Accras, dog sauce, blood sausage … All about overseas star products: Femme Actuelle Le MAG

Rum, the protected elixir

A popular expression sums up, with humor, this tropical passion: "All roads lead to rum". In the West Indies, there are many distilleries, each making beverage in oak barrels and cultivating its little secrets. Martinican producers obtained, in 1996, the creation of a controlled designation of origin to protect agricultural rum against industrial products, obtained from sugar residue (molasses). Consume – in moderation – as a ti-punch, planter or schrubb (and its orange peel) at Christmas.

Crabs, crustaceans of all kinds

They are of all colors, more or less hairy, and come from everywhere, from the sea of ​​course, from the earth, from the mangroves, from the forest… They are eaten plain, in colombo (mixture of typical spices), stuffed or with a sauce that is still hot. Before being cooked, they can even be fed mangoes, peppers, corn and bananas for at least a week to flavor their flesh.

Accras, mixed meatballs

Scented with herbs, these little donuts are most often made with cod or titiris, tiny fish found at the mouths of rivers. More or less spicy, these bites have become essential and testify to the mixing of cultures in the Antilles. They would indeed have emerged in the kitchen of a Norman living in Guadeloupe (she did not have an apple for her donuts), helped by a Ghanaian from the city of Accra who would have suggested the cod and an Indian, the chilli pepper !

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Bananas, the princesses of the archipelago

Each week, a boat full of bananas from the West Indies leaves for Europe, 5,000 tonnes! Occupying a large agricultural area and generating many jobs, banana plantations play a major role in the West Indies. There are a dozen varieties, including the fig-apple, a very sweet dessert fruit, or musa paradisiaca, to be cooked, eaten boiled or fried.

Peppers, fire on the palate!

Indispensable in Creole cuisine (and medicine), they vary the colors, intensities and names … of birds. Precisely, the very formidable chili-bird and the no less incendiary chillies 7 court-bouillons or bonda man jak now often give way to the very aromatic vegetarian chili, recognizable by its teardrop shape, which scents without stinging. Attention neophytes, capsaicin, which determines the strength of the pepper measured by the famous Scoville scale, is concentrated in the white membranes. Handle with gloves and if your hand is too heavy, extinguish the oral fire with bread crumbs or a dairy product.

Chicken boucane, exotic smoking

The boucan indicated the place where meats and fish were dried with smoke. This technique allows a conservation of five to six months. It has its origins in the hunters of the forests of South America before being used by the corsairs of the Caribbean who had to keep the meat for days on the boats. Today, we continue to smoke chicken, sausages or ham… marinated then dried before being placed on a grill and cooked by smoking. The fuels used will more or less flavor the meat.

Dog sauce, minced

Widely consumed in the West Indies, dog sauce, a kind of well-spiced and very green vinaigrette, is prepared with onions, spring onions, parsley, parsley, garlic and very finely chopped peppers. We add oil, lemon and very hot water. It is served with all grills (meat and fish) and rice. The name of the sauce does not refer to any canine, but to a brand of knife widely used in the islands.

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The fierce, the entrance that awakens

The field workers ate it for breakfast for a long time. It is true that this mixture of very ripe avocados, chiquetaille (crumbled) cod, cassava flour, onion and garlic is particularly stimulating! And necessarily highly spiced. Today, it is served as a starter by adjusting the dose of chili to the endurance of the palates around the table.

The sausage, an exotic farce

The proverb says "Sé bouden é fa" (it is the stuffing that makes the sausage), and each family in the islands claims its recipe! The sausage must be raised in taste but light in texture. Black, it is made with bread and fat and pork blood cooked with strong condiments. Our recommendation? Enjoy it as an aperitif, in puff pastry or on toast.

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Indian wood, fragrant leaves

It was Christopher Columbus who reported this species from Jamaica (remember, he thought he had discovered the Indies). These are actually the leaves of a tree, the chili. Also called Jamaican pepper or West Indian laurel, these leaves are actually used as bay, whole or crushed. We slip them into soups, sauces or stews but also to flavor rum.

Reunion: 3 star local products

Plugs

These mouthfuls, often pork coated with a thin paste, are reminiscent of Asian vapors. It is also found in chicken or shrimp. On site, to be enjoyed by the roadsides or at the markets; at home, as an aperitif with a soy sauce or a spicy sauce for the more adventurous.

The darling

The darling of Reunion becomes chayote in the south of France and cristophine in the Antilles. In Reunion, everything is eaten in this big green pear with a texture close to zucchini: the flesh, the pulp, the stems and the tuber. Our preference, the gratin version!

Rougail sausage

Rougail for the sauce, very red and very thick, made of tomatoes, onions, ginger and more or less chili of course. To which we add slices of sausage. Also try with chicken or cod.

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Guyana: 3 star local product

Cuisine under influences

Creole, Native American and Bushinengue (from the name of the Boni people who fled slavery by taking refuge in the forest), Guyanese cuisine has all its accents at the same time. On the menu, fish blaff (cooked in court-bouillon), colombos (all colors and all flavors), smoked meats… Not to mention the most recent influences, Brazilian and Chinese. A melting pot, a real one!

Awara broth

"If you eat awara broth, in Guyana you will come back," says the proverb. This traditional Easter holiday recipe is made from the awara palm fruit. Its paste is used to prepare a broth in which we add meats, fish, crustaceans, vegetables … The more it reduces, the better. Impatient cooks, refrain.

The manioc

This tuber is one of the basic ingredients of local cuisine. Bitter, it can be toxic and must be treated before use. Sweet (or cramanioc), its juice becomes soup or sauce, its root becomes semolina (couac) or galette (cassave).

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