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Caribbean Veganuary

January 28, 2019 Leave a Comment Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized, Vegan

Caribbean ingredients pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

I recently went for a tasting menu supper club at The Mango Room, a Caribbean restaurant in Camden, run by restaurateur Derick Blake, that has been around for 20 years. This makes the restaurant virtually an antique in the fast-paced hospitality industry, where restaurants go bust every year. Apart from the fantastic cocktails, the menu also showed that Caribbean cuisine, hailing not just from Jamaica, but also Trinidad, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and other islands, can be light and modern.

In January, we celebrate ‘Veganuary’, when people are encouraged to try veganism for one month. There is a long tradition of vegan cuisine in the Caribbean: committed Rastafarians are vegan, eating ‘ital’ food (rasta dialect for ‘vital’), and very religious rasta will only eat from wooden or clay cutlery and crockery.

The Mango Room serves several vegan dishes, including Ackee and Avocado with Spinach, Plantain, Tomato and Olives; Okra and Coconut Risotto with Fried Plantain, Cherry Tomatoes and Crispy Leeks. 

A popular vegan recipe, Rice and Peas, is a mainstay of Jamaican cuisine. ‘Peas’ are beans, and the further south, the darker the legume. Caribbean islands near to the Southern states of America will often use the black-eyed peas as I have. Jamaicans use the pinto bean. Islands closer to South American will use the small black turtle bean. The smaller the pea, the sweeter it is.

Despite the simplicity of the dish, to make it well requires time.

Rice and peas with fresh coconut

Jamaican Rice and Peas recipe

Print

Jamaican rice and peas recipe

Course Mains
Cuisine Jamaican
Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 200 g dried black eyed, pinto or black turtle beans
  • 1/2 onion, peeled
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled, 1 whole and 1 sliced
  • 4-6 pimento, all spice berries
  • 2 spring onions, finely sliced
  • 1/2 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
  • 50-75 g creamed coconut
  • 2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 scotch bonnet chilli
  • 1/2 fresh coconut, peeled and sliced
  • 2 slices of fresh ginger
  • 500 g basmati rice
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • Sea salt, rastas do not eat rock salt and pepper

Instructions

  • Soak the beans overnight in filtered or cooled boiled water from the kettle, adding the onion and garlic halfway through.
  • Drain, discard the onion and garlic and tip the beans into a heavy pot or casserole. Add the pimento berries, sliced garlic to the beans and cover with boiling water. 
  • Simmer over a low heat for 45 minutes, then add the spring onions, red pepper and simmer until the beans are cooked. Don’t let them get too soft, they should smell sweet and creamy.
  • Pour just enough hot water over the creamed coconut packet to dissolve, then add to the beans. You can add more or less if you prefer – I find too much coconut cream makes the rice greasy. 
  • Add the thyme, soy sauce, whole Scotch bonnet, fresh coconut and ginger and simmer, covered for 15 minutes. Fish out and discard the Scotch bonnet. 
  • Wash the rice and, once it is free of starch, add it to the beans and stir with a fork. Add about a litre of water and the coconut oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  • Cook, covered, over a low heat, until the rice is soft and fluffy, checking on the water levels but without stirring.
  • Pic:Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Plantain fritters

In the Caribbean, the creole word for banana is ‘fig’, just as it was for the ancient Romans. Some say that the banana was the forbidden fruit from the bible, rather than the fig, for banana leaves can easily be made into clothing unlike the fig leaf.

There are at least 20 kinds of ‘fig’. The standard yellow banana that we eat in the UK is the Cavendish banana. 

For the below recipe, make sure you buy ripe yellow plantains rather than green. Normal bananas won’t work, the texture is not sturdy enough.

Serves 6

2 large, ripe yellow plantains, peeled

1 green chilli, finely sliced

3 tbsp plain flour

Handful coriander leaves

Vegetable oil for frying

Salt

Mash the plantains by hand or in a food processor. Add the chilli, flour, coriander and some salt.

Heat a couple of centimetres of oil in a deep frying pan. Use a tablespoon to scoop the plantain mixture into the oil. Continue until the mixture is used up.

After a few minutes, turn over the fritters. When both sides are golden brown, remove to kitchen paper to drain. Serve with hot sauce as a dip.

Ackee with capers

Caribbean vegan: ackee with capers  pic: Kerstin Rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Ackee fruit are rather like eggs: soft, sweet and yellow. They are usually served with saltfish; here, capers provide the saltiness.

3 tbsp olive oil

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

1 tin ackee

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp capers

Salt and pepper

Heat up the oil in a shallow frying pan, then fry all the ingredients together. Serve hot.

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
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Galette des Rois, made yesterday in 12th night. Mi Galette des Rois, made yesterday in 12th night. Minus Crown and king as I cannot find either. This one is made with Tonka bean. Plus homemade puff pastry (well worth the effort). According to ike delorenzo at The Atlantic:  The tonka bean, a flat, wrinkled legume from South America with an outsize flavor that the US government has declared illegal. Nonetheless, it proliferates on elite American menus. The tiniest shavings erupt in a Broceliande of transporting, mystical aromas.
The taste of the tonka bean is linked strongly to its scent. "Scents," I should say, as the tonka bean has many at once. I register the aromas of vanilla, cherry, almond, and something spicy—a bit like cinnamon. When served cold—say, in tonka bean ice cream—the taste is like a vanilla caramel with dark honey. When warm, perhaps shaved over scallops, it moves toward spiced vanilla. Additionally, the aroma of the tonka bean shavings (it's almost always shaved) is so affecting that it seems like an actual taste in the way that opium, which has no taste in the traditional sense, "tastes" like its rich, flowery smoke.  Here is the recipe: 

Tonka bean galette des rois

Serves 8
Ingredients
* 140 g caster sugar
* 125 g salted butter, softened
* 100 g ground almonds
* 2 eggs, medium
* 1 tonka bean, grated
* 2 packs ready made butter puff pastry on a roll
* 1 yolk for brushing the pastry
Instructions
* Preheat your oven to 200c.

* Blend the butter with the sugar then add the almonds. Make sure it’s well mixed. Add in the 2 eggs one at a time, then add the tonka bean.

* If using a block: divide the puff pastry into two and roll out to 5mm thick. 
* Make two circles about 15 cm’s each in diameter. Lay one circle on a silicone mat/parchment paper on a baking tray and fill with the almond cream leaving a 3 cm border around the edge. 
* Paint the border with the egg yolk. Then lay the other circle on top, sealing the edges with a fork. 
* You could then carve designs into the top. Make a little slit in the middle to let steam escape then brush the top with the egg yolk
Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. T Mapo tofu is probably my favourite Sichuan dish. This is a vegan version. ***

Ingredients:
- 400 g box of soft tofu not silken
- 5 soaked dried shiitake mushrooms, diced, keep water
- 1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
- 400 g fresh shiitake mushroom, sliced thinly
- 400 ml vegetable stock
- 1 thumb fresh ginger, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 4 tbsps groundnut or vegetable oil
- 3 tbsp fermented bean paste
- 1 or 2 small red chillies, minced or a spoonful of Chinese chilli paste
- 1 tsp heaped sichuan peppercorns, finely ground
- 2 tbsps soy or tamari sauce
- 2 tbsp cornflour in 3 tbsps water, mixed into a slurry
- 4 spring onions, finely sliced
- large pinch fresh coriander leaves

Prepare the tofu by cutting it into one inch cubes and soaking it in hot but not boiling salted water. Drain after 15 minutes.
Soak the dried shiitake mushrooms, covering them in boiling water. Leave until soft, then dice the mushrooms. Retain the mushroom soaking water and add to the vegetable stock water.
Prepare the other ingredients so they are ready to stir-fry: red bell pepper, fresh mushrooms, ginger, garlic.

Using a wok or deep frying pan, add the oil and heat to frying temperature. Add the bell peppers,fry for a couple of minutes, then add fermented bean paste, chilli paste or chillies, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sichuan pepper.
Add the mushroom/vegetable broth and simmer on high for a couple of minutes.
Carefully add the cubes of tofu, taking care not to break them too much.
Add the cornflour slurry, stirring for a couple of minutes.
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