Oil Down - Grenada's National Dish

Throughout the Caribbean one can find dishes similar to Oil Down. In Guyana, Mettagee quickly comes to mind. In Trinidad and Tobago, they make Oil Down too, the colour of their dish coming from the use of annatto seeds/achiote. In Jamaica, Run Down, a stew made of salted mackerel or fresh fish, and yams, cooked with fresh seasonings in lots of coconut milk, is served alongside dumplings and boiled breadfruit. Regardless of where you are in the region, these dishes are different yet similar; they are familiar but distinct, like us. To read more, about this dish and for a recipe, click on this link; the recipe is at the bottom of the page. Feel free to shoot me an email if you have questions.

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Barbados @ 50 - National Dish

Cou Cou & Flying Fish is Barbados' national dish. Cou Cou refers to the style of preparation of an ingredient. In the case of the national dish, cornmeal is cooked in water with okras and seasonings, low and slow until liquid dries out and the cornmeal comes away easily from the sides of the pot. The texture is silky from the okras. The hot cornmeal cou cou is transferred to a well buttered dish; the bowl is then swirled around to firm up, shape and mould the cou cou. Served with stewed flying fish with lots of flavourful sauce made with onions, tomatoes and fresh herbs, this is quite a filling meal. Other types of cou cou - breadfruit cou cou and green banana cou cou.

With breadfruit and green banana cou cou, the ingredients are boiled until soft and mashed smooth with butter, a little salt and sometimes a bit of cheese. So good!

 

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Guyana @ 50 - Pepperpot

Pepperpot is a famous Guyanese Christmas dish, though these days, some people make it all year round. It is a dish that originated with our Indigenous Peoples. The use of cassareep (a concentrated syrup made from the juice of grated cassava that has boiled for hours until it becomes very thick and black) is a key ingredient in the making of Pepperpot. The taste of cassareep is deliciously complex with hints of sweet, savoury and caramel. The preservative elements of cassareep is what facilitates Pepperpot being kept at room temperature for days and weeks without spoilage. Pepperpot is heated to a boil twice daily.

Read more about Pepperpot here.

Pepperpot ©Cynthia Nelson

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Giving in & Cornmeal Cou-Cou in 10 - Minutes!

Since White on Rice Couple posted about that very famous Vietnamese sandwich in February followed by Carolyn posting about Momofuku's pork bun/sandwich exactly one week later to the day, I just could not help myself, I gave in because all of a sudden I had some serious cravings for a pork sandwich.

All of a sudden and serious because:

1. Pork sandwiches are not common in my part of the world (though excellent pork is!)
2. You know how I feel about bread
3. It's no secret that eating bread for a meal such as lunch is not my kind of thing

While I was inspired by both posts, I did my own thing creating my own pork sandwich recipe. I went all out for this sandwich by first making my pickle the day before, marinating the pork overnight and baking my bread the following day.

Potted Pork

I used a pressure cooker to make quick cooking of my pork.

INGREDIENTS

1 + 1/2 lb pork belly cut into chunks
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons kecap manis
3 tablespoons chinkiang vinegar (black rice vinegar)
Minced hot pepper to taste
Salt (adjust to taste)
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup water

DIRECTIONS

1. Add the pork, soy sauce, kecap manis, black rice vinegar, hot pepper and salt to a bowl and toss to mix and coat meat. Cover and refrigerate overnight
2. Remove pork from fridge 30 mins before cooking
3. Heat oil in a pressure cooker, when hot, add pork and spread out in a single layer. Let cook until any liquid from the meat dries out
4. When liquid has dried out, add water and stir, scrape the bottom of the pan for any bits stuck there. Cover pressure cooker and let it come up to the first whistle. After the first whistle, lower heat to medium low and let cook for 15 minutes (depending on your pressure cooker, you will not hear the whiltle during this time, just a little hissing)
5. At the end of the 15 minutes, remove pressure cooker from heat, release the value to let out steam and then open pressure cooker. Return to stove on high heat and let cook until all liquid is gone. Drain off excess oil and reserve for other use such as roasting potatoes etc

Carrot & Cabbage Pickle

INGREDIENTS

1 cup pickling liquid (recipe follows)
1 + 1/2 cups shredded carrots
1 + 1/2 cups shredded cabbage
Hot peppers, de-seeded and sliced

For pickling liquid:

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
3/4 teaspoon salt

1. Add all the ingredients to a saucepot and place on medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon to dissolve sugar and salt
2. Let mixture come to a boil and boil for 1 minute
3. Remove from heat and let cool completely before using to make pickle

DIRECTIONS

1. Add carrots, cabbage and peppers to a large bowl
2. Pour pickling liquid over carrots, cabbage and peppers. Toss to coat thoroughly
3. Place pickle into a mason jar or vaccum-sealed plastic container and let sit refrigerated for 24 - 48 hours before using

The sandwich totally satisfied my craving and it was worth the effort! My neighbours were thrilled with theirs as well.

For full disclosure I have to tell you that for dinner, I sought something else, you know that there is no way I would be eating bread for lunch and dinner! (lol)

And now on to this week's column.

Cornmeal Cou-Cou is half of the dish that makes up Barbados' national dish. One of the reasons many people complain about making Cornmeal Cou-Cou is the time it takes to be cooked - 90 minutes! Well, guess what, a friend of mine who is rather adept at cooking told me how to make excellent Cornmeal Cou-Cou in 10 minutes! In the microwave! Read all about it here, where you will also find the recipe.

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All Cook-Up Rice is not created Equal

There are some people who constantly question and marvel at the possibility of cooking a variety of ingredients in one pot at the same time. They often wonder, will some things not be over cooked and others undercooked? The answer is no, not if you know what you are doing and understand the ingredients you are working with.

This week's column is about cooking one of Guyana's national dishes - Cook-up Rice. I'm sure some of you will recall me mentioning the dish in the past. It's a medley of ingredients that are cooked together: peas, rice, meat, chicken and fresh herbs with coconut milk. You can also make it vegetarian. Click here to read my discussion on how to make a Cook-Up Rice where each ingredient has a different cooking time and yet everything comes out cooked perfectly, never over cooked or undercooked.

If you think you'd like to give this dish a try, please do not hesitate to email me for a recipe.

Over at Forgive Me My Nonsense... the discussion is still going strong on "How Rude are Your Readers? Don't forget to weigh-in, we love hearing from you.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Ackee & Saltfish

Ackee & Saltfish is Jamaica's national dish, though I hear it is getting some serious competition from the much loved rice and peas and curried goat. But that's a story for another time, today I want to talk about how tasty ackee is.

Ackee is currently in season and I am enjoying the bounty. My friend Paula brought me 3 lbs of fresh ackee last week and naturally that meant that I'd be making ackee and saltfish. Gosh, I know those of you Caribbean people living abroad will be envious :)



Ackee may look like scrambled eggs but they taste nothing like scrambled eggs, it's creamy when cooked with natural notes of sweetness that contrasts well with the saltiness of the saltfish, sauteed with onions, tomatoes, sweet, hot & black peppers and herbs. This is a dish that is much sought after at home and abroad.

The product of an evergreen tree, the fruit is ripe and ready for picking when it turns a bright red-orange and bursts open. You can read more about ackee here. And you can read this week's column here.

This past Thursday was Valentine's day and since I only post on Saturdays, I am sending all my love to you today. And since this is a food blog, I am dedicating the tomato rose that garnishes the ackee and saltfish to you, yes, I made it myself :)

I am also the lucky recipient of The Spreader of Love Award and so I want to share that award with each and every one of you, yes, YOU that's reading this blog right now :) So be sure to wear it proudly on your blog. I'd like to thank sincerely, my dear friend, Vi over at East Meets West Kitchen for bestowing me with this award. Thank you!

This week over at Forgive Me My Nonsense... let's pay more attention to what's happening around us, you never can tell when and where inspiration will show up.

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Pepperpot & Garlic Pork!

Pepperpot

Pepperpot and garlic pork are among the must-have dishes in Guyana at Christmas. The unique thing about both of these dishes is that they get better with age- just like a good steak, wine, cheese or cured meat. Almost every home on Christmas morning has these dishes on the breakfast table. Click here to read how these dishes are made and aged.

As I’ve said in previous posts and columns, Guyana is made up a 6 races. The dish pepperpot has its origins with our Indigenous peoples (Amerindians). Here are some facts:

1. The key ingredient in pepperpot is cassava casareep, made from the juice extracted from grated cassava.
2. It takes the juice of 60 pounds of grated cassava, boiled for hours to produce one-10oz bottle of casreep.
3. The Indigenous peoples had no refrigeration and so they used casareep for its preservative properities (that is why pepperpot can be left on the stovetop, reheated daily for days and not spoil).
4. The indigenous peoples used lots of pepper sometimes instead of meat to make pepperpot, hence the name.
5. Cassava is gluten free, high in fibre and low in fat.
6. Casareep can be used as a browning agent in a variety of dishes such as stews, pelau etc.

Pepperpot, though traditionally eaten with cassava bread (made from the pulp after squeezing for the juice to make casareep) is more popularly eaten with homemade bread.

For info on how you can get casareep in your neck of the woods, please contact Annette Arjoon of the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society, here.

Garlic Pork

Garlic pork, came from our Portuguese ancestors, it’s a pickle. A paste of fresh thyme and garlic are used to season thin slices of pork and then the meat is soaked in a solution of distilled vinegar, water and salt for weeks before its pan fried, sliced and served. You can read the column for more info.

Thyme-garlic paste

Pickling garlic pork

The recipes for these dishes are book-embargoed by my publisher. Click here if you are interested.
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Bee and I would like to thank you for helping us to kick things off on the new blog, Forgive me my nonsense… do drop by again, we love to hearing from you.
By the way, Charlotte at the Great Big Veggie Challenge has been on a quest to introduce her family, particularly her 7-year-old son, Freddie, described as veggie-phobic, to eating and enjoying a wide variety of vegetables. Since they are going through the alphabet and are now at the letter P, the veg is Plantain. So if you have a plantain-recipe or plantain post and would like to share it, send it to Charlotte. Next week as she moves on to Q, she’ll be looking for Quick vegetable recipes, if you have any, you know what to do.

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Time for Conkies

"According to the A-Z of Barbadian Heritage, the Ghanaian “kenkey” is probably the origin of the local word, conkie. In Ghana, Kenkey refers to similarly prepared corn meal dishes." That excerpt is taken from this week's column that looks at this dish that is made throughout the Caribbean.

On Friday, November 30th, Barbados will be celebrating 41 years of Independence from British rule and one of the foods often made and eaten around this time is conkie! Prior to its independence, the eating of conkies in Barbados was associated with November 5th – Guy Fawkes night.

The primary ingredients are pumpkin, cornmeal, sweet potatoes and coconut along with spices etc. It's a sweet dish and can be eaten at any meal or as a snack. Labour intensive because of the grating, the gift of a conkie is highly prized.

Conkie mixture

I enjoy making the foods of my adopted home and learning about them. So for this Independence I made conkies for the first time. Feedback from my Bajan friends has been very positive.

Conkie before steaming

Cooked conkie

Here is a step-by-step slide demo how to make conkies. If you cannot get banana leaves where you are this mixture can be placed in ramekins and steamed. This is also my entry to Meeta's Monthly Mingle, the theme being, Traditional Feasts.
Happy Independence Barbados!

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Cornmeal Cou Cou

Barbados’ national dish is cornmeal cou cou and flying fish. Long ago, cou cou used to be a regular every-Saturday dish in many households just as pudding and souse is, but these days, because of the time it takes to prepare, a lot of people have stopped making it regularly. If we’re not careful, the technique of making good cou cou will fade away as we all get busier, eating out becomes the norm, and those with the knowledge of making cou cou leave this world without being able to pass on this traditional dish.

Read this week’s column where I talk about my timidity about making cou cou. Many of you will recognize similarities in the method of preparation and polenta will come to mind.

Here's a recipe I adapted from Barbadian Chef, Peter Edey

Recipe - Cou Cou

Ingredients
6 okras, sliced thinly
2 cups cornmeal
1 tbsp butter, plus extra for buttering dish
1 medium onion, chopped finely
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp thyme, minced finely
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
4 cups boiling water
2 cups tap water

Equipment

• Perferably, but not necessarily, a heavy-bottomed pot
• Wooden spoon
• Bowl for molding

Method

1. Soak cornmeal in 2 cups tap water 5 minutes before you are ready to start making the cou cou
2. Heat oil in pot and saute onions, garlic and thyme for 1 - 2 mins
3. Add sliced okras and saute for one minute
4. Add 4 cups of boiling water, cover pot and let boil for 10 - 12 minutes
5. Using a slotted spoon, remove the okras and set aside and keep warm
6. Pour out half of the liquid from the pot and set aside (reserve)
7. Turn the heat to very low, add the soaked cornmeal and salt
8. Stir constantly to avoid lumps and to avoid the cornmeal mixture from scorching
9. As the cornmeal begins to dry out, add the reserved liquid in stages until the cornmeal is cooked
10. As the mixture begins to break away clean from the sides of the pot, add back the okras and incorporate fully
11. Let the cou cou continue to cook until firm (but not stiff). Again, the mixture should break away cleanly from the sides and when you insert the spoon in the middle of the cou cou, it should stand and remove easily from the mixture.
12. Pour cou cou into a generously buttered bowl and swivel/shake it around to form a mold
13. Invert the bowl with cou cou onto a platter
14. To serve, create an indentation in the center of the coucou and heap with stewed fish, meat or vegetables letting the rich sauce spill over the sides.

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Mettagee

This week's column features yet another national dish of Guyana, Mettagee or Mettem. At first I thought that the word was of Amerindian heritage but it is not, the jury is still out on the origin of the word.

Mettagee is thought to have been Portuguese in its origin something they prepared while on the boats from Portugal to Guyana - a one pot dish made with coconut milk but certainly far removed from what we prepare today. As with everything, food changes as we move from one place to another and adapt. However, though believed to be Portuguese in origin, Mettagee is often considered to be an Afro-Guyanese dish.



Root Vegetables or Ground Provisions as we call them grow abundantly here in the Caribbean and we make a variety of dishes with them. Cassava (tapioca), eddoes (taro root), sweet potatoes, yams, tannia can all be had in these parts.

The dish featured here is a true celebration of these root vegetables that are united with plantains, green and ripe, okras, dumplings and cooked with fresh coconut milk. It is traditionally served with salt fish or fried fish.



Versions of this dish are made in other Caribbean countries as well, in Jamaica it's Rundown, in Grenada, St. Vincent & The Grenadines and Trinidad & Tobago, it's known as Oildown.

I encourage you to try making this dish. You will absolutely love it.

To read more in the column, click here.
For the recipe, please email me.
Click here and find out how the dish was enjoyed.

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Independence Food & A Foodie Sidekick

Guyana is often referred to as the Land of Six Peoples and the Land of Many Waters. Six peoples because our nation is made up of Africans, Indians, Portuguese, Chinese, Indigenous and the ever growing mixed race of which I am. It is fondly known as the Land of Many Waters due to it numerous rivers, the largest being the mighty Essequibo river.

Well, today this shapely country, (if you doubt it’s shapely, check out the map here ) :) the land of my birth, is celebrating 41 years of Independence. In honour of this occasion, in this week’s column, I decided to make two of our national dishes which, for me, personify who we are as Guyanese.

Cook-up Rice with beef, chicken and salted pork

Cook-Up Rice is a must-have dish on Saturdays. Cook-up as we call it, is a one-pot dish that consists of peas, rice and various meats – fresh and cured - that is cooked with coconut milk and fresh herbs. Cook-up rice is also a traditional Old Year’s Night (New Year’s Eve to some of you) meal.

The variety of ingredients in this dish, I feel, exemplifies the make-up of Guyana. We like to serve this dish with fried fish, fried ripe plantains and a simple salad.

Fried fish & fried ripe plantains

Sliced cucumbers & tomatoes

Another national dish we have is called Pepperpot. While Pepperpot can be eaten all year round, it is traditionally made and eaten at Christmas. Breakfast on Christmas morning would just not be breakfast without Pepperpot and bread, preferably homemade.

In Guyana, the Indigenous peoples are Amerindians and it is they that we have to thank for this unique, flavourful creation.

Pepperpot made with beef and pig-trotters

The key to excellent Pepperpot lies in good quality casreep. Casreep is a thick syrup that is obtained from boiled cassava juice. This flavourful syrup is used in many sauces and as flavourings in some dishes. I have some Trinidadian friends who L-O-V-E our casreep. They use it in place of burnt sugar to colour some of their dishes.

To make Pepperpot you need some ingredients that may seem strange to some of you J - cow-heel, pig trotters and more familiar, beef. The other ingredients are flavourings: casreep, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, scotch bonnet pepper, dried orange or lemon peel, salt, sugar and water. The ingredients are put in a large pot and set on a roaring fire to cook for at least 1 hour.

Pepperpot tastes best the day(s) after it is made. It is eaten with bread that sops up the sweet-like sauce. Pepperpot lasts for days without refrigeration; this is done by reheating it twice a day to a boil. At each reheating, the flavours are further enriched.

So why make a traditional Christmas dish at Independence? Because I can :) more seriously, I made it because I wanted to salute and acknowledge our Indigenous heritage that makes Guyana such a special place.

Please email me if you’d like the recipe for either of the dishes: Cook-up rice or Pepperpot. I did not put them here because they would have made this post even longer.

This week’s column can be read here.
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And now on to some serious foodie business...

Many of you out there have spouses, relatives and friends who are there, close by, to taste your creations, experiement on, and give feedback all the time. Me? I have my best friend Susan, as my family and relatives live in another country. She is my foodie sidekick.

Susan has created a blog, Foodie Sidekick, where those (spouses, partners, relatives & friends) who are at the receiving end of a foodie's creative, obsessive, compulsive, mad and delicious creations can gather, discuss and exchange among themselves the things we do in the name of food blogging, the tastes, the tantrums, the triumphs etc.

Here, let her tell you in her own words what the blog is all about.

"Are you now or have you ever been a Foodie Sidekick? Have you ever knowingly associated with Foodie Sidekicks? I hope so. Just like Batman had his Robin and Superman had his Krypto every foodie has one, two, three or more sidekicks. We are the people who have the pleasure of watching the foodies create glorious gastronomic delights. We are the people who have the delectable duty to taste those culinary creations. Whilst happily eating one of Cynthia’s wonderful meals I had the idea to start the Foodie Sidekick. The Foodie Sidekick is a place for all the foodie sidekicks to gather and let the world know just how all these wonderful dishes actually taste. Let you’re foodie sidekicks know that finally they have their own gathering space to talk about one of the most important aspects of food – eating it. Now, be very clear, you’re probably a foodie – that’s why you’re reading this here, but you can be a foodie and a foodie sidekick too. Come to Foodie Sidekick, take the test and see if you too are a Foodie Sidekick.!" Susan.

So I encourge you all to click here and send all your loved ones to dish about your dishes! (lol)

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