July 5, 2010: Sometime between when this post was originally written in 2007 and now it appears Saveur Magazine selected this recipe as one of its ‘Best Of The Web‘, and Trinigourmet.com as one of its ‘Sites We Love’. I can’t explain how much this means to me as it has always been my hope and aim to disseminate Trinidadian cuisine to the wider world. It really makes the long hours cooking, writing, photographing and editing, not to mention the ongoing expenses, worth it. Thanks so much!

Yum Yum …

I see plenty of recipes for accra in West Indian Cookbooks but often they bear little resemblance to Trinidad Accra. My Jamaican mother tells me that what she knows as accra is a saltfish fritter, flat, fried brown. Here in Trinidad however accra is a puffy fried dough ball, made of a highly seasoned dough into which shredded saltfish has been mixed. I’ve had it at weddings, gatherings, and of course bought it from street vendors. This recipe comes together quite quickly once the saltfish has been boiled and picked. …

You know one of the unexpected discoveries of having a food blog is realizing how much our parents keep from us about -their- culinary pasts. Before I started TriniGourmet I thought it was reasonable to assume that the foods my parents made were accurate reflections of their respective heritages (Trinidad and Jamaica respectively), and as such included faves from their own childhoods. Not so. It has happened on more than one occasion that a dish I have made here (often for the first time) unlocks a flood gates of “MMMM, …

Hummus is a never-fail crowd pleaser and so deceptively easy to prepare! I love to offer hummus as a starter at Purim because chickpeas figure so prominently in the Purim story. This recipe comes from one of my favourite cookbooks The Sephardic Table: The Vibrant Cooking of the Mediterranean Jews (you can read my review here). Although I have tried many hummus recipes and am not opposed the occasional variation, this is the one I return to time and time again.

Hummus
Source: The Sephardic Table: The Vibrant Cooking of the Mediterranean …

Blog Party #43 is here! The theme this month is “Spice It Up”. According to the event’s host Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness:
The chill of February has definitely gotten to me. I’m cold. I’m tired of being cold. I want warmth…but it looks like the only place I can find that is in the kitchen!
Well there are definitely no chills here in Trinidad, unless you count the damp rainy days we’ve been having here on an almost non-stop basis. Although the rain may be worrying the Carnival die-hards, I find …

First of all, thanks so much for all the kind comments and messages from those of you who took a moment to send my mom your support as she adjusts to her new gluten-free life. We were all quite surprised and happy Thanks also to Johanna who let me know that many brands of cornflakes contain malt extract, a no-no for those with celiac disease. I had no idea about this, and as always knowledge is power when it comes to matters such as these!
As I …

Falafel is an item that depending on your part of the world is either par for the course, or an unheard of oddity. Growing up here in Trinidad falafels were not part of my culinary experience, however in the last few years, Syrian-Lebanese eateries have become more and more popular and Middle Eastern fare has become well-loved outside of their original ethnic communities.
The falafels that I’ve heard over the past few years have varied from depressing to sublime. I’ve noticed that I don’t really care for the dryer varieties, …

I normally don’t enter one of my recipes to multiple events but I’m in a bit of a time crunch and I really wanted to take part in Food In Film, as well as “Waiter There’s Something in my… Meatless Barbecue”.
Having been a Film Major in college my eyes really lit up when I learned about the Food in Film event, there were so many great films I could choose from, and talking to a close friend only brought up more possibilities. For some reason my mind really …

Wow, this has really been a year of confronting, and overcoming, my culinary fears! Who knew I had so many? So far this year I have created soufflés, tackled British food, baked several successful cakes, and combined peanuts with chicken. You’d think at this point I could rest on my laurels and smile over a job well done. But no sirree… not when I saw that this month’s Retro Recipe Challenge was Retro Wobbles, a phrase that instantly brings to mind one of my personal culinary boogeymen, the gelatin salad!
I …

The last time that I took part in Muffin Monday, I shared with y’all my memory of my mother’s hearty Carrot Muffins. Well now, with this month’s theme being “Childhood”, I get to share them with you!
This recipe is one of many to be found in mom’s homemade scrapbooks. She’s been compiling them since the 1970′s and as a toddler I would occupy myself on the kitchen floor by flipping through them, amazed at the colours and scribbles contained within.
Some of that must have rubbed off on me …