Meal 149: Samoa

Sapasui | Chop suey | Recipe

This dish doesn’t have a ton to do with the chop suey that was popular in America long ago, which itself has only tenuous links to China. It’s less veggies, and adds noodles — which, curiously, are cut into small pieces. It’s also very punchy, with an entire cup of soy sauce and a tablespoon of ginger to a half-pound each of noodles and chicken. It’s quite a contrast to the subtler flavors of traditional Polynesian dishes we’ve had.

Oka i’a | Coconut ceviche | Recipe

This is a lot less acidic than South American ceviches, for two reasons: the citrus juice is drained after hanging out with the fish for just a short time, and coconut milk constitutes most of the liquid. I prefer the tangier version, but the advantage to this method is that the fish is less cooked so closer to raw. If you like the idea of slightly sour sashimi in coconut milk with some crunchy veggies, this is the dish for you.

Palusami | Coconut milk and taro leaf parcels | Recipe

A common dish in Polynesia, in fact we made it for the Fiji meal. For that one, we included corned beef; this time we made it a bit simpler, with just onions and lemons for flavor. Even without the beef, it’s plenty rich, between how creamy the baked coconut milk becomes, as well as the musky aroma from the taro leaves.

Pani popo | Coconut-glazed sweet rolls | Recipe

If you thought Hawaiian rolls weren’t sweet enough, well, try this. It’s a similar sweet dough, but bathed in a very sweet coconut milk glaze. In fact, you glaze it twice, both before and after baking. Yum.

Vaifala | Pineapple-coconut drink | Recipe

Coconut and pineapple, blended with a bit of vanilla extract. Yummy, refreshing, quintessentially tropical.

Keke fa’i | Banana cake | Recipe

Like banana bread, but more cakelike. Quite yummy, though oddly, this dessert wasn’t the sweetest thing on the menu — the rolls took the cake, so to speak.

Meal 148: St. Vincent and the Grenadines

Rum punch | Recipe

This is the first punch I’ve seen that says to mix a few days ahead of time and keep at room temperature. It’s also got quite a bit of water. And it was good! A few days of mellowing took the edge of the acidic juices and made for a lovely drink.

Sea moss drink | Recipe

Ever seen “carrageenan” toward the end of an ingredients list? It’s a mucilaginous thickener, found in products ranging from nut milks to cold cuts. And it comes from a seaweed known as sea moss or Irish moss (in fact, carraigín means “little rock” in Irish), which in much of the Caribbean is enjoyed as a drink! Whole pieces of the plant are soaked and simmered until they fall apart, then mixed with various canned milk products, sugar, and in this recipe, lime, cinnamon, and Angostura bitters.

Unsurprisingly, the taste is unfamiliar and, well, quite something. It indeed tastes of the sea; it’s not salty per se but tastes like the ocean smells, and it’s also got a thickness close to a milkshake. I can see how one would grow accustomed to it, but I found it hard to drink the whole glass.

Callaloo soup | Recipe (and domplins)

Most plants that we eat both the seed and leaf of are spices and herbs respectively—coriander/cilantro, dill, fennel, and so on. Mustard greens are a legit vegetable, but the seeds are still spices. Amaranth is the only plant whose leaves and seeds are both eaten at legit scale, and where both are eaten as a true food item rather than a flavoring.

Callaloo is both the name of a variety of amaranth in much of the Caribbean, as well as a stew made from either these or other leaves. As with most dishes made in many places and mostly in home kitchens, recipes vary regionally, by family, and can adapt to what’s on hand. This Vicentian version is big on coconut milk and salted meat, lending richness to contrast the leaves which taste like a nuttier version of spinach. The domplins—that is, dumplings—absorb the flavors and make it all the more filling.

Breadfruit and jackfish | Recipe

I’ve read that breadfruit is fairly large, quite starchy and a bit fluffy when cooked (hence the name), with a faint potato-like flavor. Unfortunately, I’ve only ever encountered frozen sliced breadfruit, and it just turns out unappealingly spongy no matter what I do. Well, until this time, when I came upon some small frozen breadfruit and roasted them on the grill, as is done in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Except that they turned into pure charcoal, except for the inside, which was, once again, unappealingly spongy, and went straight to the compost. I hereby swear off ever buying frozen breadfruit again, and I suspect fresh breadfruit ain’t amazing anyway — I see its close cousin jackfruit imported fresh in Asian markets, but have never seen anyone bothering to sell breadfruit the same way.

As far as the jackfish, which is the second half of the islands’ national dish, I could hardly even figure out what kind of fish available to me would be. best to cook. “Jackfish” appears to be a name applied to specimens from several genera of saltwater fish; using photos of the dish with one or two whole small fish as a clue, I ended up going with some Indian mackerel. Fried with a bit of lime and breading, they were tasty, but definitely bare without their traditional breadfruit pairing.

Creamed christophene | Chayote gratin | Recipe

You may have seen this close relative of zucchini in the produce aisle, pale green, roughly pear shaped, with a crease that looks a whole lot like pursed lips. Chayote has a mild nutty flavor, and a texture somewhere between potato and cucumber which holds up to cooking. In the Caribbean it’s known as christophene, and is found in a variety of dishes, including this milky-cheesy casserole. I thought it was fine, but frankly I think it would have been tastier with potatoes.

Arrowroot cakes | Recipe

You might have heard this name in the context of teething biscuits or gluten-free baking. As the name suggests, it’s a starchy root, and it happens to be native to the Grenadines. Baked up into cookies, it has a crumbly, shortbread-like texture, and gets a little gummy in your mouth as it softens, in a satisfying way. Too bad arrowroot is pretty pricey (a one-pound bag of Bob’s Red Mill set me back $10, and you can pay way more than that if you buy it by the tiny jar in the spice aisle), or this is a thing I’d consider putting in my repertoire.

Meal 147: St. Lucia

St. Lucian Rum Punch | Recipe

I can’t identify what in particular makes this drink from St. Lucia.  It seems like the sort of smartly crafted yet generic punch you could just about anywhere in the Caribbean, but what sold me on this was the line of mixing ahead of time “so the flavours can get to know each other.” A recipe with personality, on a website that’s clearly devoted to the country, well, that’s good enough for me. And you know what, this was a lovely punch and I wouldn’t change it a bit.

Greenfigs and saltfish | Green bananas with salt cod | Recipe

I’d heard of green plantains being used as a starch, but this was my first encounter with a regular ol’ green banana used as such.  Exotic as it seems to do so, it’s really quite easy, you just want to first cover the whole bananas in boiling water to soften and blacken the skin, then just peel and then boil like a potato. And voilà, you’ve got a mildly banana-flavored, potato-like starch.

The sailfish part of the dish is a simple stir fry, made with cod or other salt-preserved fish that’s been soaked and boiled, plus various fresh veggies and those most Caribbean of herbs, chives and thyme. Note that “seasoning peppers” are hard to come by, they’re essentially small and very mild chilies with a lot of flavor, so your best bet might be the mildest chili you can find. 

For as homely as it looks, this is a pretty tasty dish! And it sings with a dash of hot sauce.

Bouyon | Meat and root vegetable stew | Recipe

From the French “bouillon,” this is a good ol’ throw-what-you-got-in-the-pot dish, and of course everyone has their own variation. Frankly, this was just okay, without much in the way of seasoning it was a bit flat. Also, my attempt at winging it with dumplings was kind of a disaster, which fortunately I sorted out with the St. Vincent meal.

Cocoa tea | Recipe

To make this version of hot chocolate, you use a “cocoa stick,” made from roasted and compressed cacao nibs. The ones I found on eBay were from Barbados and came pre-spiced. This recipe makes the flavors even more complex with vanilla and bay leaf, but others keep it simpler by just mixing grated cocoa stick with some sugar and milk.

The flavor was quite nice, but I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to make this again as opposed to the easier, powder-based hot chocolate we’re used to in the states.

Penmi | Sweet coconut-cornmeal dumplings | Recipe

Both African and Amerindian cultures have traditions of steaming starch-filled leaves, so it’s no wonder they’re popular in one form or another throughout the Caribbean. In a sense, this is a dessert tamale, with sugar, milk, and warming spices, plus pumpkin and coconut all mixed into the cornmeal dough. (As the recipe notes, you can swap out several ingredients and use meat instead for a savory version). It was tasty, but my goodness filling too — I think this is more of a sweet heavy snack than a true after-dinner treat.

Meal 146: North Macedonia

Another birthday meal, another out-of-order meal thanks to a name change! (Last year’s was eSwatini.) Until earlier this year, this southern Balkan country was known to the United Nations by the beastly name of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with the equally beastly acronym FYROM, and inexplicably alphabetized not under F or R or M, but rather T, for The. For over two decades, this nation went by this ungainly name because Greece asserts that the historical region of Macedonia is mostly within its borders, and Greece also threatened to block any admission to other international organizations such as the EU until the issue was resolved. Finally, 27 years after Yugoslavia dissolved, both sides begrudgingly agreed that North Macedonia would be acceptable, and the most pusillanimous name in the UN was finally gone. With this jump from T to N, we had to do the meal posthaste!

And how fortunate we were to celebrate this country’s food with a birthday crowd. It’s a really great cuisine, featuring the fresher, Ottoman-influenced side of Slavic food, with just enough sour cream and pork to make it sing. And to top it off, it’s a country with a lot of great wine.

So many good friends at this one! Melia, Liz, Breesa, Jason, Ezra, Laura H, Patrick, Katia, Annie, Laura K, Jen, Chad, Levi, Julie, Deena, Denise, Jeff, Scott, Jen, Craig, and Mike all made it a rollicking good time.

Slatko | Thin jam | Recipe

There’s a very specific hospitality tradition in Macedonia: upon arrival, you’re offered a spoon, a bowl of jam, and a glass of water. You take exactly one bite of jam, sip the water, and put the spoon in the water glass.

While there’s a number of appropriate fruits for making this jam, it was the height of cherry season. One stand at the farmers markets had two different sour cherry varieties, so instead of the very French Montmorency, I chose the one with the Eastern European-sounding name, and indeed the Balaton cherry is from Hungary. The only hard part was pitting all those damn little cherries; after that it was just a matter of making a syrup, dunking the fruit in, and putting it in jars.

And it turned out well! The tradition was fun, and the jam was so tasty that it was a struggle not to double-dip. I made too much syrup relative to the volume of cherries, but no worries, since the remaining syrup is now awesome in other things — in fact, I’m gonna try making a Shirley Temple with it.

Shopska salata | Country salad | Recipe

With a variation here or there, this is the salad of this whole region. It’s so simple, and so hard to improve upon; its success rests entirely on the quality of the ingredients. Unfortunately this year hasn’t been great for tomatoes so we didn’t get quite the intensity from them that really good ones would have offered, but the excellent Bulgarian feta sure did help.

Pogača | Soft dinner bread | Recipe

Pretend you’re saying this word after having mouth surgery and you’ll see it actually comes from “focaccia!” While they are different shapes, what they have in common is a rich, oily dough that makes for a softer crumb. This recipe has sour cream, butter, milk, oil, and egg, so it’s a very rich dough. Counterintuitively, all those ingredients make it really easy to work with, just a single short rise. The bread turned out pretty nicely, especially accompanied with the spreads which, amazingly, were imported from Macedonia! (No, I didn’t make them myself, I couldn’t bring myself to buy $4/pound bell peppers to roast and cook down.)

Tavče gravče | Baked beans | Recipe

This modest casserole is widely acknowledged as the national dish. The outline is super simple: soak and cook big white beans until firm-tender, separately sauté onions, mix and add paprika, and bake. So with such a simple recipe, as with the salad, quality ingredients matter, which is why I was so bummed when the lima beans practically crumbled apart when I soaked them. Thankfully, I had planned to make the beans a day early, so I had one more chance to find better beans — and I practically squealed when I found artisan giant Greek beans at World Foods.

I picked and chose a few bits of flair from other recipes, in particular throwing in some mint sprigs, which turned out to really make the dish sing. Make sure you have good, fresh, flavorful paprika, because that’s the predominant flavor of the dish. In the end, these quality expensive ($9 for a 14 oz bag!) beans plumped up beautifully, and the dish had lovely subtle flavors throughout.

Pastrmka | Trout | Recipe

Although it’s landlocked, North Macedonia has a strong fish tradition thanks to its lakes. In particular, the trout of Lake Ohrid is prized, and while it’s prepared in several ways, this one felt pretty distinctive. I was pretty excited to see what would happen if you stuffed a salmonid with both farmers cheese and sour cream, and you know what, it turned out pretty darn well. The foil was useful for holding in the filling during poaching, and then flesh flaked straight off the bones. A novel way to prepare fish!

Pastrmajlija | “Pizza” | Recipe

As far as I can tell, it’s coincidence that this dish’s name is so similar to the prior. In fact, it comes from the same word as “pastrami,” because this flatbread was originally studded with preserved sheep meat. Now it’s done with paprika-marinated pork, and it’s just as simple and delicious as it looks. Well, I lied, there’s a secret ingredient: lard, painted all over the dough, giving it a gloss and porkiness in every bite. Since none of us could figure out how to pronounce it, we ended up calling it “meatza,” and except for the one slice that our dog Reba ate off the floor, we polished it off.

Ravanija | Syrup-soaked semolina cake | Recipe

With several dishes above that sing with simplicity, I was hoping that a similarly straightforward ingredient list would yield some magic. Alas, this really ended up tasting like a fairly bland cake soaked with sugar syrup. I put a bit of cinnamon in the syrup and even that didn’t come through. Oh well!

Meal 145: St. Kitts and Nevis

Six months and one baby (!!!) later, we picked back up noshing at the top of the S’s. We were delighted to welcome our daughter Josephine (seen here in the arms of our guest Brenda) to a family tradition eight years and counting.

This first one is the very smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere with just 55,000 people, yet with one of the oldest European histories with colonization beginning in the 1620s. St. Kitts and Nevis is one of three Lesser Antilles Caribbean island nations in an alphabetical row — the other two being St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines — with pretty similar cuisines, heavy on saltfish, coconut, breadfruit, and bananas. So I researched all three of them to suss out what small differences I could exaggerate to make for three distinct meals.

Upon reflection, a menu of seafood fritters, goat stew, rice pilaf and sugary coconut dessert feels like it could live on the menu in any of several dozen countries, which is a fitting reflection of how Caribbean cuisine is a synthesis of several continents’ ways of growing and cooking food.

Our guests included Suja, Melissa, Leo, Kelsey, Ashley, Cara, Brenda, Breesa, and Kristin. Most of them happened to learn about us through a Facebook group called Girls Love Travel.

Killer bee cocktail | Recipe

Several sites mention the Killer Bee, from Sunshine’s Beach Bar on Nevis, as the most distinctive drink from this diminutive country. It’s a pretty darn memorable one: when’s the last time you had black pepper in a cocktail?

There’s quite a complex flavor considering there’s no other liquor besides rum. I quite liked it, even though I think I messed up by using raw honey that sunk to the bottom of the glass rather than dissolving, so I recommend sticking to the cheap stuff for this recipe.

Were I to make it again, I would modify it by reducing the orange juice and upping the lime, to make it a bit less cloying and a bit more tart. But then it wouldn’t be a Killer Bee, I suppose!

Conch fritters | Recipe

It’s pronounced “conk,” like, “It hurts when you get conked on the head with a conch shell.” Indeed, this mollusk comes in that classically spiral shell. While it’s super common in the Caribbean, it’s a tough one to find even frozen far away, but I did find frozen periwinkle, which is also a sea snail, and I figured that since we were grinding it up to make fritters it wasn’t worth sweating too much.

I think I was right. Not having tasted a conch fritter for over a decade since I was in the Virgin Islands, I can’t say for sure, but I feel like it was right on with the sorta toothy texture and the flavor that lingered in the background so the aromatics and the crispiness took over.

Goat water | Recipe

Not a terribly appealing name — especially if you consider that some people refer to the dumplings as “droppings!” — but a tasty dish nonetheless and one found on home menus around the tiny country.

A few sources mention that this “used to be the national dish” until it was decided that it was too old-fashioned; a contest determined that stewed saltfish served with spicy plantains, coconut dumplings and seasoned breadfruit would be the replacement. Truth be told, this felt too gimmicky to me, and plus we’ll have saltfish, plantains, and breadfruit for adjacent islands’ meals.

As with most traditional (ahem!) recipes, the ingredients differ between households, so when I couldn’t easily find the breadfruit called for here, I subbed in some sweet potatoes plus some extra green papaya. Note also the gravy browning in the recipe — that’s essentially bottled thin caramel that adds some instant depth. The stew came out quite tasty, the only problem was that my estimate of how to do the dumplings (mix flour and water, drop ‘em in) was probably wrong because they were dense and gummy; I probably should have added some fat too.

Cook-up rice (aka Pelau) | Recipe

Sauté veggies, throw in meat, add rice and water, cook until done — depending on where you are in the world, that’s a pilaf, or pilau, or polo, or plov, or as it’s called here, a pelau. This recipe has a nice variety of types of vegetables, while the meaty bits are definitely a product of economy: chicken backs and salted pig tails. The pigeon peas are a distinctive touch that give some nuttiness and protein (given that there’s very little actual meat on those bones!). Unfortunately, the recipe calls for too much water, and the dish ended up pretty soft and without nearly as much flavor as the variety of ingredients would suggest. Darn!

Coconut sugar cake | Recipe

In contract to the complex yet disappointingly mild cook-up rice, this dessert was entirely unsubtle, down to the completely gratuitous red food coloring.

The recipe ingredients leave out an important ingredient, “mixed essence,” which is essentially (ha!) vanilla plus other flavors. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find it at the Caribbean market, so I substituted vanilla extract, almond extract, and orange blossom water to make a sort of approximation. And were I to make this again, I’d double the ginger and bay leaf, as the flavor really didn’t come through to the end and it would have been fun to have that savory balance. But no matter really, if you like coconut and intensely sweet things you’ll love thse. If you don’t, well, the name probably turned you off to ‘em already.