A Trini addiction

A spicy snack for any occasion - fried channa (garbanzo beans or chick peas) are sold all over Trinidad and there are many brands of commercially made channa to choose from these days – Patsy’s, Munch Kings, Anthony’s to name a few. They are cheap to make, simple to prepare and deliciously addictive. One tip: the older the bag of channa, the harder the crunch so take care.

Fried whole channa - Oh my word that looks lethal!

School yard vendors used to sell homemade fried channa in paper cones or in little plastic bags which were stapled to seal them. As children, our teeth were used to open everything, so there were times my lip would get caught in these staples. I didn’t care. The salt would cure it.

The usual suspects for any spicy fried snack are present: minced garlic, chadon beni, hot pepper, salt. Soaking the channa prepares it for frying as it rehydrates the beans and wakes them up. The trick is to fry the channa in oil until they float which means they’re cooked. You then toss the seasonings in the hot channa to remove the raw garlic taste. Some suggest shredding a little cheese over the channa. 

Seasonings used to make fried channa

Some say oven-roasting the channa instead of frying makes for a healthier snack. I prefer the traditional preparation.

You can also split the channa into its two cotyledons during the soaking process – this is called split fried channa. There’s also the no-pepper version but who wants that??

Split fried channa

I screwed up my face the first time I heard someone refer to them as “channa nuts”. What is channa nuts?? Can something be both channa and nuts?

Geera horse you say??

Geera or “jeera” refers to cumin seeds which are usually patched or roasted before they are used in trini cuisine. To “geera” any meat requires marinating in a spicy patched or roasted geera or cumin seed marinade and then adding more geera when the dish is nearly finished cooking.

But, different people use different seasonings or a different technique in cooking to achieve the same tasty trini dish. Every trini geera meat connoisseur has a recipe that is the best. But, the geera king in Arima is hailed to be David Etienne on Queen Street in Arima according to the Trinidad Daily Express newspaper in April 5^th, 2013.

Cumin seeds or geera on the left; herbs and seasonings used to season the meats

You can also use prepared roasted ground geera instead of grinding your own in a coffee grinder or using a rather ineffective mortar and pestle. But, a traditional East Indian grinding stone combo will do the trick!

The grinding stone or “lohar” as it was called in Hindi which was used for grinding spices or anything else really.

Geera meat is either eaten alone or in hops bread or in coconut bake at a bar usually. Geera meats are served at bars as “cutters” because as one folklore explains, the geera and pepper combo in the meat actually makes you take longer to get intoxicated. Although I haven’t personally tested this, many have attested to its benefits!

 Geera pork in coconut bake

Any kind of meat can be prepared like this, chicken, pork, lamb, shrimp, fish, even horse….according to someone from Grande….where the horse race track was in Wallerfield…hmmm.

And any kind of chicken part can be used from neck to feet to wings to gizzard....

Although it may have started as appetizers in a bar, the humble geera meat can now be served as a main course with dhal and rice at Sails restaurant and pub.

Geera pork

Geera chicken

Geera lamb

Smoked herring - a happy accident?

A riddle, a riddle a-ree: what has fine bones galore, a deeply pungent smokey taste, super peppery, salty and can be eaten with just about any type of carbs? Plus, it’s another Diana power mint classic. Any guesses?

Classic smoked herring

Herring is a small oily fish. Smoked herring is a smoke- and salt-cured preparation of herring fish that is imported into Trinidad. They are often eaten for breakfast in the United Kingdom, Belgium, The Isle of Man, Japan, and a minority of North American regions. Smoking and salting of fish—in particular of spawning salmon and herring which are caught in large numbers in a short time and can be made suitable for edible storage by this practice, predates 19th century Britain. It can be purchased relatively cheaply, prepared simply and does not need refrigeration. Is this another throw-back to our colonial history then?

Dried smoked salted herring fish

It goes with just about any carbohydrate- from dumplings, ground provision, crix, roti, bake, hops bread, green fig, to dhal and rice… To cut the saltiness, several cooks boil the fish first- similar to salt-fish preparation, de-bone, flake the fish, then sautee in oil along with a variety of vegetables to both enhance the flavour and to cut the saltiness e.g. tomatoes, grated carrots, finely sliced onions, minced garlic, chives, chadon beni and hot pepper. Some add a little thinly shredded cabbage too. Serving it with avocado or cucumber slices cools down the taste-buds nicely.

Smoked herring and corneal dumplings

Smoked herring pizza anyone?

http://www.getmecooking.com/recipe/smokedherring-pizza

Dhal and rice and smoked herring

According to Mark Kurlansky, "Smoked foods almost always carry with them legends about their having been created by accident".

Hold de Lata Mangeshkar, gimme choka ah-ha!

Choka is described as “A dish prepared by mashing or pureeing fire-roasted vegetables, then seasoning heavily with salt, onions, garlic, pepper, cilantro and/or other aromatics. Hot oil is finally poured over the mixture http://wiwords.com/word/choka . 

Aloo (potato) choka

The addition of hot oil over vegetables is referred to as  “chunkay” in local parlance. There is no formal definition of the word “choka” or “chunkay” for that matter. Never mind that, Trinis make up words as a favourite past-time. Though there seems to be a hindi-derivative in there somewhere. In no way shape or form does the Trini choka mean what the urban dictionary has for a word of the same spelling!

Melongene or baigan choka

You must have read the post on roti, now choka is the favoured accompaniment. One version of choka does in fact refer to a vegetable e.g. tomato, melongene, pepper which is traditionally roasted over an open flame to char the outer skin which then makes it easily removable. Oven –roasting is now common. Another version is to simply boil the vegetable e.g. potato, tomato. Some expert cooks do a mixture of both roasted and boiled tomato. 

Tomato choka - note the black specs which are the charred prices of skin left behind after removal, served with sada roti

The addition of thinly sliced onion, minced garlic, hot pepper, chadon beni and salt to the pureed or mashed vegetable closely follows. It is important to heap the seasonings over the vegetable. The last step is the careful addition of smoking hot oil over the seasonings to take the raw taste out. Then the dish is mixed thoroughly and served with roti, rice, bread or bake.

The deadly pepper choka - consumed more as a condiment that an actual main dish unless you are insane

Buljol - It's everywhere you want to be

Ok, ok I’ve talked about buljol a lot in this blog as it goes with just about every Trini dish or ground provision or breadfruit or green fig or rice or bread or roti or crackers. It’s an appetiser, an hors d'oeuvre, a main course, an ingredient. 

It’s made with salted cod or white fish. The same saltfish that Sparrow sang about? Ahem no, definitely not!

Buljol at its best

“Buljol” is of French Patois derivation which means "burn mouth", according to “Cote Ci, Cote La: Trinidad and Tobago Dictionary by John Mendes (1986). “Burn mouth” because of the very peppery taste. Encyclopedia.com defines it as “a salad of salt cod, chilli, tomato, and avocado”. Well what a benign description!

When avocado is in season, it is divine with buljol

As usual, every Trini has his/her own way of preparing buljol. Boil it once or twice? Soak it first before you boil it or not? What water to soak it in - hot water or cold water? How long to boil it? How long to soak it? Buy the one from China or from Canada? And in what shall I boil it dear Liza, dear Liza?

Very critical - get rid of the salt in the fish otherwise it will be unpalatable, remove the skin and any bones. 

The  procedure involves: mixing saltfish with lightly sautéed vegetables and seasonings which include grated carrots, bell pepper, pimento pepper, scotch bonnet pepper, black pepper, finely chopped onion and tomato, minced garlic, a squeeze of lime, parsley or celery, chives, chadon beni, maybe some shredded cabbage, and golden-ray cooking butter is a must. This mixture is called buljol.

Buljol on a bagel. Yes, bagel!

Just in the off-chance that you have left-over buljol, you can add it to vegetarian dishes to give added flavour e.g. fried bodi, tomatoes, aloo (potato), caraille, ochro or you can add it to some scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Ground provision (sweet potato, yam, dasheen, cassava), steamed pumpkin with buljol - a breakfast of champions!

Condiments, ok not strictly street food but an accompaniment for sure!

Stop at any street food vendor and there will be an array of condiments to choose from to accompany your food. These can include pepper sauces, chutneys and pickles - if homemade all the better. Pepper sauces are made by using a variety of hot peppers like scotch bonnet, 7-pot, moruga scorpion, ghost, either minced or chopped together with other spices. 

"The pepper sauce lady of Tabaquite"

The peppers used in these Trini sauces are not for the feint-hearted. They are all ranked in the top 10 world’s hottest peppers 2016 according to Crazy Hot Seeds (https://www.crazyhotseeds.com/top-10-worlds-hottest-peppers/). The previous world champion, Moruga Scorpion has been dethroned to the new Guiness World Records World’s Hottest Pepper, the Carolina Reaper.

The "mother-in-law" is another popular condiment which is a coarsely chopped spicy medley of habaneros, carrots, caraille (bitter melon) and other spices. All the ingredients are raw in this condiment.

Ever wonder why they call this “mother-in-law”?

The name was created probably from the attitudes of some mothers-in-law who always seem to have a fiery retort on-hand. Most times in Trinidad when you got to an East Indian wedding or prayer meeting the most and foremost thing that have to be available is mother-in-law. It is said that if you don't have this condiment in any of those events it is not an "Indian" feast, it’s almost an insult not to have it at such East Indian events. A tradition of some sort. 

Pepper sauce can sometimes include lime or lemon as well as other vegetables, and come in many variations and flavors.

Chutneys are popular as well and often include mango, tamarind, cucumber, shado beni, and sometimes coconut.

Mango chutney

There are a variety of popular condiments known locally as Achar which are commonly used to accompany the meal. These are made out of mango or pommecythere. Other Achars are made from tamarind, and Dillenia indica or Chalta as its known locally.

Pommecyhere achar

Kuchela is a grated spicy version, usually made from mango but sometimes made from Pommecythère. 

Roasted coconut

Grating roasted coconut

Coconut chutney

Drying shredded mango in the sun to make kuchela

Mango kuchela

Oyster Shooters - the idea is not to chew!

Oysters are another popular street food or appetizer in Trinidad and Tobago, especially among local men. In Trinidad, they are harvested mainly from the Claxton Bay Mangrove System. The species of oysters that are harvested there are “Crassostrea rhizophorae“. However, these bivalve mollusks are also harvested through out coastal areas in Trinidad (generally on the west coast). In recent years, the popularity of raw oysters has made the occupation of harvesting oysters a very lucrative business.

"Don’t mind we have the streetlight, the flambeau is the traditional light of the oyster-man: once you see the flambeau lighting, that mean the oyster-man is here in progress; any time you see the flambeau out, that mean it’s finished." Blackie - oyster vendor

Claxton Bay Mangrove

In Trinidad and Tobago, oysters generally are sold raw as a cocktail, served up with local seasonings, lime and of course pepper. Served by the glass holding one or two dozen oysters or, traditionally, on the opened half-shell, oysters in Trinidad are invariably accompanied by a seasoned, ceviche-like sauce in at least two, and often three, gradations: the possible “cool”; and the mandatory “mild” and “hot”. All three are likely to contain Trinidad’s omnipresent chadon beni (consider it cilantro-plus), lime juice, brown sugar, garlic, tomato ketchup and more; the amount of local hot peppers added is the difference between cool, mild and hot. Trinidadians, as a group, tend to be far closer to the fiery than the mild spectrum in matters of the palate. Be careful...!

Oyster shooter complete with Trinidad's very own Angostura bitters!

The secret is in the sauce!

The Queen's Park Savannah is the heart of Port of Spain. A huge open space between downtown and the Northern Range, it is the favourite haunt of joggers and walkers, footballers and cricketers, connoisseurs of coconuts, roast corn and oysters. A former sugar estate preserved for the people, here you can find Blackie as he is commonly known. An oyster vendor for the last 35 years....Blackie is a well-known the oyster man around the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain.

Chow anyone?

Trinidad chow is a simple, refreshing combination of fresh fruits, garlic and chadon-beni (cilantro). Consider it a "spiced up" fruit salad. The desire for chow is linked to our obsession with hot peppers and fresh herbs, which are the flavours that distinguish Caribbean cuisine. Aside from eating the whole fresh fruits, this is probably the healthiest snack we eat. With the right combination, chow satisfies our taste for sweet, sour, salty and spicy all at the same time. 

It is quite normal to assume that people of a warm tropical climate would consume more cold products....but instead we gravitate toward eating spicy foods and snacks. This is actually a natural response to the environment. The capsaicin from the peppers makes us sweat which cools the body down; nature’s air conditioner! If you don’t have an affinity for all things spicy, don't be discouraged. The heat can be adjusted to your preference or eliminated entirely. If you do this, please refer to it as merely a “seasoned fruit salad”.

Plum chow

Another reason this dish is so popular in Trinidad could be the availability and abundance of fruit on the island. For many, the ingredients are a few steps away in their yard or the neighbour’s!

Pineapple chow

Pommecythere chow

The 3 main ingredients are unripe mango, culantro and garlic.  To it, you add other seasonings to taste– pepper sauce, lime juice, salt and pepper.  Chow can be prepared with half ripe mangoes, oranges, tangerines (called portugals in Trinidad), pineapples, cucumbers, tomatoes, pommecythere (also called golden apples), chennet, pommerac, green "Trini" plums, tart green apples, unripe peaches and coconut jelly. Use whichever fruits are available and create your own exciting combination.

On the way to Maracase Bay Chow Vendors

Pholourie without chutney is just wrong!

Pholourie is one of the, if not the most popular street food in T&T and can be found being sold, in the markets, in parlours, hot on the spot in food vans, on street corners, after fetes (parties), by the beach just about everywhere. You can if you wish pick up a pack of pholourie mix in the supermarket, make a batter and fry and then, as it comes out piping hot add some chutney and eat away to your stomach's delight.

Delicious pillowy pholourie

Pholourie is an Indo-Trinidadian savoury fritter made from seasoned split pea flour and deep fried. It is served at all sorts of occasions: at weddings receptions, house parties, family gatherings and so on. It can be bought on the street from street-food vendors, Indo-Trinidadian fast food cafes or made and served at home. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside and pretty much melts in the mouth. It’s usually served a thin sweet chutney sauce (usually made from mango or tamarind) and of course hot pepper sauce! 

Pholourie with mango chutney

Pholourie with tamarind sauce

Souse - pickled what???

Salty, lots of citrus and peppery goodness! Growing up in Trinidad, souse is a delicacy everyone loves! Made from every type of "foot" that could be found - cow-foot, chicken foot, pig foot and occasionally cow skin. Whatever the medium, Trinis would pickle and spice the hell out of it and it would be so very good, just about every person within nose-shot of the deliciousness would want some… vegan or not.

Chicken foot souse

Souse is a leftover from colonial days when locals made do with every part of the animal, especially the cheapest cuts. Made from soft-boiled trotters, chicken feet or even cow-skin cut into thin strips (which has a jelly-like consistency) souse is basically a pickle with the flavour profile of a ceviche. Lots of onion, cucumber, fresh herbs, mild or hot peppers and salt make the tasty broth that the meat is soaked in for hours. It’s usually served in cups and eaten with the fingers, the better to lick them.  

Pig foot souse

Street side vendors selling souse - probably located next to a bar no doubt!