My next stopover was in Barbados which was another exciting prospect as the small amount of recipes I've made so far from the Caribbean islands have all been wonderful. The food of Barbados has influences from West African, Indian and British cuisines and their national dish is called flying fish and cou-cou. I wanted to attempt this meal more than anything even though it sounded tricky to pull off. Whilst hunting around for inspiration about how to achieve this I discovered that there was already a published recipe called Tofish and cou-cou in Caribbean Vegan by Taymer Mason. Thankfully I had drawn the four countries that would be appearing during Vegan MoFo prior to the start of September as this gave me enough time to order Taymer's cookbook online.
.JPG)
When the book arrived I flicked straight to the recipe I was interested in and decided that this would be a weekend project as there were several elements involved in making the dish. A couple of Bajan sauces that are integral parts in many of the Caribbean Vegan recipes needed to be prepared first. The rest of the components were a marinade for the tofish, a creole tomato sauce, a sauce to pour over the frying tofu as well as the polenta and okra dish called cou-cou. As I approached the meal in stages it didn't end up being as much work as I envisaged although I'm still glad that I didn't attempt this on a weeknight.
There were a large array of herbs and spices throughout the different elements in this dish but most of these were pantry friendly. Fresh parsley, thyme and basil provided the sauces with flavour along with plenty of onions, garlic, madras curry powder, paprika, ground cloves and black pepper. The only ingredient I had to track down was habanero chillies which are an integral part of Caribbean cooking and one of the hottest varieties in the world. I was able to purchase dried packets of habaneros at USA Foods.
We have never been fans of polenta so the cou-cou gave me the most angst as I wasn't sure if we would enjoy it and I also wasn't confident about being able to cook it properly. This turned out a lot nicer than any polenta dish I recall and combined with creole sauce it really was quite delicious. This meal was definitely worth the effort and the leftovers were gobbled up enthusiastically the next day. Although I've only had a quick glance through the cookbook there are plenty of recipes in Caribbean Vegan I'm looking forward to making after Vegan MoFo ends.
The Barbabos cherry contains the highest content of Vitamin C of all the fruits in the world. Eating one cherry a day will give you the full daily requirement of Vitamin C.
I really, really like the look of that. I can take or leave polenta to be honest, but anything with okra in will happily make its way to my mouth! Looking forward to some more experiments from the book!
ReplyDeleteThanks Joey, I'm starting to think that I got off on the wrong foot with polenta similar to tempeh. More polenta experiments may be required in the future and there will definitely be more playing around with Caribbean recipes from this book.
DeleteI think that the brand of polenta makes an enormous difference. The coarser polenta with a grainy texture holds no interest for me either, but the kind that is very fine (de la Estancia brand is my favorite) is smooth and velvety, almost like mashed potatoes. That's the kind that makes polenta a staple for me.
ReplyDeleteAfter ordering the cookbook specifically for this dish and taking multiple days to put it together, I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! I'll look forward to hearing about more things that you make from this book.
Thanks Cadry, it's interesting to hear your thoughts about different varieties of polenta as I'm sure the polenta I used years ago was a lot coarser and grainier than the type I have in the pantry now.
DeleteThis recipe was a wonderful introduction to the book, even though it took some time to prepare it was totally worth it and I'm looking forward to trying more!
Not only is that dish beautiful looking, the recipe sounds incredible! I'm going to have to check out that book soon and try it out. Caribbean foods have never been on my list before, time to change that!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jes, the book is definitely worth checking out. I've made a few Caribbean recipes previously but I think this cookbook is unique as it was written by a vegan who grew up in the Caribbean and has so much knowledge about this type of food.
Deleteit looks impressive - I love polenta but I find okra challenging and did the tofish taste fishy - it looks very appealing
ReplyDeleteThanks Johanna, I've found that okra takes a bit of time to warm up to but when it's cooked well it is amazing. The tofish wasn't very fishy - I was supposed to shred 2 sheets of nori for the marinade but used a couple of tablespoons of dulse flakes instead. I don't find seaweed to be overly fishy which is fine by me as I never enjoyed seafood flavours anyway.
DeleteI got that cookbook out of the library recently! Sadly, it was too close to our trip to be able to devote any time to making recipes, but I do plan to return - I love the sound of many of them. Now I know this dish works well I may be scheduling it in to a weekend myself :-) I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kari, I thought you may be interested in this cookbook given the time your mum spent in the Caribbean. I highly recommend checking it out from the library again when you have more time - not all of the recipes appear to be as labour intensive as this one was.
Delete