What's Cooking Wednesday - Trinidad Breakfast

Wow, Widney Woman!! It's Sunday, not Wednesday.

I know. 

But my faithful blog reader, and commenter, Jen of A2eatwrite asked to get the recipes for our traditional Trinidad breakfast. Only Wednesday will be crazy for her, so I am very happy to oblige by posting today!

Bake

1 tbl baking powder

4 cups flour

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

4 tbl butter

1 1/2 - 2 cups water

Feeds: 4 adults

Preheat oven to 350. Spray cookie tray with PAM. Mix it all up together. Don't knead it. Should be like a thick porridge. Spread out round (like a pizza) on pan. Bake approximately 30 minutes, or until lightly brown on top. Turn over for bottom to get brown (approx. 10-15 min).

To Serve

Cut in chunks, slice center and add butter, or jam, or anything you want.

Whatcha Do Different? 

I don't know if I put too much water in, as I modified the recipe down, so the dough was sticky and lumpy.  Bake is supposed to be smooth and soft, like pizza dough. The above picture (courtesy TriniGourmet.com) is what a whole wheat bake looks like - yeah, nothing like mine. 

That said, I LOVE it when bake is bumpy and harder (kinda crunchy). Mine came out with lots of ridges and not at all smooth. It was perfect for me but a true Trinidadian would be appalled, I'm sure.

I let bake for 25 minutes and checked on it. It was cooked perfectly. So, I brushed some butter on top to make it brown and put in back in for 5 minutes. I did not turn it over.

Chow Chow

Cauliflower (couple little flowers)

Carrots (1 or 2-ish)

White onions (about 1/4 of a large one)

Jalepeno peppers (optional - 1 small)

Red peppers (optional - 1/2)

Jar of pickles (any kind)

Pickle jar juice

Bottle of mustard (like French's)

Matouk's Pepper Sauce (optional)

Refrigerate. Lasts about a year

Chop up the veggies (including pickles) into tiny, tiny pieces. Pour into the pickle jar, with the pickle juice. Pour as much mustard as will fit. Shake it up, baby! This has a bit of an after kick. But if you like hot things, add a drop or two of Matouk's pepper sauce in to taste.

To Serve

Spread over ham. Eat on the side. Put it on ham sandwich. Add it to potato salad, basically, you can do all kinds of things with this. I've seen it in German stores almost exactly like this, so there may be German recipes with it - only I don't know what it is called in German.

(Jar with mixture before chopping)

Whatcha Do Different?

I bought a bottle of vegetable medley from the Italian section. I poured out some of the water, added the pickles and pickle juice and mustard. You can also find it in the Chinese section. The chunks of veggies were too big, so I chopped it fine in my trusty

 Pampered Chef Chopper.

Eggs

Eggs (2 per person)

Green onions

White onions

Tomato

Salt

Pepper

(milk optional)

Chop onions fine. Chop tomatoes small. Pour oil in pan. Put onions in pan for about 5 minutes. Break eggs, add salt and pepper. Add more salt because most people just don't salt enough. Whisk eggs well with tomatoes. Add to onions in pan. Leave in pan and when start to get hot, stir up like scrambled eggs. Put on plate when cooked.

Whatcha Do Different

It was 2 adults and 2 kids, so I made 6 eggs total. Used 2-3 green onion stalks, 1 small tomato, 1/4 white onion, and no milk. I didn't add enough salt, so we added on our own plates.

Ham

Cooked ham, with/without bone in

Slice thin. Put on plate and warm in oven for 5 minutes or so - long enough to take out the chill and to have serve warm.  Eat on bake, like a sandwich, or on the side. Your pick.

Salt Fish

I didn't get to do the salt fish this time, but it is one of my favorites. So hopefully you can make it to the fish counter before they close - I'm just sayin'!

Cod Fish

Small White Onion

Tomato

Put cod fish in container with boiling water

Let settle. Drain.

Repeat to get salt out

Strip into pieces (shred)

Dice tomatoes and onions

Put oil in pan

Add fish

Add tomatoes and onions

Mix around in pot (stew around)

Takes 5-6 min to cook

To Serve

Serve with eggs and bake. Can also mixup (cook) with eggs if you want.

I like to put it on top of my bake, like an open-faced sandwich. Sometimes, I break a piece of my bake off, and put it on top, like when you eat Indian food. Or, sometimes I put the fish and eggs inside the bake, like a sandwich. And sometimes I do all of these things in one sitting.

Watcha Do Different

The picture of salt fish above, is from the Internet. It appears they used green peppers. We don't. You can. It's a matter of choice. You can have with rice for lunch or dinner. It's pretty versatile. If you do an Internet search, you will find recipes for Saltfish Bujole. Similar. Not the same. Equally good.

Tales of the Fairy Blog Mother is home to What's Cooking Wednesday, where you can check out lots of tried and worked recipes!