Traditional Trinidadian Food

Photography by Angèle van Diessen

This is comfort food to me - stew chicken and potatoes, macaroni pie and callaloo.  It's a typical Trinidadian dinner, or maybe a Sunday lunch.  For the stew chicken and potatoes, first you season the chicken with salt, ground black pepper, granulated onion, granulated garlic, basil, thyme, and oregano.  In a large pot, you caramelize brown sugar in some oil until it's puffy and just about to burn.  Then, you quickly throw in the seasoned chicken and stir to coat.  Add some chopped onions, garlic, chives, and a whole habanero pepper then cover and braise the meat on low heat.  (Be careful with the habanero!  If it bursts, the entire dish will be very hot.  You can always leave it out, if you'd prefer.)  When the meat is almost done, add the potatoes and cook until done.  The last step is to turn off the heat and stir in some sliced tomatoes.

I find there are two things that ensure the dish does not taste bitter from the browned sugar.  The chicken needs to be salted adequately (Alton Brown gives a quick explanation of how salt affects bitterness.  The most pertinent part is between 0:36 and 2:00 - although I encourage you to watch this entire episode of Good Eats.) and the tomatoes in the end must not be skipped.

The macaroni pie is a baked dish of cooked macaroni, evaporated milk, eggs, and cheddar cheese and it's topped with more cheddar cheese.  I prefer sharp cheddar.

The callaloo is a purée made by simmering chopped spinach, chopped okra, onion, and garlic in coconut milk and water until the okra seeds turn a dark pink.  I like it best when it's seasoned/flavored with salt, black pepper, basil, thyme, oregano, chives and smoked pork hocks.  Just let these simmer along with everything else.  When the mixture has cooked and cooled sufficiently, it's puréed briefly (without the hocks if you used them!) in a blender.  Voila!  You have callaloo...which most often is macaroni pie's other half, but is delicious on all your food.

Note: Macaroni pie and callaloo freeze very well

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