Latest Recipes

  • Green Fig Salad Recipe (green banana).

    This is my take on a recipe which screams St Lucia. After a full day of beautiful Caribbean sunshine and wicked heat, we ended up in a small family run restaurant in Castries St Lucia where it was recommended I try the “Green Fig Salad” (like a potato salad made green cooking bananas). What a delightful dish, one bite and I could see why St Lucians are so proud of this dish. The creamy texture, mixed in with the texture of the cooked banana and the slight herbal elements combined with the bits of salted cod was just perfect. So here’s my version of Green Fig Salad!

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    Avocado Grapefruit Salad

    This is NOT a recipe on so many levels, but an ideal dish for when you want something light and for when it’s just you you’re ‘cooking’ for. Just about every day I get emails asking for healthy recipes and with the new ‘living better’ regime I follow, I thought I’d share this one with you. Our family home in the Caribbean is surrounded with many fruit and citrus trees, so I have a natural affection for both avocado and grapefruit. Maybe in the coming weeks I’ll share mom’s recipe for one of the most refreshing grapefruit juices you’ve ever had (I assure you). You can easily multiply the ingredients if you plan on making this for a group. Not only is this a super quick salad recipe, it’s vegan, vegetarian and gluten free.

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    Simple Oven Jerk Chicken For Students And Busy People.

    With the busy lifestyle we tend to live and the fact that more and more students are now reaching out for recipes, I figured I’d share this sort of hack or cheat’s way of doing amazing jerk chicken in the oven. Yes, traditionalists will say that you need, smoke, fire and the goodness from pimento wood to really make it “jerk” but when you don’t have access to such, you improvise. In under 1 hr I’ll have you eating the most juicy, flavorful and tender oven jerk chicken you’ve ever had. No Lie! Even your Jamaican friends will be asking you for the recipe when you serve this up at that dinner party you’ve been meaning to have.

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    Simple Sofrito Recipe.

    As we have Caribbean Green Seasoning as the base of many dishes in most of the Southern Caribbean, in the Spanish speaking Caribbean you’ll find Sofrito. An aromatic blend of herbs, garlic and seasoning peppers. A few years back while in old San Juan (Puerto Rico) I had a delightful rice dish at a small roadside vendor and she told me that the secret was all in the sofrito she started with. You will definitely find variations in the way sofrito is made as you make your way through Cuba, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, as everyone tend to have their own specific recipe. This recipe I’m about to share is as basic as sofrito comes and a great starting point.

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    Quick And Tasty Stewed Beans Recipe (For Students & Busy Individuals)

    Our mom is an expert at making Caribbean style stewed red beans and I’m still to find someone who can match the way she balances flavor, tenderness and the perfect consistency to the gravy. A recipe which calls for soaking dried beans and slowly cooking then for a relatively long time. Time is something we never seem to have much of lately, so I’ve come up with a recipe which will cut the cooking time tremendously and give you the same sort of feel-good vibe as if you were eating traditional Caribbean stewed beans – stuff your mom or grandma would make for you.

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    How To Make Papaya Punch [lactose friendly | dairy free] .

    We always seemed to have had Papaya (say paw paw or paw poi in Trinidad and Tobago) trees in our yard as kids growing up on the islands, so this punch (or call it a smoothie) as well as ice cream was always in the fridge. I still recall getting in trouble with my dad for cutting the leaves (with long stems) off the tree as we would make a sort of cave-man flute or whistle with it. In the process of breaking the leaves off, my brother and I would knock the baby Papaya off the tree and the odd time we would even knock off the more mature fruits.. yea, we didn’t care as all we wanted were the stems/leaves.

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    Apple Kuchela Recipe.

    Kuchela is one of those spicy condiments traditionally made with green mangoes and a must-have topping for ‘doubles’, saheena and pholourie (street food in Trinidad and Tobago). Being that I call Canada home and green mango is not something I can go in my back yard and pick off the trees as I did for my mom when I was a young fella on the islands, Granny Smith apples are my new choice. Though sweet, the slight tartness and sturdy texture of these green apples makes an ideal kuchela when you can’t source mangoes.

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    Pork Chow Recipe (Trinidad and Tobago Cooking).

    My first encounter with this wonderful spicy pork dish was New Years Eve night (say old years night in the Caribbean) at my cousin’s home. They had recently come back from Trinidad and while there another cousin of ours made a batch of this to partner the adult beverages everyone were partaking in. In Trinidad and Tobago we have what we refer to as “cuttas”, as the Spanish have Tapas as sides for drinking. We have an assortment of spicy, fatty, fried and otherwise alcohol friendly foods which are a big part of our drinking culture. Chow is typically made from tart fruit (like green mangoes)and pickled with extra hot scotch bonnet peppers, lemon juice and herbs. But in this recipe we’ll replace the mango with marinated pork, fried until crispy and golden.

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    Oven Roasted Chicken Drumsticks Recipe.

    Simple, Quick and Tasty! Three words which embodies this chicken recipe. I had a request on Twitter a while back asking for a simple but tasty way to do chicken in the oven, on those weeknights when you want to eat well but not spend all night in the kitchen. Though I’ve shared several oven roasted chicken recipes in the past, I went into my personal repertoire, for one I do on the regular for my family. The flavor you get from that hint of ginger, allspice and the sweetness of the roasted peppers, will definitely have your family asking for seconds.

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    Baigan Choka (eggplant dip) Recipe In The Oven.

    The key to making traditional baigan (eggplant) choka (dip) is roasting the eggplant over an open flame and if you really want to excite the taste buds with even more flavor, you would place the eggplant on hot coals. On so many levels this is not always possible, especially if you live in temperate climates where having that fire in the middle of winter is not possible. Yes, you can always use the flame on your stove top, but if you’ve ever had to clean up that stove after – you’d never do it again. This baigan choka recipe is specifically for people who want the same sort of flavors, but with an easier method of achieving this. Students, you can even do this is a toaster oven.

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    French Beans With Leftover Caribbean Stewed Pork.

    Between spinach and beans it would be very difficult for me to decide which I adore more. The edge would probably go to beans simply because as a young fella on the islands I would help my parents grow different varieties in our kitchen garden. I hated pulling out the weeds, but I did enjoy harvesting them.. each bean picked off the bushes were like little prizes to my collection in the basket. Mom would normally make this dish for us whenever she would make stewed pork the evening before for dinner and had leftovers. If you’d like to make this dish vegetarian, simply leave out the stewed pork and for more flavor use coconut milk instead of the water mentioned in the ingredient list.

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    Papaya Pineapple Marmalade Recipe

    With the natural abundance of fruits we have in the Caribbean I’m surprised we didn’t have a wider jam and jellies culture, when I was a kid on the islands. To be honest, the only jam mom would make was guava, sour cherry and Pommecythere (ambarella). However with all the artisan -like initiatives lately, we’re seeing more and more creative use of our fruits. We’ve come to realize that we can still enjoy tropical fruits when it’s out of season. If you’re from the Caribbean you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say we eat ‘seasonally’… take sorrel for example. We only drink sorrel at Christmas time. Why? In this recipe we’ll take two of the most common topical fruits and make what I believe is the perfect marriage of flavors and texture.