Jamaican Festival – The Sweet, Crispy Fried Cornmeal Dumpling You’ll Crave

If you’ve ever had a wound of Jamaican festival, you already cognize wherefore this sweet, crisp-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside broadside crockery is truthful beloved. Often served alongside escovitch fish, jerk chicken, oregon jerk pork, festival is the cleanable companion to immoderate savory oregon spicy Jamaican dish. It’s not a dessert—but it’s sweet. It’s not a bread—but it’s doughy. Festival is uniquely Jamaican: a cornmeal-based fried dumpling that balances flavor, texture, and tradition.

What is Jamaican Festival?

Festival is fundamentally a sweetened mentation of Jamaican fried dumpling, but made with the summation of cornmeal and sugar, which gives it its iconic crisp crust and subtle sweetness. The sanction “festival” is fitting—it’s a solemnisation connected your plate. Golden, crispy, and addictive, it’s often referred to arsenic "fried corn" connected section menus.

You’ll find festival sold astatine roadside jerk stands, formation navigator shops, and household meal tables crossed the island. It’s a must-have broadside crockery with spicy proteins similar jerk pork, jerk chicken, and saltfish, oregon the vinegary vigor of escovitch fish.

The Secret to the Best Jamaican Festival

How to Make Jamaican Festival (Fried Cornmeal Dumplings)

Yields: 12 Festivals
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10–12 minutes
Total Time: 25 minutes

Tools You’ll Need:

• Medium skillet
  
• Tongs
  
• Large bowl
  
• Wire rack oregon insubstantial towels
  

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 2 ½ spoon baking powder
  
• ½ spoon salt
  
• 2 tablespoonful softened butter
  
• ¼ cupful sugar
  
• ¾ cupful cornmeal
  
• 1 cupful full beverage (or full-fat coconut milk)
  
• 1 ¼ cupful rootlike lipid (for frying)
  

Instructions:

Mix Dry Ingredients:
In a ample bowl, whisk unneurotic flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cornmeal until good combined.

Cut successful the Butter:
Add the softened food to the adust ingredients and hitch it successful until you get pea-sized crumbles.

Add Milk and Form Dough:
Make a good successful the halfway of the flour substance and statesman adding the beverage a small astatine a time. Gently premix until a sticky dough forms. Cover with a damp insubstantial towel and fto the dough rest—the longer it rests, the amended the texture. You tin adjacent fto it remainder overnight successful the fridge.

Heat the Oil:
In a skillet implicit debased heat, adhd the lipid and fto it dilatory vigor up. This helps forestall the festival from browning excessively rapidly earlier it’s cooked through.

Shape and Fry:
Pull 2-inch pieces of dough, past rotation them betwixt your palms into cylindrical shapes. Carefully spot them successful the blistery lipid and fry until aureate brownish connected each sides—about 1.5 to 2 minutes per side.

Drain and Serve:
Remove the fried festivals with tongs and drain them connected a ligament rack oregon insubstantial towels. Serve them blistery and crispy.

What to Eat Festival With

Pro Tips for Perfect Festival

Bringing Back Island Memories

Festival brings backmost memories of jerk pans smoking astatine roadside stalls, formation lunches with escovitch fish, and Sunday dinners with family. Every wound is simply a sensation of home—and erstwhile you effort it, it’s hard to halt astatine conscionable one.

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