Thursday 29 May 2008

Tried & Tasted: Tastes Like Home Caribbean Sunday Lunch

Tried and Tasted is a brand new monthly event hosted by Zlamushka of Zlamushka's Spicy Kitchen. Every month Zlamushka nominates one blog - and the entrants recreate and blog recipes from the chosen blog. For the first month the chosen blog is Tastes Like Home. This was a perfect choice for me - I have never cooked Caribbean food before - though have long had it on my list; I had never visited Cynthia's blog before - and now I have another addition to my google reader; and I could indulge my love of hot food... excellent!

It's a great idea - and I've had a great time playing around with these recipes. The hot pepper sauce was something I made outside of the event - though I have decided to include it in my little round up as it was so good it deserved a second mention!

In fact - I ended up using it even more than expected. On Sunday morning I realised I was out of chillies. Seriously - to me that is like running out of salt or something - I always have some in the fridge! So instead, I turned to the hot sauce and walloped a teaspoon into the fried salt fish and half a teaspoon into the buljol. Wow - was it ever good!! The scotch bonnets gave it had an altogether different heat from my usual Thai chillies - and it had a beautiful fruity flavour to back up the burn!

So I present you with....

My Carribean Sunday Lunch!

What a spread!





Fried Salt Fish
This was my favourite of the lot - deeply spicy, lovely chunks of salt cod simmered in tomatoes and onions. And a spoonful of scotch bonnet pepper sauce of course ;) It went absolutely perfectly with the bakes - I will be making this again. And once the fish is desalted, it's super quick to make!

Buljol
This is a cold salad of boiled and flaked salt fish, with peppers, spring onions, onions and tomatoes. (And hot sauce ;) I think I needed to flake the fish more - but I did enjoy the flavours a lot!
Oiled Paratha Roti

I was so impressed with how well these turned out! - I didn't get a picture, but they were beautifully flakey inside, and tasted gorgeous. Not too oily - which I was a little concerned about. In fact not oily at all, just a really nice texture!

Guyanese Bakes

Why are they called bakes when they are deep fried?

Don't care - they're lovely!

Cythia's original!

Thank you Zlamushka for thinking up and hosting this amazing event - I look forward to more!

And many many thanks to Cynthia for her recipes and also for her help when I was making them!

Related Posts



9 comments:

Heather said...

Wow, you're a walking cookbook of Cynthia! Caribbean Queen! Now I'm gonna have that Billy Ocean song in my head.

glamah16 said...

Wait a minute. For a minute I thought I was at Cynthias blog.You went all out and it looks great.

Cynthia said...

You have me giggling like a school girl! Your food looks so delicious and makes me hungry. I am reading this first thing in the morning and now I am craving breakfast - I want to have a little of everything you have there.

The bakes - slathered with some butter and a big cup of tea.

Your paratha looks soft and nice and I like the toasted bits - yum! The buljol shouts summer and the sauteed saltfish, the next time I think I am going to try doing what you did - cooked in a sauce.

Outstanding and fantastic. Congratulations. I look forward to our cooking together some more :)

giz said...

So here's the deal - I'm on my way over - everything looks fantastic and just make sure you have one of those rum based drinks with the little umbrella on the table when I get there. ...and maybe some Guanese rice pudding - that is if it isn't too much trouble :). Wonderful spread...

zlamushka said...

Kittie, what a lovely little feast you had over there. I can only imagine how tasty it was. I had her pepper sauce and roti, oh boy was it a fiery combo of goodness.
Thanks again for participating :-)

Jacqueline Meldrum said...

Congratulations Kittie,
You won the No Croutons Required May challenge :)

Anonymous said...

wow what a spread. everything looks fantastic. and eating out under the sun is wonderful!

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

What an amazing spread you conjured up:D You have done Cynthia proud!!

Laura Paterson said...

heather - Caribbean queen, Now we're sharing the same dream... well, food anyway!!

Thanks glamah! It tasted great too!

Cynthia, I'm going to have to crack out the deep fryer to make some more bakes - just so I can smother them in butter! I had such a good time exploring some Caribbean recipes, thanks!

giz - I knew there was something missing - cocktails!!!!!! I'll make sure I give you advance notice for next time :)

Thanks zlamushka - the next one looks fab too - I'm looking forward to it!

Holler, yay! I'm so pleased, ncr is definitely one of my favourite events, the roundups are always great reading!

Diva - the unexpected sun was a lovely bonus - not quite Caribbean weather, but close enough!

Thanks Val!