Jamaican Conch Recipes

Chef Doreen has been a chef for over 20 years is aware of the importance of healthy Jamaican food recipes. The Jamaican conch is a popular meal in Jamaica and is prepare in several ways, in Jamaican soup recipes, Jamaican  curry recipes and even in Jamaican stewed recipes.

Jamaican conch is a large marine snails which are gastropod mollusks. The species in Jamaica is the queen, or pink-lipped conch which can be found in warm waters of the Atlantic and the Caribbean sea. Their shells have overlapping whorls with a bright colored pink lip, which can reach a length of 12 to 13 inches. The operculum, which is the covering of the shell opening, is a claw like structure which the Jamaican conch uses to dig into the sand and push itself along the bottom. The Jamaican conch are plant eaters and can live as long as 25 years.

Jamaican conch is the second best known edible snail and has been a popular Jamaican food source throughout the Caribbean and Jamaica since the time of the Arawak Indians, before Christopher Columbus. The Arawaks also carved the spiral shells of the Jamaican conch into various tools, musical horns and there are still conch-horn blowing contests throughout Jamaican and ceremonial objects. They are still an important Jamaican food source for natives of the island and is also popular in Haiti and the Bahamas. Jamaican conch is still used it in Jamaican soup recipes and Jamaican salad recipes.

It is illegal to take live Jamaican conch in Jamaican waters out of season as they are becoming quickly an endangered species, so most of the Jamaican that fills the world demand now comes partly from the various Caribbean islands, including the Bahamas where the conch is sometimes called 'hurricane ham'. However, they are becoming scarce even in those waters, as the price has more than tripled to over several years.

Jamaican conch meat has a mild, sweet clam-like flavor, but is extremely tough and must be pounded, or marinated in lime juice to tenderize it before cooking. Some of the most common uses of Jamaican are for Jamaican conch fritters recipe, Jamaican conch chowder recipe, conch steaks and marinated Jamaican raw conch salad. Most restaurants in Jamaica have Jamaican conch fritters and/or Jamaican conch chowder on the menu. The Jamaican conch is a popular meal especially in Indian and seafood restaurants. Along with other sea foods such as the Jamaican lobster and the Jamaican shrimp the Jamaican conch represents the most widely used Jamaican seafood.

Scungili and whelk are distant relatives of the Jamaican conch. The popular Jamaican conch fritters recipe can be served with bread and eaten as a Jamaican sandwich recipe or served with a Jamaican mixed salad recipe  with the following Jamaican conch sauce made with 1 tablespoon mayonnaise, ½ tablespoon Jamaican tomato ketchup, 1 teaspoon Jamaican Pickapeppa sauce, ¼ teaspoon Jamaican coconut milk powder, and salt to taste.

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