Tasty vegetarian recipes with a Caribbean influence by Caribbean cookbook author Chris De La Rosa.
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Growing up in Trinidad, dhal meant salted meats like pig tails or beef and either curry chicken or tomato choka on the side with rice. My mom would put pieces of salted pig tails or beef into the dhal as it slow cooked that gave it a very unique taste. However, traditional split peas dhal…
The absolute only way I would engage in any dish with ochro (Okra) growing up, was callaloo and in some of the soups my mom would make on a Saturday. However that didn’t stop my mom from cooking fry ochro with and without saltfish (dry salted cod). We had a small garden (aka kitchen garden)…
Dad it’s getting black! Yup that’s what I heard the last 2 times I purchased plantains with the intention of sharing the simple recipe for fry plantains. I grew up eating fry plantains as a side to many dishes, but my absolute favourite was making sandwiches with these as the filler. I still recall my…
Channa and aloo or “chickpeas with potato” cooked in curry and stuffed into “hops” bread was a fav of mine growing up. I would visit my uncle who was a teacher at Marabella Junior Secondary school and just outside the gates were vendors selling all sorts of local street food. Including channa and aloo sandwiches…
Caron’s been asking me to make this for her quite some time now and when I finally got around to making it, I realized that she had come from working nights and would be sleeping in. So like any responsible adult I devoured it with other breakfast fixings so it didn’t go to waste. I…
For those of you not familiar with the Trinbagonian accent… “pong” simply refers to “pound”. So basically we’ll be pounding or mashing the yam in cooked salted cod and other ingredients to bring out the true essence of this wonderful “country” dish. This dish may have different names such as “yam choka” or “yam talkari”,…
I recall my mom making something similar as a young fella and being warned that I/we should not touch it due to the high pepper content. Like everything your parents didn’t want you to do.. you did. The overwhelming heat was simply unbearable as a youth and I did learn my lesson, however that was…
Talkari or talcarie is a term used to describe a curry or side dish on the islands, and is East Indian in origin. Mango talkari (my mouth still waters as I recall my school boy days) or Mango Amchar was sold by vendors just outside the gates of my primary and secondary school. At breaks…
I still recall coming back from playing football (soccer) or cricket on a Sunday morning and the house would be filled with the wonderful aroma of Sunday lunch being prepared. Though I was never a fan of it, macaroni pie is an integral part of a Trinbagonian Sunday lunch. For me the rice, stew chicken…
It’s funny how things always seem to get in the way to prevent you from doing things you plan. A few days back when I posted the recipe for mango chutney, I had planned on making a batch of pholourie to accompany the chutney. Afterall they’re like peas in a pod… they go together. Looking…
I’ve been having a serious craving lately for some hot-from-the fryer-pholourie, the kind that you get when you’re invited to Divali celebrations at your friend’s home (the multiculturalism on the islands is amazing). How I miss those days! There I was strolling through the grocery this morning when I saw some green mangoes (not the…
Here’s another one of the dishes my mom would prepare when we were kids which we refused to eat. Her way of getting us to eat it was to cook it without the curry and add leftover stew chicken, pork or beef near the end of the cooking process. Today when she visits I get…
