Brews & Eats

One of the most confusingly named and under-appreciated spices in the kitchen cupboard. Confusingly named, because ‘allspice’ sounds like some sort of catch-all spice blend, with a bit of everything thrown in for good measure.

But it actually comes from ground allspice berries, the plant of which originates, as with so many of the world’s great flavours, from central America. Allspice tends to be mostly used in sweet dishes in the UK, giving a distinct and pleasant perfume to cakes, gingerbreads and biscuits. But it is an absolute joy to use with savoury cooking, too. Particularly heavy, slow-cooked meat stews such as chilli con carne and Barbacoa. It also works a treat with cassoulet-type sausage and bean casseroles, hearty tomato-based soups, and crispy, skin-on spiced potato wedges. Quite possibly its most celebrated usage is as part of Jamaica’s jerk chicken spice paste, where it partners so brilliantly with fragrant thyme and the scorching heat of the scotch bonnet chillis to produce what is still, to my mind, the best BBQ marinade for chicken that there is.

For a different way to enjoy its unique flavour, try grinding it with a little cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, and enjoy in a milky chai tea. A similar mix can also substitute a garam masala – a fragrant spice mix with which to give a final flurry of flavour to your curries without affecting the heat or salt level of your finished dish.