Meanwhile, waiting for that editor of the New York Times to call and ask about my quest for the cooking of the world, I decided that perhaps I should do some cooking. At the rate I am going, I might not make it through all the world (if only they stopped messing around with the map, everytime I check there's a new country or one that was is no longer). Or maybe if I manage to really retire as early as I plan, I might be able to host these dinners a bit more often. Thing is, if we really end up in Lucca (#1 on our list as possible retirement destinations), Eric is worried that I'll have to travel to other countries to find some of the ingredients. Frankly, I don't see why that would be a problem, do you?
So, last night I finally made a dinner with recipes from Saint Lucia. Yes, for those who didn't know, Saint Lucia is a country, a small island in the Caribbean, but a sovereign country nevertheless. And not even the smallest in the world actually.
The weather was perfect: hot and humid. Man, I was suffering in the kitchen - I did put the air conditioning on high (that in my book is 78F - no Eric, we can't go lower, it's enviromentally unfriendly and you're married to a saint, remember?), and put the ceiling fan on but that didn't help since for some bizarre reason that I still can't quite fatom, that is on top of the refrigerator and so it doesn't really do much good.
At any rate, I actually managed to plan this quite well: I finished all dishes around 6.15pm and I had started around 10.30am. Yes, cooking does take a long time. And thankfully there was no need to do anything the day before (and this time I did read the recipes to make sure; it happened before that something requires marinating overnight and I realize it a few hours before the guests are due to arrive). So, I even had time to clean up a little and wear something a little better than tracksuit bottoms and the latest Peachtree Road Race T-shirt (oh yeah, I am taking a boasting moment here: I kicked Eric's ass this year, the snail was at leat 3 minutes behind me).
Barbara and Katie arrived promptly at 7.30pm and they looked so nice that I was glad I swapped my tracksuit bottom and PTRR t-shirt (have I mentioned I kicked Eric's ass?) for something more presentable.
Finding something to cook to represent Saint Lucia wasn't too hard but just because there wasn't a lot of choice as far as I could tell: Google gave me a few hits and I think I cooked most of the stuff I found on the web. Who knew there was something called the breadfruit: Christine and Navin, the colleagues of mine that hail from the Caribbean knew all about it of course, but I wasn't even sure it was something they sold in Atlanta. Thank God for the Farmers Market! They indeed had the breadfruit as well as plantains and green figs (which are green bananas to you and me). As I was shopping I had a bit of a doubt about the fish that I needed for the maincourse: the recipe called for saltfish which I assumed was baccala (salt cod) but I wasn't really sure. Anyway, back to breafruit, it is a large oval fruit that's quite starchy: here is how it looks like before cooking
The recipe, stuffed breadfruit, was supposed to be one of my starters. It called for minced meat and minced ham - what on earth is minced ham? No mention of it on the "Food Lovers Companion" so I improvised: I bought a tick slice of ham and minced it. It sounded like the right thing to do... It was all going fairly well until I actually had to core the breadfruit; easy enough to peel after the parboiling but the coring was a little more arduos - I think I've used every single knife we have (and believe me, we've got a lot of knives here) and I still couldn't get the core out. It's a woody sucker and really hard (do I sound a little hardcore here? Don't really mean to...). Obviously, the recipe wasn't much help and I suppose I could have looked and see if Google had any instructions but I just decided to split it down in the middle and take the core out that way. It worked just fine (except that after I stuffed the two halves I had to use strings to tie it back together to make sure the filling didn't come out during baking). I had no clue how this thing should have looked after cooking: it just didn't look much different after 40 mins in the oven than it did before it went in the oven. But here is the result (after removing the top bit and slicing it before serving):
It's got a really interesting texture (kind of like bread actually) and an even more interesting flavor; I really can only think that it tastes a little like melon. So, there, a melon bread. Weird, right? It's delicious. Even Eric liked it. Barbara thought that the stuffing didn't really go with the breadfruit (and frankly so did I) but Katie and Eric didn't think so.
The second starter (I am always scared of not having enough food...) was called the Petit Piton and I've found out that the Petit Piton is the smaller of two mountains in Saint Lucia:
Nice, right? I wonder when I'll actually be able to host the dinner on site... This goes together with: I wonder when I am going to win the lottery?I wasn't really happy with the way the piton looked like after cooking (it's just a mixture of minced meat, minced veggies, potatoes and spices so it looks like a stuffing) so I improvised: I greased a bowl, pushed the petit piton in it and put it in the fridge for a few hours. About 1 hour before serving I removed it from the fridge and turned the bowl over on a plate and voila! I think it looks quite nice with the little toasted sliced baguette around it:
It tasted OK. I mean, it wasn't offensive but nothing really special in my view. It makes for a nice dip at barbeques.
The main course was green figs and salt fish pie which is the national dish of Saint Lucia according to the website - interesting isn't it. You would think that cod isn't a Caribbean fish (it's not) but apparently, the sailors coming from the North (Canada, North Europe etc) used to trade salt cod for rum and so it became a bit of a staple in the island. Frankly I would think fresh fish is better but I suppose salt fish is easier to store and lasts longer. As we ate this dish, I realized why they would want to mix it with bananas: the thing is salty as hell. I really think I must have done something wrong but I followed the recipe: it says to boil in water to remove most of the salt but I guess maybe I should have rinsed it afterwards? The recipe didn't require this step but should I make this again (and I don't think I will) I would definitely rinsed it under cold water after boiling it. Naturally, at this time of the dinner, we were at our third bottle of wine and so we forgot about the camera (sorry - no more photos...).
The plantains that accompanied the salt fish were interesting: it was kind of a plantain pie. I boiled them and then crushed them and mixed them with egg, breadcrumbs, peanut butter and veggies before cooking in the oven. You can taste the peanut butter but I think the flavor of the plantains disappears which is a shame since I really like them.
For dessert I served hot bakes which as far as I understand are a popular breakfast food in Saint Lucia and are not normally served with sweet sauce but I wanted a dessert so I improvised again. And I have to say, WOW. Aside from the hot bakes being really easy to make and really delicious, I served them with the most wonderful homemade lemon custard sauce. As Katie put it, we could have just drank the sauce it was so yummy! I think I'll definitely make this again. Of course I did have them for breakfast this morning... Ah, that sauce! The bakes look a little like doughnuts but they're more bready and not as sweet (but they are fried despite being called bakes). If you don't like sweets but like bread, this makes for a nice alternative since the recipe only have 2 tablespoons of sugar so they are not that sweet.
All in all it was another successful dinner. Even Eric gave me quite a good score!
Here is the menu and the scores:
Appetizers
Baked Stuffed Breadfruit 8
Petit Piton 7.8
Main Course
Green Fig & Salt Fish Pie 7.2
Plantains 7.3
Dessert
Hot Bakes with lemon custard 8.5
Coming up soon: Tajikistan - who wants to come for dinner?
1 comment:
WoW! All I can say is WoW! Green figs and salted cod, they don't even exist in anywhere in the same hemisphere, dudes and dudettes. LOL....
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