Recipes from St. Lucia

This meal is one of the more 'interesting' meals of the bunch. St. Lucia had very little in the way of traditional meals to pick from, being such a small country, so what I came up with might not be satisfactory to everyone. Nonetheless, it is an interesting meal, and it's a chance to taste some of the different foods out there from around the world.

On the menu today: Creole Fish Stew, a dish that is actually quite tasty, Stuffed Baked Breadfruit, and 'Greenfig' Salad, greenfigs being small green bananas.

The other trouble spot for this meal is that not all of the ingredients are easily obtainable. That said, it is quite possible to do some fancy substitution. You'll see a few examples of this in this post.

This meal isn't incredibly hard to cook up. The longest part of it is the greenfig salad, which has 45-60 minutes of cooking time as well as an hour or more cooling.

The greenfig salad should be started first, sometime in the afternoon a couple hours before you wish to serve your meal.

It will require the following ingredients:

6 cups water

6 small green bananas (greenfigs) or 3 plantains

2 tbsp oil

½ onion, diced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 egg, hardboiled

salt and pepper

juice of ¼ lime

¼ cup mayonnaise

The first step is to peel the plantains/green bananas. This can be a bit tricky since the peels are more tough and latch on to the fruit harder than normal banana peels. The easiest way to peel them is to cut a slit down the length of the plantain (from here out I'll use plantain, but this refers to the type of banana-ish thing you're using.), and then pry the skin off a bit at a time until it's completely peeled. Use a knife to remove excess skin.

Get the water boiling, and then put the plantains into the pot. Boil them for 45 - 60 minutes... when you think they are done, test them to make sure they aren't hard, and are in fact a bit soft. Remember, this is a Caribbean equivalent to potato salad, so the plantains should feel something like a potato. Hard plantains are NOT pleasant, as we unfortunately discovered.

While the plantains are cooking, you probably want to get started on the breadfruit (later in this post).

The next step is to saute the onions. Simply heat up some butter in a pan, and throw them in for 5-7 minutes until they're soft. Set them aside.

Dice up the plantains, and put them in the bowl with the onions. Dice up the hard-boiled eggs and add them as well. Mix the salt and pepper, lime juice, and mayonnaise, and then set aside to chill for an hour.

You should start the breadfruit after you get the plantains boiling. For the baked stuffed breadfruit, you will need:

1 whole breadfruit or large butternut squash

4 tbsp. Butter

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 handful chives, minced

½ lb ground beef

¼ lb ground pork

1 tomato, diced

¼ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp cloves

¼ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

salt and pepper

At this point you're probably wondering about the big squash sitting there on the counter. Well, up here in the northern parts of Canada, it's quite hard to obtain tropical fruit. So, after doing a bit of research on breadfruit, mom thought it sounded like it would taste a bit like a butternut squash. We don't know if this is the case or not, but we used squash and it turned out quite well.

Just for reference, this is a breadfruit:

If you can find breadfruit, then you should definitely try it. If not, use butternut squash, as in any case at least it tastes good.

The instructions for breadfruit are included in the recipe, so if you're planning to use the real thing you can skip this next section, as it will be dealing with the squash.

If you're using squash, cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter, and drizzle over the two halves. Sprinkle with some salt and pepper and set aside.

Melt some more butter in a frying pan, and when it's melted throw in the onions, garlic, and chives. Saute until the onions are soft, then add in the beef, pork, tomatoes, and the rest of the spices. Cook until the meat is browned.

Fill a baking dish with about an inch of water, and place the halves of the squash face up in the dish. Fill the halves of the squash with the meat mixture. If you have meat left over, save it in a container in the fridge for later use.

Cover the dish with the squash with tinfoil before you put it in the oven, as the squash will brown too quickly otherwise.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook the squash covered for 30 minutes, and then take the tinfoil off for the last 30 minutes. The squash should be soft when it is done cooking.

The Creole fish stew is a relatively easy and quick recipe to do, so you should start it once you have the squash in the oven and the greenfig salad cooling in the fridge.

Ingredients for the fish stew are as follows:

<

For fish:

2 ½ lbs bream or snapper (to be authentic. Otherwise, any firm white fish like halibut will do), cut into 1 inch squares

1 tsp. Basil

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp chili pepper

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

2 tbsp malt vinegar

flour for dusting

oil to fry in

For sauce:

3 tbsp butter

1 onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 hot chili pepper or jalapeno, diced

3 tomatoes, peeled and diced

1 tsp thyme

2 ½ cups fish stock or water

½ tsp cinnamon

To get the fish prepared, cut it into one inch squares, and put the fish in a bowl with vinegar and spices. Roll the individual pieces of fish in flour until they're coated. Put some oil into a large frying pan, and when it's hot enough, place the pieces of fish in the pan and fry until brown, which will take about 5 minutes. When they're done, drain the pieces on a plate lined with paper towels.

The next step is to prepare the sauce. To start, melt some butter in another frying pan. Add in the onions, garlic, bell pepper, and chili pepper. Saute until the various ingredients are soft, which should be 5-7 minutes. At this point, and in the tomato and thyme, and saute for another 5 minutes.

Add in the stock or the water (instead of fish stock, we used chicken stock, which will work fine as well) along with the cinnamon. Bring the whole mix to a boil, and then turn down to a simmer for five minutes. Add in the fish pieces, and cook until the sauce thickens a bit and the fish is cooked all the way through.

Now you should have the meal all ready to go once the squash is out of the oven. Here's a picture of what we ended up with:

Now, one more thing to add. The 'greenfig' salad didn't go over well with everyone. Now, I think this was in partially because we undercooked the plantains, but the stuffed squash and fish stew was a good meal in itself. If you don't want to go to the hassle of doing the salad when you have no idea how your family will react to it, make some rice instead. Rice goes well with the fish ladled on top of it, and it rounds off the meal nicely.

That's all for now, but of course there will be another recipe coming along in the not-too-distant future. This time, we'll be heading to Africa.

P.S., I just realized I never put the reipes up, so here they are. Sorry about that.

Recipes