As this is the last diary in this cooking series, it bodes well: I have been a huge fan of Creole cuisine ever since a friend of the family prepared a Caribbean style seafood gumbo and had it served at midnight. I was eight and impressed. It turns out that quite a few citizens from our neighboring villages took off to Canada some four hundred years ago and became Acadians. Then got their asses kicked to Louisiana, and became Cajuns. However, this edition of Creole food is not about the New Orleans/Louisiana food treasures (this should be two separate diaries), instead it features the sunny Caribbean islands cooking, and in particular the fiery dishes of the French Antilles, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
The culinary inheritance of the Caribbean is integrally linked to its immigrant past. Its cuisine is widely known as Creole, derived from the Spanish word crillo (meaning native to an area). To others the word Creole refers to those pesky French colonists and their descendants who came to what is now Louisiana starting in the early eighteenth century. The roots of Creole cooking come from the traditional French foods these colonists would have adapted (Cajun food is essentially the poor cousin to Creole) using ingredients and cooking techniques borrowed from the Spanish and French repertoire. These recipes have changed drastically over time and now barely resemble their original incarnations but the term Creole has followed suit and now incorporates a diverse range of influences fused together in a single dish.
Trying almost any dish on offer in the Caribbean gives you a taste of its complicated history. When Christopher Columbus and the Spanish arrived in 1492, on a mission to find spices in the Far East, they encountered the Amerindian Caribs whose diet was based on fish, exotic meats like turtle, iguana, guinea pig and alligator and local produce like cassava, pineapples and cashews. Naturally the newcomers were intrigued by a food preservation method in which they cooked the food on a brabacot (a wooden framework over a pit of coals). The Spanish adopted the technique and named it barbacoa, where the word barbecue comes from.
The Spanish imported a lot of their own foodstuffs, most notably livestock (and especially pigs to Puerto Rico), as was well as oranges, bananas, rice and probably coconuts. The arrival of the English, French and Dutch to the islands brought the onset of large-scale cultivation on plantations where sugarcane became the primary crop. By 1630 the industry was really flying as sugar became more and more popular with confectioners in Europe.
Guadeloupe is quite possibly the best place to try Creole cuisine (my connection to this island is this: one of my uncles happened to be a police official stationed there in the fifties, two of my cousins were born on this idyllic island...and I still have my stuffed iguana, an odd present given to me upon their return) as it's still part of France and the influence of this culinary heavyweight makes it the gastronomic mecca of the Caribbean. Mind you, Martinique does have its share of wonderful dishes as well.
Let's start with a simple punch, the punch Coco! Easy to make and easier to drink, this will put you in the right mood to cook the following recipes. For two you will need four doses of white rum, a dash of grenadine and two tablespoons of coconut milk. Mix it well and serve it on crushed ice. Repeat.
Popular fusion dishes from Guadeloupe include Boudin Creole, a spicy blood sausage, Goat Colombo, based on an Indian curry, La Creole, a fish stew similar to French bouillabaisse and accras, an African salt-cod fritter. I'll be kind and give you the simplest recipes to follow, a superb chilled avocado soup, a fiery black bean chicken curry, creole rice, a wonderful papaya salad, and to finish a knockout Creole banana & dark rum cake.
The chilled avocado soup conjures up fond memories for me as my aunt used to make this in the hot summer days. She did it all by hand, no food processor ever dared to enter her kitchen! For 4 to 6 servings you will need 6 ripe avocados, peeled, seeded and cubed; 3 or 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced finely, 4 cups or 2 pints of either chicken or vegetable stock, depending on your diet, the juice of 2 limes, 1/2 cup of sour cream, a dash (or 2) of Tabasco sauce, and salt & black pepper to taste. For the garnish chop up finely a small bunch of chives and set aside. My aunt used to top her soup bowls with a few drops of thickened coconut milk, so this is optional.
Combine avocado, garlic, half the chicken stock, lime juice, sour cream, and salt and pepper in a blender or food processor and puree. Mix in remaining chicken stock until smooth. Stir in hot pepper sauce. Chill the soup for at least 1 hour before serving, top it up with the chives (and the coconut milk if you wish, it does add to the dish).
Curried Creole Chicken & Black Beans: this is a hearty chicken dish which we used to eat in the late summer evenings, I remember the very first time I encountered black beans (my not too subtle uncle had told me that they were sheep droppings and added a certain flavor to the dish...)
For 4 to 6 servings you will need 2 small chickens, cut up roughly the same size, 4 medium-sized red onions, 1 leek, 8 garlic cloves, 1/2 cup of freshly grated coconut (coconut flakes can also do the job), 2 tablespoons of curry, 1 tablespoon of turmeric, 1 tablespoon of ground allspice, half a pint of double cream, 2 tablespoons of plain flour, 1 knob of butter, 1 bouquet garni: thyme, rosemary, parsley, bay leaf; 2 pints of chicken stock, 2 cups of drained black beans (also called turtle beans), 2 fresh chilies, chopped up finely, the juice of 2 limes and salt & pepper to taste.
Sprinkle the chicken pieces with the curry powder and the turmeric. In a large skillet, add the knob of butter and start frying the onion, leek & garlic till golden. Add the chicken pieces, brown them on all sides, add 1 tbsp of flour, stir then add half the chicken stock. Mix well, add the bouquet garni, the coconut, the other tbsp of flour and the rest of the chicken stock. Add the lime juice, the chilies and cover, simmering for 45 minutes over medium to low heat. When it's almost cooked, add the black beans, whip the sour cream into it, salt & pepper. Serve with Creole rice (recipe below).
The point of Creole rice is to serve it completely dry, with almost every single grain separated from the others. There's a neat trick to know. For 4 to 6 servings you will need 2 cups of long-grain white rice, 2 small yellow onions, 2 small carrots, a small handful of chopped parsley, a couple of sprigs of thyme, salt & pepper to taste. Mince the onions finely and cube the carrots as finely as you can.
Soak the rice in cold water for 20 minutes and drain. In a large saucepan, bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Add salt, onion, parsley, thyme, and carrot. Add the rice and simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes. Drain the rice in a colander. Rinse under cold running water. Drain again and turn into saucepan. Add a knob of butter (optional, but it adds to the taste) to the pan and simmer over low heat for 5 minutes until the rice grains are completely dry. You should have a nicely separated rice dish.
A great accompaniment to any Creole dish is the papaya salad, Martinique style. It is served grated, mixed with flat parsley with a soupçon of mint. Try to purchase a fresh green papaya and using a cheese grater, reduce it to a pile of shavings. Mix it with a handful of finely chopped flat parsley and a few mint leaves. The dressing is simple: in a small bowl, pour the juice of 1 lime, add a few drops of white wine vinegar (white Balsamic is good) mix in salt & cracked black pepper, 2 tablespoons of a light mayonnaise, 2 or 3 crushed garlic cloves and whisk in 4 or 5 tablespoons of sunflower oil. I find rapeseed oil equally good for this light and refreshing salad. Mix carefully and serve.
Now for the Banana & Dark Rum Cake: go to a liquor store and obtain a small bottle of dark rum. On the way back stop at your local deli and try to get a small bottle of a really good vanilla essence, not the cheap stuff....it won't work. You will need the following as well: 12 ounces of plain white flour, 4 ounces of freshly grated coconut, 6 ripe bananas, juice of 1 lime, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 4 tablespoons of dark sugar, 1 egg yolk, and half a cup of double cream. And a pinch of salt! First peel the bananas, cut lengthways and soak them with the said dark rum....if you haven't drunk it all yet...
Make a thick dough by combining the flour and cream, then add the cinnamon, pinch of salt, sugar, a few vanilla drops (6 to 8) and lime juice. Mix well. The dough should be slightly wet. Roll it out with a rolling pin and cut 2 oblong-shaped layers of around 1 inch thick. Line a bread tin with 1 layer. Place the soaked bananas on top, cover with the grated (or shredded) coconut, and cover with the top layer, crimping the edges to seal. Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle a little sugar and some grated coconut for effect. Bake in a moderate oven (180° C / 350° F) for about 30 minutes until nicely browned.
See you in September!