Recipes with chadon beni

11 recipes that use chadon beni, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Chadon beni chutney, takes 10 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, onion and scotch bonnet pepper.

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Trini curry shrimp

Sold from food stalls in San Fernando and eaten at south Trinidad family lunches, curry shrimp is the fast curry of the island: the sauce is built in minutes, and the shrimp go in only at the very end. Plenty of garlic, roasted geera and hot pepper give a bright, punchy curry that you wipe up with dhalpuri or spoon over rice. The mistake nearly everyone makes the first time is stewing the shrimp, which turns them rubbery; they need three or four minutes, no more. Chef's tip: save the shells, simmer them in the water for 10 minutes and use that stock in the curry for a much deeper seafood flavour.

25 min

Trinidadian Fish

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Trini buljol

Sunday breakfast in Port of Spain often means buljol: soaked, flaked salt cod tossed raw-style with tomato, onion, sweet peppers, hot pepper and good oil, piled into a split fry bake or eaten with avocado and hard-boiled egg. The fish is cooked before flaking, so the dish is a fresh, sharp salad with plenty of salty bite rather than a stew. Start the night before, because the cod needs a long soak. The most common mistake is not soaking or boiling the fish enough, leaving buljol painfully salty. Chef's tip: flake the cod with your fingers rather than a fork, so you can feel and remove every small bone and bit of skin.

30 min

Trinidadian Fish

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Trini curry duck

Curry duck is the dish of the riverside lime in south and central Trinidad, cooked in a big iron pot over a wood fire while friends cool off in the water. The duck is chopped small, marinated in green seasoning, then "burnt" into a curry paste fried until almost black, which gives the sauce its dark colour and deep, slightly bitter edge. It's served with rice, dhal and sada or paratha roti. A common mistake is serving it before the duck has fully broken down: duck is chewy and needs long, slow cooking. Chef's tip: spoon off the yellow duck fat that rises during cooking and keep it for roasting potatoes.

130 min

Trinidadian Curries

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Trini tomato choka

Tomato choka is the quick sibling of baigan choka, eaten in Indo-Trinidadian homes in Chaguanas and the south with sada roti for breakfast or as a sharp side for dhal and rice. Ripe tomatoes are blackened over a flame, crushed with garlic, onion and a little scotch bonnet, then woken up with a spoon of smoking oil, giving a smoky, juicy relish. The common slip is using watery salad tomatoes, which make a thin soup; choose firm, ripe, meaty ones. Chef's tip: leave some of the charred skin in; those black flecks are where the smoky flavour lives.

20 min

Trinidadian Chutneys & Dips

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Mother-in-law pickle

Its name is a joke about its sharp tongue: mother-in-law is a crunchy, vinegary, blazing-hot pickle of carrot, cucumber, christophene, green mango and scotch bonnet, made in south Trinidad and passed round at limes, weddings and Sunday lunch. It cuts through rich curries and fried food beautifully. The common mistake is chopping the vegetables in big chunks, which stay raw and never take on the brine; aim for small, even dice. Wear gloves for the peppers. Chef's tip: let it sit for a full day before eating; the heat spreads and the vinegar softens the edges of the vegetables.

30 min

Trinidadian Chutneys & Dips

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Chadon beni chutney

Every doubles man on the Curepe corner and every pholourie stall at a south Trinidad fair has a bottle of this bright green sauce, made from chadon beni (culantro), garlic, hot pepper and lime. It is thin, sharp and grassy, and goes on doubles, pholourie, saheena and fried fish. The common mistake is blending it too far ahead without enough acid, so it turns dull khaki within hours. Coriander can stand in, though the flavour is softer. Chef's tip: blend with ice-cold water and add the lime last; the cold keeps the green vivid.

10 min

Trinidadian Chutneys & Dips

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Trini corn soup

Long after midnight, when a fete in Port of Spain empties out, vendors ladle corn soup from huge pots: a thick yellow broth of split peas, pumpkin and coconut milk with chunks of corn on the cob, little flour dumplings and plenty of chadon beni. It is filling, slightly sweet and peppery, and eaten by holding the corn in your fingers. Some pots include pig tail; this one is vegetarian. The common mistake is adding the dumplings too early, so they dissolve and cloud the soup; they go in for the last 15 minutes. Chef's tip: blend only half the soup so it is creamy yet still has pieces of pumpkin and pea.

95 min

Trinidadian Soups

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Savannah boiled corn

Walk around the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain on an evening and you will smell the big pots of boiled corn: cobs simmered in salted coconut milk with chadon beni, pimento peppers, garlic and hot pepper, then handed over in a paper napkin. The kernels come out juicy and fragrant, with the seasoned broth soaked right into them. The common mistake is boiling hard, which splits the coconut milk and toughens the corn; keep it at a gentle simmer. Chef's tip: let the cobs sit in the hot broth for 10 minutes off the heat before serving; that is when they soak up the most flavour.

40 min

Trinidadian Snacks & Starters

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Curry chataigne

Chataigne, the spiky breadnut cousin of breadfruit, ripens around Divali and Christmas in Trinidad, and its boiled, peeled seeds are curried with coconut milk and roasted geera into a dish many people say tastes almost like meat. It is a fixture at Divali dinners and Hindu functions, eaten with rice or roti. The common mistake is skipping the pre-boil: the seeds stay hard and their thin inner skin stays bitter. Look for chataigne in Caribbean and Asian grocers; tinned jackfruit seeds or chestnuts are the nearest swap. Chef's tip: after boiling, peel off both the shell and the papery brown skin, then split the seeds in half so the curry gets right inside.

80 min

Trinidadian Curries

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Tobago curry crab and dumpling

On Tobago, curry crab and dumpling is the dish people travel for, eaten with fingers on Sunday afternoons and sold at the Store Bay food huts near Crown Point, where a plate is half the reason to visit. Blue crabs are cleaned, rubbed with green seasoning, 'burnt' in curry and simmered in coconut milk until the shells turn red and the sauce goes rich, spicy and sweet with crab. Long, flat flour dumplings cook right in the gravy and soak it all up. It's messy, so have bowls for shells and plenty of napkins. Chef's tip: crack the claws lightly before they go in the pot, so the curry can get inside and the meat is easy to pull out at the table.

90 min

Trinidadian Fish

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Bake and shark

After a swim at Maracas Bay on Trinidad's north coast, the queue at the beach huts is for bake and shark: a puffy fried bread split open around a piece of seasoned, crisp-fried fish, then loaded at a toppings bar with coleslaw, cucumber, pineapple, tamarind sauce, pepper sauce and the bright green chadon beni (culantro) sauce. Shark is the tradition, but many shark species are now overfished and some build up mercury, so this recipe uses a firm, sustainably caught white fish such as hake, pollock, catfish or mahi-mahi; use shark only from a source you trust. Chef's tip: let the bake dough rest for a full 30 minutes; relaxed dough puffs up like a pillow in the hot oil instead of frying flat and tough.

65 min

Trinidadian Fish

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Goes well with chadon beni