Thai Chicken Family style

Ingredients
2 Chicken breast fine chopped to be almost like ground
1 Onion (fine chop)
3 cloves garlic (fine chop)
3 hot thai peppers(left whole)
2 tspn ginger (fine chop)
whole packet of Basil (rough chop)
half packet of Coriander (fine chop)
1 tbspn fish sauce

Cook onion, garlic, pappers and ginger stirring constantly on high heat for 2 minutes
Add chicken and let cook stirring for a few minutes until cooked.
Add basil and coriander and fish sauce and stir and cover and let cook for 3-5 minutes until herbs cooked down. Serve with plain white Jasmine rice and if you wish some stir fried pak choy.

Bermuda Breakfast

This recipe is used by most families in Bermuda and is served as a brunch or late breakfast on Sundays. I used to go to my old friend Eugene Harvey (now in Washington) house where his mother cooked for about 20 children and aunts and uncles and cousins. Their house overlooked the Sound, clear blue waters. They were an interesting family, originating in Guyana but in Bermuda for years. All very bright children, a big old house with lots of land, kept bees and planted, nice old fashioned family with good values). This dish sounds odd, but the combination of flavors is stunning.
Ingredients
Salted Codfish (soaked overnight in water)
Whole potatoes (not new as in picture, better with large peeled boiled potato)
Eggs (1 each)
Bananas (1 each)
Avocado
Tomatoes (tinned quality plum)
Onions, garlic, peppers, salt and pepper
Optional Green peppers
Put the pototoes, codfish and eggs in a big pot and boil until potato done (about 15 minutes)
Drain and seperate
Take a frying pan and cook the onions and garlic slowly until soft and transparent. Add tinned tomatos chopped or rough blend and the sliced green pepper and cook covered on low heat for 15 minutes or so. Then add flaked fish and salt and pepper to taste.
To serve
Put potato, sliced banana, slice of avocado, and halved egg on plate and spoon fish and tomato mixture on side.
It is important to eat a little of each and you will be amazed how these flavour complement each other

I have done some research and I suspect that Bermuda breakfast is a derivation of ackee and saltfish. See picture of this from Jamaica tourist site and note the similarity. The eggs in the Bermuda dish replace the ackee yellowness. The ripe banana replaces the boiled green (as green not available in Bermuda easily).  Interestingly some Bermidians chop the egg up and sprinkle it over the saltfish mix.

Turkey Pilau

see http://trinidadrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/03/pelau.html for my chicken Pilau. Use leg and thigh parts rather than breast meat, and you will find the Turkey Pilau is actually nicer than Chicken. One thing to watch though is that turkey does not spring water like chicken so the meat gets browner quicker and takes on a lovely roasty flavour.

Oriental Salmon

We are now in the Scottish Borders and getting lovely salmon. This recipe worked a treat. I got a tail of Salmon and baked it in foil at 350F with just some butter, salt, pepper and parsley for 30 minutes. Then I skinned it and split off the four main fillets. I served it with a stir fry (pak choy, mushrooms carrots onions and baby corn) and plain Jasmine rice, and at the last minute fried some garlic and ginger and spring onions chopped and added that to a qtr cup of good soy and poured it over the fish fillets. Very nice

Curry Cabbage and Salmon

1 large tin of red salmon
1 sweetheart type cabbage
Onion, garlic, peppers
1/2 tin of tomatoes
curry powder

I suspect this would work extremely well with fresh salmon, although I have only used tinned. Chop a cabbage finely, open salmon and clean (pick out bones and skin). Heat a cover able pot with a little oil (frying pan, wok or Caribbean round bottomed pot). Take curry powder and mix with a little water to make a paste (2 tablespoons). Pour this in the hot oil and let cook for about 2 minutes. Throw in an onion chopped, 4 cloves of garlic chopped, a piece of WI pepper, let cook for 2 minutes then add cabbage and half a tin of tomatoes, stir cover and leave for 10-15 minutes until cabbage has fallen. Add tinned salmon,  salt and pepper. stir and leave for 5 minutes without heat to settle. serve with white rice.

Fried Cabbage

SLice up a cabbage finely. Heat afrying pan (with lid) and oil. When oil hot add onions, garlic and pepper let cook a little and throw cabbage over top, stir and cover and leave for 10-20 minutes checking occasionally until cabbage has cooked down. Serve with Sada Roti as a breakfast or snack.

Aloo and Egg

This was suggested to me by one of my coworkers. Boil the egg and then cool and chop up. Take potato and peel and slice and begin a curry by putting some oil in a pot aqnd mixing two tablespoons of curry with a little water to make a paste. When the olil is hot put in the curry and let it cook down a little (5 minutes) then add the potatoes and some onion, garlic and pepper chopped. Let this cook. Meanwhile fry the chopped egg in a little butter until it browns and goes a little hard. Whewn the potato curry is cooked add the egg and stir in and serve with white rice.

Pizza

Pizza
The secret of good Pizza, is the length of time it gets for the yeast to act on the flour and the quality of the flour. It is essential to leave the dough overnight before second proof. If you do it in one day you just won't get the flavor or texture. So basically the recipe is:

2lbs of high gluten flour wholewheat or plain to your choice, although if you are doing wholewheat I would mix it 50:50 with white to get a lighter loaf
1 teaspoon yeast
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup olive oil
Cold Water

METHOD
Put the flour salt and fresh yeast (open a pack a week) in a bowl and mix with oil then add water you just have to add enough I cannot tell you, it will be about 2 cups but maybe more. You want a firm but elastic consistency and you need to knead it for about 8-10 minutes. Take the dough and separate into pieces about 10-12 oz each. Place in oiled bags in the fridge overnight. This will make about 6-8 large pizzas and the dough can be placed in an oiled bag and kept in the freezer.
To cook heat oven to 500degrees or more if you can. Take out the dough an hour before to warm. Stretch the dough carefully using fingers on a greased pan until thin enough and covering. Put ingredients on top in order...sauce, cheese, toppings, cheese. You will need at least 1lb of mozarella and then other cheeses to suit. Drizzle a little olive oil on top and bake for about 12 minutes until top is bubbling.
Sauce
Cup of chopped onions
half a full head of garlic chopped
olive oil to fry
2 tins of best quality whole tomatoes
tablespoon Italian seasoning
salt
black pepper
Cook garlic and onions slowly until soft and add other ingredients. Cook for 30-40 minutes. Cool and blend. This will keep for a week or more in the fridge.

Family French bread

The secret of good bread, whether French or other is the length of time it gets for the yeast to act on the flour and the quality of the flour. It is essential to leave the bread overnight before second proof. If you do it in one day you just won't get the flavor or texture. So basically the recipe is

2lbs of high gluten flour wholewheat or plain to your choice, although if you are doing wholewheat I would mix it 50:50 with white to get a lighter loaf
1 teaspoon yeast
2 teaspoons salt
Water

METHOD
Put the flour salt and fresh yeast (open a pack a week) in a bowl and mix with water you just have to add enough I cannot tell you, it will be about 2 cups but maybe more. You want a firm but elastic consistency and you need to knead it for about 8-10 minutes. Put in a large bowl with 1tbspn of oil in the bottom and roll the bread around to cover then put plastic wrap and a cloth over and leave for about 90 minutes or so until its clearly risen about double. Then punch it down flat again and wrap in oiled wrap and put in the fridge overnight.
The next morning take it out and put it in a bowl again covered until it warms and starts to rise, about 1 hour to 90 minutes. Add the same ingredients again PLUS 2 eggs and a cup of melted butter. Mix first and then add eggs once its formed up a bit and then butter last. Be careful as the butter and eggs will act like water so add much less water this time. Put the new larger load into a pan again oiled and cover as before for about 2 hours.
Then split it and shape into 4 loaves either 4 1lb bread tins or shape into 4 “boules” which are basically a round loaf. Cover with oiled film again and let rise for 2 hours.
Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the bread in the oven. The bread should be done in about 30-35 minutes. Let it cool before cutting. In strictly bakers terms what you have done here is created a pre-ferment with the first batch, which then flavors the second. This is a nice loaf for sandwiches. It is important to put any wholewheat in the FIRST batch to allow the yeats to work on it as long as possible.

French Bread (baguette)

French Bread (baguette)
The secret of good bread, whether French or other is the length of time it gets for the yeast to act on the flour and the quality of the flour. It is essential to leave the bread overnight before second proof. If you do it in one day you just won't get the flavor or texture. So basically the recipe is:-

2lbs of high gluten flour wholewheat or plain to your choice, although if you are doing wholewheat I would mix it 50:50 with white to get a lighter loaf
1 teaspoon yeast
2 teaspoons salt
Water
and that is it for French bread, no additives at all, no fat.

METHOD
Put the flour salt and fresh yeast (open a pack a week) in a bowl and mix with water you just have to add enough I cannot tell you, it will be about 2 cups but maybe more. You want a firm but elastic consistency and you need to knead it for about 8-10 minutes. Put in a large bowl with 1tbspn of oil in the bottom and roll the bread around to cover then put plastic wrap and a cloth over and leave for about 90 minutes or so until its clearly risen about double. Then punch it down flat again and wrap in oiled wrap and put in the fridge overnight.
The next morning take it out and put it in a bowl again covered until it warms and starts to rise, about 1 hour to 90 minutes. Then split it and shape into 4 loaves about 18-24 inches long. Cover with oiled film again and let rise for 2 hours, if you wish with a very very sharp knife slash the top to duplicate the look of a baguette.
Heat the oven as hot as it will get, 500 degrees or more. Place the bread in the oven and take a water spray bottle such as you use for laundry and spray the sides of the oven 3 times, once a minute for the first 3 minutes, this helps provide crust. The bread should be done in about 25-30 minutes. Let it cool before cutting.

Bahamas Johnny Bread

1 Cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
3/4 tsp. salt
1 egg, beaten
5 tsp. baking powder
1/3 cop sugar
2 Tblsp. vegetable oil
1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350F. Mix all dry ingredients together. Add egg, milk and oil to dry mixture and blend well. Pour into 8 inch square pan. Bake 30-35 minutes until slightly brown on top.

Bahamian Fish Soup

I had this recipe in an authentic local restaurant in Grand Bahama with Johny Bread and its the best breakfast i ever had in my life. Who would think of soup?


4 fair sized grouper steaks
2 large onions diced
4 strips chopped bacon
6 diced potatoes
2 celery sticks chopped
1 or 2 bird peppers
1 lime cut in half
1 qt good clear fish stock

Cooking instructions: You will need a relatively large cooking pot. Combine both onions and bacon in the pot. Cook until onions soften, stirring regularly. Remove from heat. In a medium size pot, bring potatoes to a boil, cooking only 1/2 way, remove from heat, strain. In the large pot, add stock to onions and bacon until pot is about 1/2 full. Combine and add the following ingredients. Potatoes, salt, celery, bird peppers, and squeeze 1/2 lime into mixture. Bring to boil for about 10 minuets. Add grouper fillet, boiling for 5-8 minuets before removing from heat.
Total cooking time: 35 mins Serves: 4