking.

This soup only uses one you’ll be pleased to know, along with two cobs and some classic Caribbean flavours: thyme, scotch bonnet chilli and coconut. It’s a hearty mix, thickened with yellow split peas and potato but my version is light compared with other recipes which use pumpkin or squash and other vegetables. I prefer a fresher version which keeps the focus on the juicy bursts of corn. I strip one cob and slice the other so I’m not denied the pleasure of gnawing on it.

The scotch bonnet chilli is left whole and slit lengthways to release just moderate fruity heat and the creamy coconut milk smooths things over. It tastes tropical and most importantly, it celebrates the corn. At that price, it would be rude not to.

Jamaican Corn Soup

1 large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli
150g yellow split peas
1 litre stock (I used vegetable)
400ml tin of coconut milk
2 sprigs of thyme
2 cobs corn
1 red pepper, diced
1 large potato, diced

Heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable or groundnut oil in a pan and add the onion. Let it sweat over a lowish heat for about 8 minutes then add the garlic for a couple of minutes more, taking care not to let it burn. Make a cut down the length of the chilli, but keep it intact and add it to the pan with the split peas, thyme and stock – simmer for 30 minutes.

Prepare the corn by shaving the kernels from one of the cobs, running your knife down the sides, top to bottom. Slice the other one into 2cm thick slices (I nicked that idea from this recipe recently. I also nicked their presentation). Add the corn, coconut milk and potato and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the red pepper for the final 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Allow the soup to cool a little then remove the chilli, thyme and corn slices (reserve the corn slices) and blend half the soup. If it is still quite hot then make sure not to fill the blender more than half way and hold the lid down because if you don’t you will end up with soup all over your kitchen. It will blast the lid off the blender. Return to the pan and add back the corn slices. Reheat if necessary, adjust the seasoning and serve.

I snubbed breakfast and arrived absolutely ravenous and half an hour an hour early for the Jerk Cook Out. I wanted to get the measure of the place, formulate a plan of attack and talk to some of the cooks. As the meat hit the grill and the smoke started twisting above the trees though, I got impatient and began repeatedly texting and calling my friends until one of them turned up; some pleasantries were exchanged (“how are you?” “yes yes fine whatever so let’s go to this place first then this then this…”) and we were off.

Tasty Jerk have won the competition two years running. I asked them if they fancied their chances but the answer came that they were just in it for kicks; if you win twice in a row then you have to take a year off. We got stuck right into some of their jerk pork belly. The fat was like eating the pork scratchings of my dreams. I like a touch more cloves in the mix but the allspice was prominent enough and I wonder if they put berries in the coals to infuse the smoke. As styles go it was more dry rub than sticky glaze but there was skill in the cooking and confidence in the spice.

There are different styles of jerk; there’s the all-in-one marinade and then the dry rub and glaze. I want to experiment with the latter. Some places seemed to be serving the meat with a sweeter sauce on the side. Last year’s runners up Jerk Lan took this approach, with disappointing results. Their sign urged us to ASK FOR SPECIAL SAUCE and so of course we did, which was a shame because it ruined the meat. I was thinking hot pepper paste with a kick to rival a donkey but instead we got saccharine gloop which seemed to be a mixture of the worst sweet and sour sauce of my life, sugar syrup and water. We could only judge the meat by licking the crusted remnants of chicken skin from the corners of our mouths, which, incidentally, were good and garlicky.

Over a swift pint of Meantime Pale Ale at The Florence it was time to re-group and digest before riding back on the second wind. My friend enjoyed our third portion better, although I can’t say I thought much of it. The real surprise came in the form of a spit roasted lamb, again from Tasty Jerk. Shards of crunchy skin and fat with a proper heat elevated to an out of body experience by the accompanying chilli sauce.

The lurid artificial hue of a drink is directly proportional to its level of efficacy in quenching the fire in your mouth. Everyone should know this. A couple of Slush Puppies the colour of 1980′s neon legwarmers brought us back from the endorphin super highway. Thought you’d turned your back on the SP at ten years of age? Think again.

The problem with an event getting bigger of course, is that quality becomes diluted. Our pork and lamb were great, although I did know of them and make a beeline. A later impulsive purchase of curry goat was watery and timidly spiced but there were so many places to choose from, it was hard to know where to start over-indulging. When considering this conundrum, it seemed that my only chink of light would come in the form of my judging the competition, so that I could visit each and every stall. I would systematically work the field, savouring each nugget of pork, fish and chicken like it was my last before slipping peacefully into a jerk coma.

And then I’d wake up.

The annual Jerk Cook Out Festival takes place in Brockwell Park (formerly Horniman Museum) in August. Dates vary so keep an eye out. This year’s event ran from 12-6pm.

If you like jerk check out my jerk recipe and my top tips for great jerk.

My event of the summer. I’ve been to The Jerk Cook Out competition for the past three years and every time it gets bigger and (in most ways) better; so much so in fact that this year it has moved from the gardens of The Horniman Museum, to the larger and much more suitable, Brockwell Park. The Horniman gardens, although lovely, are hilly and the stalls were forced to spread out; you could never really get the measure of the place. Planning your course around multiple jerk stalls is a serious business and one needs to size up the scale of the challenge. You could never do them all though, we’re talking a week’s worth of eatin’ out there.

Jerk chicken, pork belly, fish and crab claws. Rice and peas, plantains and fresh coconut water. Rum. Music. My advice is to get there early (the queues can get a bit silly) and to go seriously hungry, because one plate of jerk is never enough.

When: Sunday 15th August, 12pm-6pm
Where: Brockwell Park, (Dulwich, SE24 9AE)
Cost: Free entry, then you obviously pay for the jerk.

The question I get asked the most when shopping on Rye Lane is, “do you actually eat those chilli peppers?!” This usually comes from a man of Caribbean background of a certain age; they’re always amazed that this little White English girl even knows what jerk is, let alone makes it in her own home. Cue smiles, wistful eyes and tales from the tropics. Don’t even think about asking for a recipe though, it’s a short cut to the end of the conversation.

I don’t claim to have the best jerk recipe out there; I still aspire to the heady heights of Smokey Jerkey in New Cross, but I have learned a thing or two about cooking it through repeated mistakes, research and tips that people send to me. Here are those things, in a list. A list! With bullet points and everything.

• Grind your own allspice berries; makes all the difference. It’s all about freshness with spices; ready-ground have the tendency to taste dusty and lose pungency. Pestle the berries yourself in a mortar, they crush easily and you get to suck up the scent while you pound.

• Use a lot of sugar in your recipe. This tip I picked up from Josh. It was one of those beautiful moments when you work out what your recipe has been missing. I also add a tablespoon of molasses to mine, which gives a dark, sticky quality. Thanks to Laura for that one.
• Don’t ever, EVER be tempted to use different chillies in place of scotch bonnets. SB’s are the cornerstone of jerk flavour; no other pepper has the same fruity tingle. Just be careful when preparing them and de-seed if you like (I do) . There are actually quite a few varieties of Caribbean chilli (e.g. Trinidad Scorpion, Billy Goat, Jamaican Gold), but we only seem to get the one variety here.
• Always marinate overnight.
• Don’t use too much sauce. It’s tempting to leave a thick layer on when you’re grilling but don’t, it will just burn. If you’ve given it a good marinating overnight then the flavour should have seeped right in and all that’s left to do is cook it properly…

• Cook on a BBQ. The major problem with cooking jerk at home is the lack of a cooking drum. This is a barrel turned on its side and mounted on legs, basically (see above). The jerk is grilled over coals like a BBQ.
• This is an absolute blinder of a tip – sent on to me by a reader (cheers Joe). Those tantalising wafts of smoke you get coming from the jerk drums?  They come from spritzing the coals – with BEER. This creates more smoke which you can then seal inside with your meat or fish.
• Same reader, second awesome pointer: throw some soaked pimento (allspice) berries into the coals so when you spray them with the BEER, they sizzle and flavour the smoke.
• And finally, I find it best to use the indirect BBQ cooking method because this recipe has a lot of sugar in it and any direct flame with burn the shizzle out of it. Build your coals in a pyramid shape in the centre of the BBQ, then when they are lit, leave until they turn white. At this point you can move them to the sides of the BBQ, put your meat in the centre of the grill and put the lid on. The heat will circulate inside but there will be no fat dripping onto coals and therefore no flaring. You can also cook large joints of meat in this way.

And so ends the summary of my jerk-cooking know-how. Now come on, I know there are some tips tingling on your fingertips right now. I can sense it. Tell me.

You can find my current jerk recipe here and I must remind you that The Food Event of The Year is coming up soon – The Jerk Cookout Festival. If you look at my post about it last year, then you’ll see a comment from Joe, who heard a rumour about it being moved to Brockwell Park this year, having outgrown its usual venue – the gardens of The Horniman Museum in Forest Hill. Watch this space. I’m all over it.

I’m not talking about the annual restaurant festival in Regent’s Park, but a project by an art student called Junior Monney (awesome name), who’s studying graphic design at The University of The Arts. The idea of the project is that Junior visits Londoners in their own homes and they cook him a meal and have a little chat about their own food history. He therefore builds up a picture of the stories behind food choices. This of course encompasses culture, personal experience, individual taste and the practical and emotional. He said he had some difficulty with the project as most people were wary of letting a stranger into their home. Me being a person who meets people ‘off the internet’ all the time however, invited him right in without question and crossed my fingers he wasn’t an axe murderer.

Turned out he was just a really lovely bloke. Phew. I’d decided to make him some of my salt fish fritters; they’re simple, Peckham-themed and – being finger food – dodge the major problem that is me not having a dining table. What a right royal pain in the rear that is. I also had another motive though, which was to update the recipe with an accompanying sweetcorn salsa.

I served them with a spicy tomato sauce last time, which was nice, but no match for those juicy sweet kernels. Mint, coriander and lime juice kept it fresh. Junior seemed to enjoy them anyway, and even took one home for his mum. I told you he was a lovely bloke.

We had fun cooking, eating, filming, drinking beer and taking pictures of each other taking pictures. If you want to see the films that Junior made then go here – there’s a woman cooking some frankly rather massive rhubarb; beef bourguinon with a Caribbean twist; some interesting photos of Vaisakhi celebrations in Southall and a vegan guy cooking Trinidadian oxtail soup for his family.

The film about my fritters is on that home page too. Personally, I can’t bear to watch it because I think I look and sound weird, which bodes well for my upcoming film updates for my Big Peckham Lunch. The flipcam has arrived, and I’m ready to roll. These things can only get easier, I assume. Even if you feel the need to mute my rambling though,  there’s some footage of Peckham Rye on there which is worth a gander. Did I mention I love Peckham?* Oh right.

An excellent idea for a project I think you’ll agree; I’m very pleased to have been able to help out with it. People and food are surely the two best things to be interested in and I’m filled with confidence that Junior will breeze through that degree and then some. I wish him the very best of luck.

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Sweetcorn Salsa to go with Salt Fish Fritters

I er, didn’t write anything down. I used a large tin of sweetcorn, which I drained and heated in a dry pan first, until the liquid cooked off and it started to toast and colour; a small handful each coriander and mint leaves, chopped; 1/2 a red bell pepper, diced; 1/2 a red chilli, chopped and the juice of 1 lime. Mix it all together. Oh and salt and pepper. I think that’s it. Taste and adjust, that’s the way to do it.

* I was very pleased to see my love of Peckham in print in The Times last week – see crumpled piece of paper below.