Caribbean Soup of the Day
"Soup is a lot like family.
Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach its full potential"...
Marge Kennedy.
People have been eating soup for over eight thousand years, hot, cold, thick thin, as a savoury or a sweet.
Personally I have found hot, thick soup to be the best food for the nourishment, revival and cure for any exhausted, over-worked soul, and no other more hearty soup exists than the traditional and treasured pottage of split peas, meat, provisions and seasonings boiled in fresh coconut milk...
the 'Caribbean soup of the day' known as 'Sancoche'.
Soup serves well during recessions and this Caribbean soup has been around since the 1700's and thereafter been served as plantation food.
'Sancoche' uplifts spirits with its unique blend of ingredients, and whilst no two pots are ever alike, each pot claims its own calming, soothing yet sustaining and tonic effect.
An huge pot of this nutritional soup can feed thirty people and costs anywhere between ten and forty American dollars depending on the type of soup one chooses to concoct based on availability and choice of meats and provisions.
Any pea-based soup makes for an economical, savvy pot and the diversity in recipes for 'Sancoche' varies throughout the Caribbean.
'Sancoche' basically comprises one, two or three meats from corn-beef to oxtail to pig-tail to cubed boneless beef to smoked ham-bone to salt-beef to simply chicken, as little as four or as many as ten root provisions, which in the Caribbean are referred to as 'blue food' with its medicinal value and high concentration of root minerals, and loads of fresh seasonings altogether boiling in fresh coconut milk.
Rest assured on any given Saturday in Trinidad and Tobago, mixed aromas of cilantro, pimentos and pigtail permeate the island as almost every household is busy preparing an healthy pot of 'Sancoche' to feed the family.
Here is one of the many recipes for 'Sancoche'...
Ingredients required for step one; -2 ounces butter -2 ounces sugar -half pound pigtail (cut out fat) -half pound oxtail (cut out fat) -half pound boneless beef cubed -half hot pepper (no seeds) -2 stems celery -2 stems chives -2 cilantro leaves -6 Spanish peppers -6 cloves peeled garlic -1 tsp fresh thyme -1 tsp salt -1 tsp black pepper -8 dasheen bush leaves (chopped finely) -quarter pound pumpkin (diced) -1 carrot diced -1 pound dried split peas -10 cups water Ingredients required for step two; Half pound of each provision: -dasheen -eddoes -yam -cassava -sweet potatoes -green fig -plantain -breadfruit -tanya -pumpkin, ochroes and corn on the cob (optional) Clean and dice seasonings: -6 cloves -6 pimentos -6 leaves cilantro/chadon-beni -1 bunch chives -1 bunch dark green celery -2 tsp salt -1 tsp black-pepper Stir-fry seasoning with: -4 ounces butter -coconut milk: -1 whole dried coconut Ingredients required for step three; Make dumplings and add to soup: -3 cups flour -4 ounces coconut milk -4 ounces water -1 ounce butter Step one - Heat two ounces of sugar with two ounces butter in a pressure cooker for three minutes to make a browning and add meats with the seasonings mentioned in step one, stir fry for five minutes then add split peas, dasheen bush, carrot and pumpkin, water and close pressure cooker, cook on high heat.
When all the rings rise, turn off stove.
This takes ten minutes but do not open the pressure cooker until all the rings have gone down; forty-five minutes to completion.
Step two - While waiting for pressure cooker to open: -peel and cube (2") all provisions, clean and dice all seasonings.
-cut and blend fresh coconut with two cups water, strain-put aside four ounces coconut milk for dumplings -Stir fry butter with all seasonings in a twenty inch soup pot for five minutes and then add provisions and one and a half cups coconut milk along with everything from the pressure cooker to soup pot.
Bring to boil.
Step three - While waiting for pot to come to boil (ten minutes), make dumplings: -mix flour with water, butter and coconut milk and cut into half inch dumplings -add dumplings to pot when soup is bubbling and turn off stove another after ten minutes.
Voila et bon appetit! And noteworthy here with regards to soup etiquette; do not slurp one's soup except when in China and tip the bowl away from one's body to enjoy soup to the end, except when in France (tip bowl toward one's body).
by Simone Galy-Laquis
Each ingredient enhances the others; each batch has its own characteristics; and it needs time to simmer to reach its full potential"...
Marge Kennedy.
People have been eating soup for over eight thousand years, hot, cold, thick thin, as a savoury or a sweet.
Personally I have found hot, thick soup to be the best food for the nourishment, revival and cure for any exhausted, over-worked soul, and no other more hearty soup exists than the traditional and treasured pottage of split peas, meat, provisions and seasonings boiled in fresh coconut milk...
the 'Caribbean soup of the day' known as 'Sancoche'.
Soup serves well during recessions and this Caribbean soup has been around since the 1700's and thereafter been served as plantation food.
'Sancoche' uplifts spirits with its unique blend of ingredients, and whilst no two pots are ever alike, each pot claims its own calming, soothing yet sustaining and tonic effect.
An huge pot of this nutritional soup can feed thirty people and costs anywhere between ten and forty American dollars depending on the type of soup one chooses to concoct based on availability and choice of meats and provisions.
Any pea-based soup makes for an economical, savvy pot and the diversity in recipes for 'Sancoche' varies throughout the Caribbean.
'Sancoche' basically comprises one, two or three meats from corn-beef to oxtail to pig-tail to cubed boneless beef to smoked ham-bone to salt-beef to simply chicken, as little as four or as many as ten root provisions, which in the Caribbean are referred to as 'blue food' with its medicinal value and high concentration of root minerals, and loads of fresh seasonings altogether boiling in fresh coconut milk.
Rest assured on any given Saturday in Trinidad and Tobago, mixed aromas of cilantro, pimentos and pigtail permeate the island as almost every household is busy preparing an healthy pot of 'Sancoche' to feed the family.
Here is one of the many recipes for 'Sancoche'...
Ingredients required for step one; -2 ounces butter -2 ounces sugar -half pound pigtail (cut out fat) -half pound oxtail (cut out fat) -half pound boneless beef cubed -half hot pepper (no seeds) -2 stems celery -2 stems chives -2 cilantro leaves -6 Spanish peppers -6 cloves peeled garlic -1 tsp fresh thyme -1 tsp salt -1 tsp black pepper -8 dasheen bush leaves (chopped finely) -quarter pound pumpkin (diced) -1 carrot diced -1 pound dried split peas -10 cups water Ingredients required for step two; Half pound of each provision: -dasheen -eddoes -yam -cassava -sweet potatoes -green fig -plantain -breadfruit -tanya -pumpkin, ochroes and corn on the cob (optional) Clean and dice seasonings: -6 cloves -6 pimentos -6 leaves cilantro/chadon-beni -1 bunch chives -1 bunch dark green celery -2 tsp salt -1 tsp black-pepper Stir-fry seasoning with: -4 ounces butter -coconut milk: -1 whole dried coconut Ingredients required for step three; Make dumplings and add to soup: -3 cups flour -4 ounces coconut milk -4 ounces water -1 ounce butter Step one - Heat two ounces of sugar with two ounces butter in a pressure cooker for three minutes to make a browning and add meats with the seasonings mentioned in step one, stir fry for five minutes then add split peas, dasheen bush, carrot and pumpkin, water and close pressure cooker, cook on high heat.
When all the rings rise, turn off stove.
This takes ten minutes but do not open the pressure cooker until all the rings have gone down; forty-five minutes to completion.
Step two - While waiting for pressure cooker to open: -peel and cube (2") all provisions, clean and dice all seasonings.
-cut and blend fresh coconut with two cups water, strain-put aside four ounces coconut milk for dumplings -Stir fry butter with all seasonings in a twenty inch soup pot for five minutes and then add provisions and one and a half cups coconut milk along with everything from the pressure cooker to soup pot.
Bring to boil.
Step three - While waiting for pot to come to boil (ten minutes), make dumplings: -mix flour with water, butter and coconut milk and cut into half inch dumplings -add dumplings to pot when soup is bubbling and turn off stove another after ten minutes.
Voila et bon appetit! And noteworthy here with regards to soup etiquette; do not slurp one's soup except when in China and tip the bowl away from one's body to enjoy soup to the end, except when in France (tip bowl toward one's body).
by Simone Galy-Laquis
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