So, I was surfing the net, not really looking for anything in particular, but as usual ended up looking at food and recipes…
Maybe it’s because of Trini Gourmet‘s post on Hops Bread that got me looking for other explanations of Hops Bread, the reason for the name, traditional descriptions etc (because don’t you find that these days to get a really crusty on the outside, fluffy on the inside, with a little touch of sweetness, is getting more and more difficult?). Anyway, got on to the VisitTnT site, which is the official Welcome to T&T website (started by government) and they have a page entitled Local recipes to try yourself!, where they list recipes for pelau and Trinidad curry chicken that concern me.
First the pelau - here’s my recipe which involves browning the sugar and then adding the chicken, so the chicken and eventually the peas get a nice stewed flavour and a brown colour, then the rice. Their recipe calls for browning the chicken just so in oil, no browning* nothing, then taking it out, then sauteing onions and garlic AND TAKING IT OUT and somewhere along the way adding brown sugar to the pot of rice and water just so, no browning (caramelisation). What? I know there are other techniques for making pelau, and I know there are people who make white-chicken pelau (without the browning of the sugar and stewing), but do people really cook everything separately, throw it in with the boiling rice water and then RAW SUGAR? Please help. I need to know if this is really a Trini way of cooking as described in the official T&T tourist website, and even if not, how would that taste?
And then there’s the curry chicken recipe…
First of all, they don’t season the chicken. Then they saute the garlic and ginger and throw it away (ok have seen this technique for flavour before, but in T&T – we don’t throw this away, do we?!?) And then…they cook the chicken WITHOUT the curry powder, cook it completely. I know of people who may season the chicken with the curry powder, people who throw the curry powder on the raw chicken directly in the pot and people who actually fry up the curry in the oil before adding the meat. All to get the curry flavour released by the oil/heat and for the chicken to really be curried before it is cooked. Not fully cooked chicken then boiled in a curry powder liquid. I have tasted chicken that was probably cooked this way – you can still taste the curry powder, gritty and nonflavourful on your tongue. They don’t fry up the onions, they add it to the concotion to boil away. My grandmother’s secret to great Trini curry, is lots of onions, well sauted in oil before adding any meat, or potatoes etc.
Sigh. I accept there are lots of ways to cook pelau, but I never knew of their way. Is that pelau? They don’t even save it with coconut milk. It’s not that I am closed off to variation, but…
For example, I know there’s recipe on Allrecipes.com for Trinidad Stewed Chicken which calls for lots of coconut milk (strange to me, but confirmed by my mother as a possibility), but I have learned not to be annoyed by it, because Allrecipes.com is a user submitted site, and there can be variations; plus they do brown the chicken in the sugar first. What bothers me about VisitTnt.com is that it is official.
I really would like to get feedback. I am not going to say that these methods as described at VisitTnT.com are bad recipes; I just want to know if they are Trini recipes. Because if they are, what’s my food?? Or what have I been missing out on? I am now officially worried about my status as a real Trini cook…
——————–
* Please note that where browning is used as a noun, it refers to the sticky, dark brown result of caramelising sugar in the hot pot, may be called gravy browning, cake browning etc. like this.
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds
BlogoSquare
34 Comments so far (Add 1 more)
2 Trackbacks
[...] Warning:!!! There are many sites (and I’m not calling names -yet-) publishing ‘traditional island recipes’ that are based in no other reality than the author’s mind. I will be featuring such recipes now and again in a ‘Best of the Worst’ series, so be on the look out. Sadly, thanks to Chenette, it looks like my own government’s tourism website (ok I called names ) may have to be the first skewered, and here that honour was gonna go to England’s Delia Smith, oh well! [...]
[...] I found that website I mentioned earlier where someone had left a comment that the doubles he eaten were made with BAKED bara! Read to the [...]