Trinidad & Tobago | Anyone 4 Curry & Other Things

or, Fond Memories of Summer’s Past …….

Even living here in the Tropics I am fully aware that the “…hazy days of summer…” are over for most of you. And during my now 2 weeks absence from the Computer desk I had intended to cook and photograph some delicious body-and-soul warming soups from my home country in general and from my late Mutti’s kitchen in particular. But, as it so often happens in life, I got a bit side tracked with visitors and our girls coming home as well, and somehow I ended up trying – with some modest success I like to say so myself – to bake some cakes for future postings!!!!

Even though I thought not to post any of them since they are not 100% perfect, but …..why not, I asked myself. After all I am so proud that I even managed those (since I really really cannot bake) – what do you think? I leave you for now with a famous quote by W.C. Fields “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it”. Please do let me know.

So now for today I like to show you one of my long-time favourite (warm) fruit puddings – inspired of course by living for 3 years in “Rum-and-Steelband Country” – beautiful Trinidad & Tobago/W.I. There is only one little snag concerning my recipe – I was not able to find a single mango anywhere – season is over now, but I lived under the illusion of at least finding one in the big Hypermarket, but ……….no such luck, I used an apple instead!

For 2 happy people:
½ x pineapple, peeled and sliced and cut into cubes
1 x ripe juicy mango, peeled, stoned and cut into cubes
(or use an apple instead, which makes it ‘semi tropical’)
½ x papaya, peeled, sliced, seeded and cut into cubes
1 x large banana, peeled and thickly sliced
1 x generous Tbsp of clear honey
1 x tsp of ground cinnamon
3 x Tbsp dark rum
1 x plus Tbsp of unsalted butter, room temperature

Serve with either vanilla-, yoghurt- or lemon-ice cream or a generous dollop of thick yoghurt.

This should be served if possible right at the end of the meal. So, assemble all your prepared fruit since it will only take a few minutes from start to finish.

Use a heavy based frying pan, melt butter, add pineapple and cook on medium to low heat for a couple of minutes. Keep turning the fruit and when it starts to change colour slightly add all of the remaining previously prepared fruit to the pan and cook for a further 1-2 minutes (not more!!), turning occasionally.

Now stir in honey, cinnamon and rum, cook for a further 2 minutes until sauce thickens. Serve immediately if possible.

PS: I often play around adding this and that – including some golden raisins and other sweet dried berries. But on the whole the above recipe works just fine – my guests always asked me for the recipe, since it is so delicious, fruity and quick to make.

That’s it – Guten Appetit

Namaskaram, Carina

This is not a dish you often find on the menu card of restaurants in Germany or in other countries. It was known in Germany just after the war as “the poor man’s Sunday roast” – then later it ended up on many of Buffet tables at parties as part of “the spread”, only to fade over the following years slightly into the background – but never ever disappeared completely.

This happened in our house, too – up to now!

My mother used to make “Falscher Hase” (Imitation Hare) when I was little, but I never got the original recipe from her, I had to make it up from memory.

Then, when in my ‘previous life’ we lived in Trinidad + Tobago/W.I. and I had to really learn to cook good food fit for entertaining in our own Residence, it was the wife of the then American Ambassador, herself a superb cook, who taught me to make her kind of meat loaf, which I then adapted to our own personal taste.

I started, originally just as an experiment, a monthly get-together for some of us wives of Ambassadors (and/or their No 2!) and High Commissioners where we only served a typical dish of our home country – a family dish! really – and not something we would serve our official guests. To my surprise, it became a huge huge success. And every time our own British High Commissioner and his wife had to give a big buffet reception, (it was their custom to get each of the wives of our own Mission to contribute a special dish to their buffet table) I was asked (or shall I say correctly “ordered”) to make at least half a dozen of my meat loafs, of which nearly always 2 wandered into their own personal deep freezer for future use. As it turned out that the ones with plenty of garlic and hotness were the High Commissioners personal favourites – a nice compliment, really.

But, over the following years, I somehow stopped making this dish. Did we grow tired of the taste, or what. I really do not know.

And then, only the other day, my friend Heidi in Berlin mentioned “Falscher Hase” in her email and I developed this near urge to seek out my old recipe and make one for JS; so off we went shopping (again!) for the items needed and not readily available in our kitchen at that time and so, here is the result of my first “Falscher Hase” in Kerala.

I like to point out again; as always I give the details for the dish we actually have on our own table – cooked to our own personal taste. Feel free therefore to adjust any measurements and ingredients to your liking.

For this dish there are most likely as many recipes as there are families. It is an ideal dish for which to use your imagination in regards of ingredients, spices, herbs, etc. etc. Feel free to experiment – I do; quite often.

Oh – and one more thing I have to mention – we never used a hardboiled egg inside the meat, but served halved hard boiled eggs on the side at buffets, for those guests who loved their eggs.

For the Pyrex dish in the photograph I used:

Ingredients

750 g Mincemeat (I could only get Buffalo that day)
2 slices of stale bread, soaked in broth (from a Knorr cube) and squeezed out
1 leek (white only, very finely cut into rings)
10 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
10 green olives, chopped
3 Tbsp good tomato ketchup
2.5 tsp of Mustard (readymade)
1.5 Tbsp of Lingham’s Hot Chilli Sauce (optional)
Fair amount of chopped parsley
Fair amount of chopped chives
Pepper and ‘black salt’
1.2 Tbsp Paprika powder
1 whole egg
½ cup of stock cube broth

Method

Make broth, soak the bread, squeeze out and keep aside.
Pre-heat your oven to 200 C.

Add all the above ingredients into a large bowl, mix well, taste and maybe adjust your spices.

If you are using a dish, like I did, for baking, make sure it’s very well-oiled or buttered (this is my preferred method)

Or, if you like, take a baking sheet, line with paper and add your mixture, shaped as a loaf, on top.

Bake in pre-heated oven for app. 1 hour. After 30 mins just add a little bit of your broth to the dish (to keep it moist).
After 1 hour check to see if it’s cooked. Switch off heat and leave inside the oven for a little while longer in order for the meat to settle.
That’s it – serve with either smooth mashed potatoes or boiled potatoes, Carrots, Peas, Cauliflower, Beans. But most importantly – ENJOY!