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Saltfish Fritters: Jamaican Food
The saltfish fritter is popularly known as "stamp and go" here in Jamaica. This simple dish can be had for breakfast, lunch or as a snack.
Stamp and go is one of Jamaica's most popular street foods but made in the home quite often. The saltfish or salted codfish is used as the main staple.
The fish is shredded seasoned and mixed into a flour based batter then fried in shallow fat, drained on paper towels if you like and enjoyed hot or room temperature.
The fritters can accompany the meal as a starch of eaten as the main meal. Whatever you choose your saltfish fritters is good to go.
Have your fritters with a tall glass of lemonade or ice cold beer.
Cook Time
Ingredients
- 2 oz saltfish, pre-soaked in cold water for an hour
- 1 cup all purpose flour, more if needed
- 1 stalk scallion, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- black pepper
- salt, (optional)
- 1/2 tsp thyme leaves, (optional)
- Water
- 1 tsp finely minced scotch bonnet
- vegetable oil for frying
- Soak your cod fish in some cold water for at least an hour. Remove scales and shred. Set aside in a medium bowl
- Finley chop scallion, garlic and pepper. Add to your saltfish bowl
- Add about 1/2 cup water and black pepper. Using a fork beat until flavor of saltfish and seasoning is incorporated into the water. Taste and add salt if needed.
- Add flour and beat until smooth. The batter should be thick but not doughy. Add more flour if needed.
- Heat vegetable oil in skillet until very hot but not smoking. Spoon batter into hot oil and fry on both sides until brown.
- Do not make the fritters too thick, this will prevent them from cooking easily. Ideally they should be about 1/8 of an inch in thickness.
The idea is to make your saltfish fritters taste better than your neighbor's or the one sold on the street. So what you put in your fritters will depend on your own preferences.
Here are some options for your fritters:
- Use part whole wheat flour to give some fiber/roughage
- Some people add tomatoes which is personal favorite of mine but my fiancé hates the tomatoes in it. My fritters have to be made pretty simply with just scallion, saltfish and the batter for him to enjoy it.
- I have seen recipes containing ketchup but this is not an original ingredient and will not make the fritters taste the same. As you know ketchup is sweet and vinegary so not a good recommendation.