Trinidad Corn Soup with corn/cassava dumplings

Trinidad corn soup is sold as a street food/restorative, after fetes and events, especially at Carnival time. In my not too distant younger days I  had my share in the wee hours of the morning. Vendors sell portions in Styrofoam cups out of big silver vats. Quality is not consistent, the best is sold at a premium price from vendors with long lines and wait. Somehow the plump middle-aged ladies tend to make the best tasting street foods in the Caribbean. This one tastes like the best Trini cornsoup I’ve had.

Like many Creole recipes that originated with the working classes, the quantities in the ingredients don’t need to be precise and there is no difficult method of cooking, it’s just a little time consuming.

Collect all your ingredients this weekend at the farmer's market. The freshness of the produce is key to the taste.

Ingredients:

2 Tbs oil

1 yellow onion or other sweet onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup cubed West Indian pumpkin or butternut squash or kabocha squash

1 carrot, sliced into rounds

4 seasoning or aji dulce peppers, chopped (optional)

Hot pepper to taste (optional)

½ bunch fresh scallions (green onions) or chives, chopped

1 tbs chopped fresh thyme

1 blade shadon beni (culantro), chopped or 4 sprigs fresh cilantro, chopped

1 large potato or 1 peeled cassava, cut into large cubes

1/2 cup yellow split peas, or 1 can chickpeas (channa), drained

6 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water (if using water add a stock cube)

½ cup coconut milk

Salt and black pepper, to taste

4-6 ears of fresh corn, cut into 2 inch pieces (can also use frozen or canned corn kernels if you have no choice).

Dumplings:

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup cornmeal or cassava farine

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1/3 cup water or coconut milk

Method:

Heat oil in large pot over medium heat.

Add onion, garlic, pumpkin, carrot, seasoning and hot pepper, and sauté 3 minutes.

Add chives, thyme and potato or cassava and cook another 5 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add split peas or chickpeas and stock/water.

Add salt and black pepper to taste and cilantro/shadon beni.

Bring soup to a boil then cover pot and lower heat to simmer. Cook until split peas are soft (about 25 minutes)

Use the pot spoon to crush most of the pumpkin and some of the potato/cassava in the pot, or using an immersion blender, puree soup slightly, leaving some of the potato/cassava and pumpkin in small chunks. 

Some people like their soup creamy so if you do blend until creamy before the next steps, but I prefer some chunkiness for “authenticity”.

Add corn and cook for 10 minutes.

Make dumplings using method below. Add dumplings and cook for another 15 minutes until dumplings float.

Adjust seasonings if needed and add some water if the soup needs to be thinned. Cover and let sit 20 minutes for flavors to develop.

Makes about 6 servings

 To make dumplings:

Combine all dry ingredients and butter together.

Add coconut milk to mixture and mix to a medium-soft dough

Roll small pieces of dough into half inch ropes in your hands and break/cut into 2” pieces.

The Kitchen Garden

A proper kitchen garden or potager was indeed planned, prepared and planted a few months ago when we moved to the new house.

See the nice big curvy bed spanning the dining room and kitchen? That was supposed to be the potager, a mix of herbs and veggies to be snipped for the garden, combined with complementary ornamentals.


However, even the best-laid plans can go awry:

After 2 months it looked great, with loads of basil, arugula, salad greens and tomato vines. However most of the tomatoes, okra and roselle planted did not thrive, the peppers and eggplant never germinated, the dill and basil dried up after a few harvests. The arugula was the one saving grace. But now even that is gone. The veggie bed was also a favorite romping and laying down spot for the puppies (who destroyed much of the aforementioned  basil, arugula, salad greens), so for that reason I am reluctant to replant with herbs and veggies. So now its mostly all ornamentals except for a few square feet.

However, nature had different plans for our “kitchen garden” as within 3 months there were food plants popping up all and thriving in different parts of the yard.

First, several vigorous West Indian pumpkin (calabaza squash) vines emerged from the bags of kitchen compost we had added to the holes for the palms and other ornamentals.

There's a pumpkin in the rock garden!

Above: pumpkin and passion fruit vine invasion!

Then we got loads of cherry and plum tomatoes from some tomato vines that also grew from the compost.

Passion fruit vines were planted in various parts of the fence.

 A few papaya trees were planted and some volunteers also popped up.

I got a lot of help doing the new garden from one Bonnie, who worked for a landscaper and grew up gardening. He planted unknown to me until I started seeing the squash on vines, planted bottle gourd.

Bonnie also planted taro at the point where the kitchen water empties into the garden, this is the only moist “boggy” spot in the entire yard. he leaves are essential in making three of my favourite Trini dishes-dasheen bush bhagi, saheen and callaloo.

Pumpkins on the front wall –oh, gasp what would the homeowner’s association or city council say?

Check out Ivette's post on This neighborhood madness

Thankfully that sort of nonsense is almost non-existent in the Caribbean. Though on some islands and in some areas that won’t be a good idea as the produce will be promptly stolen.

The lesson here: while I haven't achieved my dream potager, nature had other plans, and I am grateful for the bounty of fresh, tasty and nutritious fruits and veggies I have been able to grow.

Textured Foliage

For Pam's Foliage Follow Up I highlight some of the textured foliage in my garden.

I love the delicate pink or white blooms of antigonon leptopus, but I would grow it just for the textured leaves alone.

Lacy, crinkled coleus

 Bamboo texture: papery

 Accordian pleated Fiji fan palm

I love to feel the leaves of this tree morning glory, soft and velvety. The blooms look and feel like silk

Texture: bed of nails!

Royal poinciana young plant, looks and feels soft and lacy

 Pandanus/screwpine: no explanation needed for common name

Bromelia pinguin texture: don't touch!

A mix of textures here, this agave feels a bit sandpaper like,  with wispy fountain grass and fleshy portulaca

What texture is this opuntia?  Needle spines?

Happy July Blooms Day!

I will start with once a year bloom the African Blood Lily (Scadoxus multiflorus). I have two plants in this and hopefully they will multiply and I will get more than two blooms per year!

Close up:

Fragrant Murraya paniculata, commonly called orange jasmine. In the Caribbean its known as sweet lime.

Looking true to its common name "bridal bouquet" is the Plumeria Pudica

Rubber vine on the picket fence

Sunflower on the front wall-didnt notice until now that it looks like a botanical print

Cordia

Yellow oleander (my favorite color oleander)

Portulaca (with plumes of fountain grass). I dont know how I gardened without this easy cheerful plant for so many years.

Scarlet/orange in the rock garden and against a blue agave

Harvest Monday-its all about the pumpkins!

My first post for Daphne's Harvest Monday and its all about the pumpkins, or to be more precise, the calabaza squashes.

These are two varieties that grew from seeds from pumpkins imported from Dominica. Actually, the vines seeded themselves from compost. The vines can grow up to 50 (!) feet and I actually have several vines running and bearing into the two empty lots next door as well as in the neighbour cum friend's yard. There are at least a dozen more pumpkins on the vines at various stages of development.

The striped one is a bit sweeter and dryer but both taste really good. You can use these any way you use pumpkin or butternut squash. I make all kinds of soup with these, as well as Thai curry pumpkin, baked casserole with goat cheese and Trinidad "pumpkin choka".

Cheerful Annuals

"Autumn Beauty"

I love the look of cheerful annuals-sunflowers, zinnias and celosia, ubiquitous in cottage gardens from my childhood, but I don’t usually have the time to plant and nurture them for the first month.

"Polynesian Pink" ( these are reseeders)

"Kniola's Black"

These morning glories are an “import” I don’t remember them being grown in the Caribbean when I was a child, though I do see wild varieties of morning glory in various islands.

Portulaca getting ready to open-these are really perennial here

Porterweed volunteer

Wild MushroomTart

I made this recipe for Wild  Mushroom Tart from Epicurious .com with some adaptations and it was just fantastic. I an making again today. I don’t like eggs so I made the custard instead with thick milk, a tablespoon of flour and grated cheese.

Also many cheeses would work with this eg Gouda, Swiss, asiago, parmesan), it doesn’t have to be Gruyère.

Happy cooking.