Jamaican Pepper Steak: Fusion Cooking at Its Best

Take pepper steak. The framework of this beef‑and–bell pepper stir-fry is classically Chinese: strips of meat and colorful vegetables cooked fast and seasoned with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. But those seasonings have also become Jamaican pantry staples. Many of the stir-fry’s other key components, such as allspice (also known as “Jamaica pepper”), thyme, and Scotch bonnet chiles, are unmistakably Jamaican, as is the abundance of brown gravy that gets poured over white rice or the island’s iconic rice and peas. And like any fusion dish, cooks tweak it to taste, often weaving in flavors or techniques from other well-loved preparations. That’s exactly what I’ve done here.

Pepper steak is part of so many meal routines that many Jamaican markets sell the meat—usually a flavorful cut such as strip or flank steak—presliced. I cut a strip steak into thin pieces and briefly soaked them in a baking soda solution, a handy trick that raises the meat’s pH so it cooks up succulent. Then I marinated the beef in a mix of soy sauce and cornstarch, a low-effort facsimile of traditional Chinese velveting that seasoned the beef and gave it a silky protective coat.

From there, it was simply a matter of stir-frying strategically and balancing the seasonings in the gravy. I batch-seared the beef in a nonstick skillet (carbon-steel works, too) not only because it’s a more accessible alternative to a deep, curvy Jamaican Dutch pot, but also because its roomier surface area meant that the meat wouldn’t be overcrowded and steam instead of brown. There was some nice fond on the bottom of the pan, which I deglazed with a bit of rum—a classic component in curry goat that I thought would boost the sauce’s complexity—and set that liquid aside with the beef. Then I got the pan smoking hot and blistered the bell pepper strips, scallions, and aromatics: garlic, crushed allspice berries (more fragrant than ground; not as jarring to bite as whole), ginger, fresh thyme, and minced Scotch bonnet chile.

The foundation of pepper steak gravy—of almost any Jamaican gravy—is browning sauce, the burnt brown sugar syrup that cooks buy by the bottle and add by the spoonful to countless dishes for its color and bittersweet base note. It’s not widely sold in the United States, though, so cooks often mimic its effect with oyster sauce. I like that: Quite a few Jamaicans keep oyster sauce on hand, and it adds even more umami depth; I enhanced its effect by adding Worcestershire sauce and by swapping the all-purpose soy sauce in the marinade for the heavier, more caramel-y dark kind.

I whisked the oyster and Worcestershire sauces into a couple cups of beef broth, the liquid base for the gravy; seasoned the mix with sugar, onion and garlic powders, and black pepper; and stirred in more cornstarch for body. It reduced to a medium nappe after just a few minutes of simmering, at which point I added back the meat and vegetables and gave it a stir. 

My tweaks added up to a stir-fry that truly represented Jamaican Chinese synergy: bright, crisp vegetables; tender steak; and a glossy, meaty, aromatic gravy that I ladled generously over rice.