I recently filmed my pal Ashton Whiteman as he was preparing paratha roti or ‘buss up shut’ for a party in London.

Trinidadians call this roti ‘buss up shut’ – meant to be a play on ‘burst up shirt’ – because of the torn appearance of the dough when it’s cooked.

Ashton demonstrates the final stage of the process, after the dough has been made and rested for a couple of hours. He cooks the roti dough on a flat steel plate called a tawah. A wide heavy-bottomed frying pan can also work if you don’t have a tawah.

Paratha roti is a popular accompaniment for curries and even stews.

But I try as far as possible to source meat that was humanely raised and slaughtered. And I make sure to balance my diet by eating a number of protein sources, like fish, seafood and legumes.

It’s not difficult to eat less meat, especially in the Caribbean, where it’s easy to get fresh fruit and vegetables. Despite this, lots of people still say they don’t know how to make interesting vegetarian meals.

Taymer Mason

Help is at hand: one of the most exciting sources of vegetarian and vegan recipes in recent times has been the book Caribbean Vegan, by Barbadian food scientist Taymer Mason.

Mason, who now lives between St Martin and France, became a vegan almost six years ago. “After making and eating about four pork pies one day at work, I found myself sick of eating meat, and overnight went vegan. I was at a point in my life where I needed to change, and diet was the first step.”

In the Caribbean, the first kind of vegetarianism that comes to mind is the ital cookery made popular by Rastafarians, Mason noted.

“In many of the English-speaking Caribbean islands vegetarianism is accepted by many who see it as a healthier diet. Many may have tasted vegetarian food from Rastafarian establishments or other Caribbean vegetarian food establishments and liked it. Many Caribbean dishes are already vegetarian, like steamed pudding and pickle sans the pork, so it is not a foreign concept.

Try Taymer’s Eggplant and Seaweed Accras.

“After going vegan I had to learn new ways of cooking, like making my own protein sources for seitan, which is vital wheat gluten, and how to bake without eggs and dairy products, and that was a learning curve.

“After doing this I wanted to eat the same things I grew up eating in the Caribbean, like macaroni pie, Christmas ham, pudding and souse, coconut turnovers – so I decided to develop meatless Caribbean recipes for all of my favourite things. There was no book like it out there, so I knew I had to do it, and do it right.”

Caribbean Vegan has been well received. Popular Trinidadian food blogger Sarina Bland, aka Trinigourmet, wrote on the Amazon.com website: “This book successfully translates veganism into the Caribbean culinary vernacular. Clear instructions and pictorial guides will help even more seasoned cooks, and devotees of dishes that previously would have been off-limits, such as souse or black pudding, will be amazed at how effortlessly Mason is able to reproduce familiar meat-based tastes and textures using commonly available vegetables.”

Mason sought to dispel some of the more common myths about vegetarians and vegetarian cooking.

“People think we are all skinny, which is not true! We all have different body types, and one can make the wrong food choices as vegetarian and, by extension, vegan.”

Whether you are omnivorous or vegan, she said, it’s important to make the right food choices, like avoiding simple carbohydrates and sugar.

“They also believe that being vegetarian is a lot of work in the kitchen. But if you plan your time wisely – like soaking your beans in advance, or making a big pot of stew the night before – it is not very time-consuming.”

This article has previously appeared in Caribbean Beat Magazine.

Eggplant replaces fish in this accra (Photo: Cynthia Nelson)

Saltfish accras are a popular Caribbean snack and in this version from Taymer Mason’s Caribbean Vegan, eggplant (aubergine/melongene) replaces the fish, seaweed gives the fritters their characteristic flavour, and the Scotch bonnet pepper gives it a spicy kick.

Serves 10

Ingredients

1 eggplant, peeled and cut into short, thin strips
2½ tsps salt
1 tbsp canola oil or another neutral-flavoured oil, plus more for frying
3 to 4 nori sheets, toasted and crumbled, or any other dried seaweed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 – 4 green onions, minced
1 Scotch bonnet or habañero pepper, seeded and minced
2 tsps chopped fresh thyme
½ tsp black pepper
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ – 1 cup water

Method

Sprinkle the eggplant with 1½ tsps of the salt and let it sit for 10 minutes to draw out any bitterness. Squeeze the eggplant strips to remove excess liquid; they should turn brown.

Heat the tablespoon of oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the eggplant and sauté gently for about 5 minutes. Cover and continue to cook for about 4 minutes, until the eggplant is tender.

Transfer the eggplant to a bowl. Add the nori, onion, green onions, Scotch bonnet, thyme, black pepper, and the remaining 1 tsp salt. Stir until well combined.

Add the flour, baking powder, and water and stir until well combined. At this point, the mixture can be set aside in the refrigerator for a few hours or fried immediately.

To deep-fry the fritters, heat about 6 inches (15 cm) of oil in a deep, heavy pot over medium-high heat for about 7 minutes. To test whether the oil is hot enough, drop a teaspoonful of the batter into the oil. (Do not forget to remove this piece of batter.) If it gets too brown, turn down the heat.

Carefully spoon the batter into the oil, using about a heaping teaspoon for each fritter.

When you drop each fritter in the oil, make sure the spoon gets coated with oil. This will make the next fritter slide off the spoon more easily.

Fry the fritters for 4 minutes, turning them as they bob to the surface. The finished fritters should be golden brown and crispy. (You may need to add more oil to the pot.)

Drain on paper towels and serve warm.

Cooks’ tips

The batter tends to turn dark if left overnight before frying.

It’s best to make it no more than three or four hours before you are ready to fry the fritters. It is possible to shallow-fry instead of deep-frying, but note that this will affect the shape of your fritters.

Can they be baked? Yes. Just portion the fritters onto a greased baking sheet and bake at 350°F (180°C) for 20 – 25 minutes, turning them halfway through cooking.

Read more about Taymer’s vegan quest.

Paradise Estates Rum cake is attractively packaged

There’s still time to grab some Christmas gifts and I’m going to recommend two – a yummy cake and a useful cookbook.

Let’s talk edible gifts first. Rum cake or Black cake as it’s more commonly known in the Caribbean, is an essential part of Christmas but plenty people don’t have time or the skills to make their own.

And it’s not that they need a big cake, they just need enough to satisfy that ‘taste of home’.
Enter Paradise Estates Caribbean Rum Cake from the folks at Sunrise Bakery in Birmingham. When they contacted me to ask if I’d do an honest review of their cake I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was impressed by the cake they sent me.
The rum cake has enough booze in to set your juices flowing, it’s moist, fruity and quite light.

I think it’ll be a perfect gift for the seasoned Caribbean cake lovers and an ideal intro for the folks who’ve never tried Caribbean rum cake.

At £5.99 for a 4-inch diameter cake, it’s good value and attractive gift option. For more details about the Paradise Estates Caribbean Rum Cake, head to the website: www.paradise-estates.co.uk.

Short and Sweet 

If you’re looking for a gift for the person who’s may want to bake their cakes, then Short and Sweet by Dan Lepard is a great gift.

Dan is no stranger to this blog as I’ve been a fan for several years. In fact, one of the recipes we cooked together; Lentil stuffed flatbreads; made it into Short and Sweet, but that’s not why I’m recommending the book.

It’s perfect for the novice baker who will find forthright statements like ‘Supermarket own-label strong white flour is very good, and spending more doesn’t always mean you’ll get better flour. To be honest, I go cheap when I buy strong white flour, then spend a bit more on the other sorts like rye and wholemeal.”

Dan is aware that not everyone has loads of money to spend and so his recipes don’t call for a heap of exotic and expensive ingredients.

Plus, his easy, conversational style makes it seem like he’s in the kitchen guiding you along. I particularly like how the book is organised. He starts with bread, runs the spectrum of sweet stuff from cakes to sweeties and ends with Supper which has a great range of savoury pastry recipes.
Short and Sweet is the gift that will keep giving. This is a cookbook that will become a staple in many kitchens, because it is just so versatile.

Emma and her friends enjoyed their meal

Thank you to those who supported our first event, Trini Christmas at Maltby Street!
From all indications, we succeeded in our mission of bringing out the sunshine in winter with our fantastic, festive Trini Christmas meal!

Can Cook, Must Cook and Chef Hasan de Four and the Maltby Street Lock In presented a wonderful evening of great Caribbean food, vibes and music for 75 happy patrons.

We were happy to attract a mix of Caribbean and non-Caribbean folks. One Turkish couple said they had always been interested in the Caribbean and its food so when they read about our event on the Time Out Blog, they jumped at the idea and they were not disappointed!

Our multi-course festive menu included callaloo shots – a mildly spiced vegetable soup infused with coconut milk; Trinidadian pastelles – the Trinidadian take on the Spanish empanada; Caribbean herb and honey turkey with ackee and sage stuffing, Tobago style pigeon peas – saucy stewed Gungo peas; stuffed sweet potatoes with creole sauce; Chef Hasan’s Ponche a Creme chantilly creme – a boozy rum creme spiced with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg and a trio of Caribbean cakes including the rich and fruity rum cake.

It was extremely hectic, but our team worked well together and everything went smoothly. Of course there were a few things that we will do better next time but essentially it was a success.

We got good feedback from the majority of patrons and there were one or two complaints but those were mainly because a couple of people didn’t understand the pop-up concept and were expecting a full restaurant setting.

However, no one complained about the food which was out of this world!

Look at snapshots from Trini Christmas at Maltby Street.

We’ve got to thank the Maltby Street crew for their invaluable assistance and advice during the whole journey, our team of helpers who gave of their time willingly to ensure that we had a successful evening.

Thank you also to the media people and bloggers who gave us a lot of pre-event publicity across Twitter, Facebook and the regular channels.

And of course a huge thank you to the patrons who supported our venture, we look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events!

See some of the action from Trini Christmas at Maltby Street.

Split peas and ham soup

My mother used to start preparing Sunday lunch from the day before, part of her Saturday evening ritual was soaking the peas. She would take a big plastic container full of legumes from the cupboard and rummage among the bags filled with black eyed peas, red beans, lima beans, black beans, lentils, yellow split peas and much more.

Her method was always the same, measure a cup of peas – picking out any little stones she spotted, wash the peas in a sieve and leave them to soak overnight in a specific yellow bowl.

On Sunday mornings, the hissing of the pressure cooker punctuated my sleep and I awoke to the subtle smell of peas wafting through the house.

Now when I repeat the process of soaking and cooking peas, I wonder if they’d ever taste as good as Mummy’s.

Split peas soup is one of my absolute favourites, and I think it’s because the marriage of split peas and salty smoked ham is a perfect marriage.

In the days when I didn’t eat meat, I tried making this with salted fish but it didn’t hit the heights. I rather suspect that the flavour that ensues as a result of the addition of the ham bone to the soup is non-negotiable and irreplaceable.

Here’s a recipe I hope my mother would be proud of.

See more photos of making Split Peas and Ham soup.

Serves 4

200 grams split peas

2 tablespoons olive oil

150g onion, roughly diced

150 g celery, roughly chopped

150 g carrot, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

500 g smoked ham, roughly shredded

1 litre chicken stock or water

Ham bone, if available

1 bay leaf

4 or 5 sprigs of thyme

2 teaspoons paprika

2 teaspoons coriander powder

½ teaspoon grated nutmeg

½ teaspoon pepper sauce

Salt to taste

Method

1. Wash the split peas and soak for at least six hours or overnight if possible.

2. If you have a pressure cooker, cook peas under pressure for approximately 15 minutes. If not, cover with water and cook until peas are tender but still have some bite, about 40 minutes.

3. Drain and put aside.

4. Heat oil in a deep, heavy-bottomed pot, add the vegetables and sweat until the onions are translucent, approximately 10 minutes.

5. Add the shredded meat, and cook for five minutes over medium heat.

6. Add peas, stock, bay leaf, thyme and ham bones if using.

7. Bring to boil, lower heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes.

8. Remove about 50 grams of peas, along with the ham and ham bones and put aside.

9. Dispose of the bay leaf and thyme.

10. Blend the remaining mixture with hand blender or in a blender and return to pot.

11. Add the ham, peas and ham bones to the blended mixture, add paprika, coriander, nutmeg and pepper sauce.

12. Gently simmer for ten minutes, taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

Serve with crusty bread rolls or coconut bake.

Chicken stock

The foundation of tasty soup is a good stock. In fact, the French refer to stock as fonds de cuisine, the foundations of cooking.

Culinary bible The Professional Chef says stocks are made by “gently simmering meaty bones, trim and/or vegetables in a liquid to extract their flavour, aroma, colour, body and nutrititive value. The liquid is then used to prepare sauces, soups, stews and braises and as a cooking medium for vegetables and grains.”

There is a distinct difference between a soup made with good stock than with just water or stock cubes. Soups that use stock as their base have a much deeper flavour and that flavour is definitely what we’re after.

I use chicken stock as the basis for most meat-based stews and soups, while vegetable stock is used in meatless soups and fish dishes. For chicken stock, I get carcasses from my butcher but if you don’t have that option, you can make stock from collecting the remants of the roast chickens from a few Sunday lunches.

Some complain that making stock is too time consuming and  nowadays, people aren’t only thinking of the time in terms of the number of hours spent making the stock but also the possible cost in terms of gas or electricity.

I did a bit of research about faster ways to make stock, and found several recipes for doing it in a pressure cooker which cuts the time down tremendously.

Pressure pros and cons

Now, the received wisdom on making stock is that a slow simmer needs to be maintained during the cooking process, or as Hugh Fearnley-Whititngstall says, “boiled harder than this stocks … will release and emphasise some undesirable flavours – a kind of chalkiness trapped deep in the bones, or even some ammonia-like notes associated with over-boiled meat.”

After searching books and the internet, I could find nothing to explain whether using a pressure cooker would cause the unpleasant effects Hugh mentioned, in fact in almost all the cases, the results were quite positive.

I was particularly impressed by this post on Cooking Issues, the French Culinary Institute’s blog which detailed the tests that some chefs and students did making stocks in different pressure cookers.

At the end of the article, Chef Dave Arnold dispatched these commonly-held beliefs about pressure cooked stocks, which convinced me that it was alright to proceed.

1. Pressure cooking will make the stock cloudy.
That is incorrect. The boiling in a pressure cooker is no more violent than in a pot, so stocks don’t get any cloudier. We have done many side-by sides to prove this.

2. Pressure cooking extracts bitter components.
No one has detected bitterness in pressure cooked stock we’ve made.

3. Not being able to skim the stock will introduce off-flavors.
We have not noticed this in any of our tests.

After a bit of testing, I came up with a recipe based on Lindsey Bareham’s A Celebration of Soup and as the photos show, the stock is deep and concentrated.

This is a basic stock recipe so feel free to experiment with different spices. For example, adding star anise and chopped ginger will lend an oriental flavour.

Chickens and vegetables for stock

Pressure-cooked chicken stock

Ingredients

1 tablespoon groundnut oil

1 teaspoon coriander seeds, slightly crushed

225 g  medium diced onions

125 g  medium diced carrot

125g  medium diced celery

1 garlic clove

10-12 peppercorns, slightly crushed

1.5 kg chicken carcasses

Bouquet Garni
2 parsley stems

4 sprigs of thyme

1 bay leaf

Method

1. Heat the oil, put the vegetables and sweat until transluscent, about 10 minutes.

2. Add the chicken, and enough water to cover, about 1.5 litres, and bring to the boil.

3. Skim off the scum on the surface, add the peppercorns and bouquet garni, cover and cook at pressure for 30 minutes.

4. Cool, strain and taste. If you feel want a more concentrated stock, reduce the stock by a third.

Simple and delicious fish broth

I’ll be doing an occasional series on soups of the Caribbean, and to introduce the series, I’ve reproduced the Caribbean CookUp column that I wrote on the subject for Caribbean Beat magazine in September 2009.

One sleepy Saturday, I changed my status on Facebook – the time-gobbling social-networking site – to “Franka Philip is going to make comforting ham and split-peas soup today”.

It seemed innocuous enough: making soup on a Saturday is a Caribbean tradition and one of the best ways to use up leftover vegetables and meat in the fridge.

But after just a few minutes, idle Facebook friends were commenting on my status, giving tips for the proposed soup, and some boldface people even suggesting that if my soup didn’t have dumplings, then “it isn’t really soup”.

I imagined that I was engaging in a ritual along with domestic goddesses all around the world who were also peeling onions, mincing garlic and seasoning meat in preparation for the day’s big meal.

While Madame Jolie in Marseille, France, fillets fish for a bouillabaisse, in Scarborough, Tobago, Auntie Allison must be putting the oxtail in the pressure cooker for a hearty oxtail soup, and if it is Ramadan, Mrs Belghiti in Morocco is certainly rinsing the peas for the huge pot of harira with which her family will break the fast. Every culture has its own soup, and often, it’s one of the dishes that makes for a great shared dining experience.

In her excellent book A Celebration of Soup, English writer Lindsey Bareham points out that soup is widely regarded as man’s oldest food, developed around the same time that boiling was discovered to be a way of cooking.

When I chatted with food historian Ivan Day, he said “soup” derives from the word soppe. Soppes were thick pieces of bread over which the cooking liquor was poured to make a thick, soupy liquid. In fact in medieval times, bread was the main thickener for soups in Europe. And up to now, we still get bread with soup as a matter of course.

I’ve found in the UK lots of the soup we get in canteens and takeaways like Pret à Manger are pretty light. But lentil soup, tomato soup or cream of mushroom soup with a slice of bread isn’t my idea of a filling meal.

A healthy option

I guess that’s why so many dieters use soup as a cornerstone of their diets. While most sensible dieters opt for soups like carrot and coriander or light chicken soup, there are those who go down the extreme route. Who can forget the cabbage-soup diet fad that was much touted by celebrities as the key to weight loss? Not only was that devoid of any nutrition, the unpleasant after-effects weren’t worth it.

One of the healthiest options is corn soup, with loads of chopped cilantro (chadon beni) and garlic. For light but filling soups, though, you can’t go wrong with seafood. There’s a former canteen in Port of Spain called the Breakfast Shed, which was located on the city’s docks and initially catered to stevedores and dock workers, but soon enough, the word spread about the ladies of the Breakfast Shed, who’d cook the freshest food at extremely reasonable prices.

On many a morning (after eating a light breakfast at home) before heading to work, I’d nip into the Breakfast Shed for some of Ann’s fish broth. She would never tell me what her secret ingredient was, but I have often tried to reproduce that flavour and goodness.

I’ve also found some good French Caribbean seafood soup recipes, particularly those by chef Babette de Rozieres from her book Creole. My favourite is Ouassou (crayfish) Blaff. The soup is called a “blaff” because of the sound it makes when you put the fish in the spicy stock or court bouillon.

The stock ingredients are thyme, parsley, scallions, bay leaves, stock cubes, garlic, onion, Scotch bonnet pepper, grated lemon zest and the juice of five or six limes. The result is a citrussy and peppery stock that permeates the crayfish, and leaves your palate feeling clean.

Heavy duty soup

But much as I love fish soups and chowders, I cannot resist the drama of making a proper, full-bodied soup. This is the kind of soup that you need to eat on a Saturday because an hour after eating it, you’ll have “ethnic fatigue”. The only thing you’ll want to do is lie down and snore in a hammock.

Soups in that category are usually – for me at least – meat-based. So oxtail, cow heel, lamb or beef are usually the main ingredients. Oxtail is my favourite soup and I think I have truly perfected the art of cooking it.

The two-day preparation includes going to the market to find eddoes, sweet potatoes, plantain and yams, as well as fresh chives, scallions, coriander and parsley, and buying the oxtail. The next steps are making a marinade, seasoning the chunky cuts and leaving the meat to marinate overnight.

When I’m cooking oxtail soup, I usually imagine I’m back home in Trinidad. Either soca music or old-school dancehall has to play at full volume while I peel vegetables and knead the flour for dumplings.

I’ve found the fastest way of making oxtail soup is to use a pressure cooker for the meat. Once the meat is cooked, add the peeled vegetables and dumplings, then some more water and seasoning, and let cook for around 40 minutes. After that, the most amazing soup is ready, and the house smells like my mother’s kitchen back home.

Caribbean soup cooking has come a long way from the standard oxtail, cow heel and callaloo. At restaurants and functions, I see many more people serving cold soups, notably the famous gazpacho or chilled cucumber soup.

I’m not a huge fan of cold soups, not even in the summer. But I have found that if they’re done well, they can make fantastic starters. In A Celebration of Soup, there are rather delicious-sounding cold soups that would appeal to the Caribbean palate, like chilled passion fruit and melon soup, and cold lentil and spinach soup.

The cold soup that I have tried and I’ve found to be quite special is chilled curried carrot soup with coconut milk. It’s simple, uses few ingredients and would suit practically any occasion. If, like me, you’re not a huge fan of cold soups, this one is likely to change your mind.

But as winter approaches, I’m sure I’ll be digging out the ham knuckle, split peas and vegetables yet again – and much to the joy of my friends, it will be “real soup”, because there will be lots of soft, chewy dumplings.

Go to the recipe for chilled curried carrot soup.

Serves 6
450g carrots, peeled and chopped
900 ml chicken stock
15g butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp curry powder
225 ml coconut milk
1 lemon, peeled and sliced into thin pieces
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Cover the carrots with the stock and bring to the boil.

2. Lower heat, cover pan and simmer until carrots are tender.

3. In another pan, heat the butter and sauté the onions until soft but not browned.

4. Add the curry powder and stir-fry for a couple of minutes.

5. Purée the carrots with the onion and curry mixture and pass through a fine sieve.

6. Reheat, adjust the seasoning and simmer gently for ten minutes.

7. Cool to lukewarm and stir in the coconut milk.

8. Chill, stir and serve garnished with peeled lemon slices.

Goan chicken curry with rice in tortilla bowls

It’s never easy to cook for large groups but recently I had the pleasurable challenge of cooking for 20 discerning ladies at a baby shower.

Mom-to-be Krista decided that she wanted curry and I thought, I’d do something different and not cook a typical Trinidad curry. I took my inspiration from Cook Sister’s blog, and her recipe for Durban Bunny Chows, one of South Africa’s favourite street foods.

The bunny chow is a curry served in a bowl made from a hollowed out loaf of bread.

Cook Sister’s curry was a basic lamb curry but I felt I needed something a bit spicy and creamy. So I turned to our friend Anita Samtani, one of the brains behind Geeta’s Foods who make delicious cooking sauces, spice rubs and chutneys.

After consulting with Anita, I decided the main course would be Goan chicken curry and Keralan spiced vegetables. She kindly donated some Geeta’s products including Goan sauce, Rogan Josh spice mix and Keralan spice mix.

Tortilla option

With the main course out of the way, putting the rest of the meal together was easy. Krista requested a quinoa based salad similar to one I had done last Christmas, so that was the starter. Dessert was going to be a pre-bought vanilla cake but I felt a palate cleansing lemon sorbet would be perfect right after the curry.

In the end, I didn’t use bread bowls, but opted for tortilla bowls instead. I stole the idea from Wahaca restaurant, where I was very impressed by a salad served in a baked tortilla bowl.

In the States, there are special baking tins to make tortilla bowls, but they’re not readily available in the UK, so after a tip from someone on Twitter, I substituted tortilla tins with a brioche tin.

To make the tortilla bowls, I used large wraps, gently moulded them into a large brioche tin and baked for 7-8 minutes at 180C.

As the wraps cooled, they got firmer and held the bowl shape very well. Most importantly, the bowls were perfect for the portion size I wanted to serve and they didn’t leak. That was a fantastic result!