Shelly-Ann Thompson, Freelance Reporter
Douet Reid pouring 100 per cent Baronhall Estate Coffee Liqueur into his secret rum sauce, which is perfect when poured over bread pudding. - CONTRIBUTED
LAST MONTH the Lifestyle team toured the Jamaica Standard Products (JSP) factory in Williamsfield, Manchester. Lunch included a dessert of banana bread and bread pudding served with a rum sauce. The team was impressed by the yummy rum sauce. Secrets were revealed and it turned out that JSP's estate manager, Douet Reid, was the creator of the delicious concoction. We persuaded him to share his secret passion with readers.
Most weekends, Douet Reid can be found in his kitchen at home in St. Ann. Dinner for his wife and children usually includes steamed fish or curry shrimp - his favourite dishes to prepare. Occasionally, he cooks for gatherings whenever he entertains or hosts picnics and for his church, Spaldings United's harvest fair.
Mr. Reid told Food he enjoys cooking, a passion that started when he was a child. "I come from a big family of nine siblings. My father died early so I had to help my mother around the house with cooking. Plus, I like to eat so I couldn't wait for her to cook, so I volunteered to cook."
Mr. Reid is the seventh child and cooked his first complete meal at age 13. Now 48 years old he couldn't recall what the dinner was. "More than likely it was chicken and something else."
MAKING THE CONCOCTION
Over the decades, Mr. Reid has experimented with food. His latest foray is rum sauce. He first tasted a rum sauce on a pudding about a year ago and he was enamoured. "It was quite tasty and I wanted to try my hand. I started to find out some of the ingredients. Then I tried a few concoctions until I came up with a formula, and the proportions were perfected."
In his rum sauce the basic ingredients are eggs, evaporated milk, sugar, margarine and of course, overproof rum heated and simmered. To make his rum sauce he also experiments with different spirits such as brandy and Appleton Rum. "If you are also someone who likes coffee like I do, then you use the Baron Hall Coffee Liqueur. This will give it a different and lovely flavour."
Several of his friends, relatives and co-workers have had his rum sauce and report that it is wonderful. "Everybody who has tasted it so far think it's a big hit," says Mr. Reid.
The rum sauce he says works well with bread pudding.
