General Tso Chicken A variation

One of our personal favorite web recipe sites is woks of Life. Firstly their recipes are usually actually tasty and work, second they give very good descriptions and third they focus on Chinese cuisine.

The picture is from my wife's version of their recipe
http://thewoksoflife.com/2013/11/takeout-places-general-tsos-chicken/

Now we were surprised they didn't start with frying finely chopped garlic ginger and scallions, so we added that. We also added hot peppers and we cut the amount of cornflour down to 1 tsp, their recipe makes it very gooey. Shown here it is served on cabbage rice, a great recipe and we will put it on soon.

But this captures the sweet/sourness of take away without the nastiness. Its a great recipe.

Jamaica Ackee and Saltfish with Dumplings

The Jamaicans have created a lovely tasty breakfast with this dish. Ackee is a fruit from a large tree and is poisonous if eaten unripe. So its best to buy tinned ackee available from most supermarkets that carry international foods. They are expensive around £4.50 a tin but the consistency and taste cannot be duplicated. In Trinidad there are a few ackee trees but most Trinidadians don't understand them and rarely eat the fruit.

Boil about 1/2 lb of saltfish and drain. In a frying pan slow cook an onion sliced, a sweet pepper sliced and a hot pepper chopped until the go translucent and soft (about 5-10 minutes slow). Add a tin of tomatoes and some fresh thyme and maybe a little water. I also add a teaspoon of sun dried tomato paste and a tsp of sugar. Let this mixture cook slowly until reduced and tasty, add black pepper. then add the shredded saltfish and let this cook into the mix for 5 minutes before topping off with the ackee. Once the ackee is added don't stir much as it breaks up.

To make the dumpling take 8oz plain flour (I use bread flour) and add a tspn of salt and a tspn of baking powder (no more or they will be soggy). Then mix with water to a soft consistency and knead for about 2 minutes. Boil; a saucepan of salted water and divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten with the hand or a rolling pin into saucer shapes and drop into the boiling water and cook for 15 minutes.  Serve with Ooft hot pepper of course!

Simple Breakfast Omelet with Ooft! sauce

A breakfast omelet upgraded with Ooft sauce. 
Chip up 4 slices of pepperoni or any sausage, 2 mushrooms, 1/2 a sweet pepper 1 tomato, 1/2 onion and simmer down slow heat until soft and onion translucent. In a seperate pan swirl 2 eggs beaten, add salt and pepper and a half a cup of grated cheese. Let this settle a bit and then put in the veg mixture and weait until the outside of the egg sets so you can turn it. Turn gently to cover veg and after 1-2 minutes serve with toasted muffin....don't forget to dose liberally with Ooft! sauce!! Yummy as Poo would say

Ooft! Hot Sauce has a new home

Readers will know that this sauce has taken my wife and I two years  to take from a family recipe to production. It now has a new web site at http://www.ooftsauce.com/

This is a really good hot sauce made with Scotch Bonnet peppers, garlic, fresh lime juice and daikon.

Very Good Sticky Barbecue Ribs

This recipe was on one of the BBC web sites and I modified it, but it was a good recipe although I was surprised by the method and the ingredients.

Simmer the ribs slowly in a mixture of Coca Cola and water 50/50 for 1.5-2 hours. Drain and cover with the following marinade for at least 2 hours preferably overnight.

1 cup ketchup
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy (mix dark and light)
1/4 cup Worcester sauce
1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce
1/4 cup satay marinade
1/4 cup honey
2 tspns paprika
1 onion finely chopped
1 garlic finely chopped
a little water may be needed if its too thick.
Cook marinade until thick and nice about 5-10 minutes slow. This produces a dark liquid thick enough to brush on.

Roast the ribs at about 180 centigrade for about 30- 40 minutes, basting all the time with the sauce until at the end no sauce should be in the pan, it should all be glazing the ribs and they should look shiny and appetizing. Cut and serve. We love them with baked potato and salad but anything tastes good. They are sweetish and sticky and scrumptious

Ooft! Scotch Bonnet pepper sauce

My wife and I have developed a very high quality scotch bonnet hot pepper sauce, after years spent taking an old family recipe of her fathers (a master sauce maker from Maracas St Joseph in Trinidad) and modifying it for commercial production. This is a vatted sauce, i.e. the sauce takes a year to mature in glass vats before bottling, and during that year develops the flavor which is based on Scotch Bonnet peppers, garlic, fresh squeezed lime juice and mooli (also known as daikon) plus other ingredients. See our web site at islandgirl.eu
for more information and ordering. This sauce goes well with many dishes, having the quality of improving flavor and "lifting" a dish.

Fried Plantain and sada roti

A lovely light tasty breakfast. Take some ripe plantain(they need to be very ripe almost black and in a condition that most people might throw away, even maybe with some mold on the outside), peel and slice on a plate (they will be very soft and take careful handling,  and add salt. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the plantain slowly so as to develop the caramel colour. Serve with sada roti (see previous recipes). Of course Ooft! Pepper sauce adds to the taste!

Satay Shrimp and Chicken

I don't often praise a commercial product in these pages but one must give praise where its due. Jimmy satay sauce blend see this link for the sauce on Amazon
is really good and gives an authentic taste.



I blend finely 1tbspn of garlic, ginger, hot pepper and 2 tbpns onion very fine chop. I add 1 tbspn of Jimmy sauce and salt and pepper and use this mixture to marinate shrimps or chicken (the chicken chopped into 3/4 inch cubes. Let it marinade for at least an hour and it can be left overnight.

The thread onto bamboo skewers and as I don't barbecue much, I pan fry in about 2 tbspns of oil quite hot. The reason for the oil is without it the meat/shrimp will stick and ruin the satay. The satay will glaze nicely and look and taste delicious as a starter or even 4 skewers for a main course with rice.

Seasoned Fried Fish - Trinidad

This is our favorite fried fish. It works with any firm white flesh fish, hake is good, the picture is cod bought inexpensively at Tesco as frozen cod pieces. My wife makes the seasoning in a mortar and pestle as she insists (rightly) that the more blended the seasoning the better for fish. Now normally we just chop it fine for seasoning meat, but you could use a blender or a food processor. It needs to blend fine so it will soak well into the fish turning it green.

Coriander( good handful) , garlic (2 cloves), onion(1/2), ginger (1/2 inch piece), salt, black pepper, curry powder (sprinkle), small, medium hot pepper (we use half of a 3 inch red pepper).

Mix blended seasoning into fish and leave overnight or at least 3 hours.

Make up a seasoned flour. I use 1 cup plain flour, 1 tbspn Duns River all purpose seasoning (sell it at Tesco), 1 tspn paprika, two tspns salt, 2 tspns ground black pepper.

Break and egg into a bowl and add 2 tbsns milk and stir until well mixed.

Heat about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of oil in a frying pan until hot (180 if you have control).

Dip fish pieces into egg wash and then roll in flour mixture and fry for 3 minutes a side until golden brown.

We like to eat this with okra rice (see below)

Good Sweet and Sour Sauce

My boys like fish or chicken with sweet and sour. This is a very good recipe for a simple sauce that tastes very good.

1/3 cup Rice Vinegar
4 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbspn ketchup
1 tbspn good soy
2 tspn cornstarch
+
1 chopped onion, 1 chopped green pepper, half a cup of tinned or fresh pineapple and a piece of ginger about 1 inch finely chopped.

Boil the wet ingredients until mixed and sugar dissolved  and then add the choice of veg/fruit and simmer for 20 minutes. Finally add the cornflour mixed in  a little water to thicken. Serve with fried fish, chicken, or pork and rice.

Corn Bread (Johnny Bread)

This is the best corn bread recipe I have found. Its based on one published by River Cottage and is truly scrumptious with a little melted butter. Serve with soup or just on its own.

125gms cornmeal
125gms plain flour
2 tspn baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
2 eggs
1 tbspn honey or syrup
150ml yoghurt or cream
150ml milk
25 gm butter melted

Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another and then when oven is hot (and not before) mix them together without a lot of stirring (its a wet mixture) and put in 10-12 inch glass pan or baking dish. Put in very hot oven at 200+ for 20-25 minutes until knife come out clean

Hot Dog Breakfast

3 hot dogs chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 onion chopped
1 sweet pepper chopped
1 tbspn ketchup
1 tspn pepper sauce
black pepper

For those who only associate hot dogs with a bun this easy to make snack is a real treat.

Fry the onions and sweet peppers down until very soft and then add the hot dog pieces and cook for a minute or two to heat. Then add salt and pepper and ketchup and pepper sauce and stir in. Serve with toast for a scrumptious and easy breakfast snack. Serves 2. Add a poached egg if you want to make it more "breakfasty"