Trinidad and Tobago: Doubles

Since we moved to Toronto, we have made many close friends from the Caribbean with whom we’ve talked extensively about their different cuisines. Last year, we had the good fortune of visiting Trinidad and got to try their cuisine first hand.

Originally inhabited by the South American Amerindians, the islands Trinidad and Tobago were claimed for Spain by Columbus at the end of the 15th century. The two islands constantly changed hands between different European powers but remained largely Spanish. When the islands were colonized after several failed attempts, the colonizers were largely from France (though still a Spanish colony in name). T&T developed into plantation islands and were populated by people from West Africa through the transatlantic slave trade. When slavery was finally abolished, T&T were under British rule so a new source of cheap labour for the plantations came from India. A large number of people from this eastern colony were shipped to the Caribbean as indentured servants. From this labour import, Trinidad and Tobago came to have a large Indian population in addition to its West African and French descendants.

The above paragraph is of course a very compressed version of a long and complex history and you might want to read more elsewhere. During our visit to Trinidad, we also learned from one of our guides that the Spanish used Trinidad as a staging post for their multiple expeditions to find Eldorado in the South American jungle (Venezuela is just 11 km away, with multiple rivers emptying into to gulf between the countries). Our guide also told us the Spanish spread rumours about Trinidad being inhabited by cannibals to keep the island to themselves.

T&T Cuisine

(Most of this information is based on multiple food conversations with our Caribbean friends.)

As for most other Caribbean nations, the migrations of different peoples, forced and otherwise, have created a very interesting mix of cultures. The cuisine in T&T is a mix of West Africa, India, Spain and France. For instance, the other day I made a curry from the classic work on T&T cooking, Naparima girl’s high school cookbook ​[1]​ (thank you Charisse for the recommendation), where the first step was to fry onion, celery and carrots, a classic mirepoix from France. Then curry powder, cumin, chili, and lentils were added.

Of course, there are a lot of dishes shared across the Caribbean that are eaten in T&T as well, such as callaloo, a dish where callaloo leaves (aka dasheen, aka taro) are stewed with scotch bonnets in coconut milk. Oildown, a rich and satiating dish full of flavour, is made from simmering ground provisions in coconut milk for hours. Ground provisions refer to starchy roots and fruits (sweet potatoes, eddoes, cassava, breadfruit, plantain, green bananas (aka green figs)) eaten across the Caribbean ​[2]​. (The non-vegan version of oildown often includes some meat or salt fish but my vegan version does not: stay tuned for upcoming oildown post.)

You will also find a lot of dishes where the Indian influence shines through, like stuffed roti – Indian flat bread wraps filled with curry – or bhaji like battered and deep-fried dasheen leaves. Being an island nation, seafood has a large spot on the menu and a local favourite is fried bread (fried bake) with shark. The Spanish influence also shines through in the tamales-like pastelles popular around Christmas.

For our visit to Trinidad and Tobago, I have chosen to make doubles and the drink sorrel (separate post).

Doubles

Doubles are a delicious, inherently vegan food sold on the streets of T&T which demonstrates the large Indian influence on Trinidadian cooking. Vendors stand around with large styrofoam boxes filled with warm, fried breads called bara and pots of fragrant chickpea curry (chana). When you order, the vendor will put two bara (hence the name ‘double’) in a paper wrap, slop on some chana and top it with their favourite toppings and wrap it tightly. Your job is then to try and unwrap it and eat it before it drips all over you.

In the recipe below, I have chosen to serve the doubles with a simple cucumber/chadon beni chutney ​[3]​ to give some nice freshness to the dish and a Trinidadian yellow habanero hot sauce to add some heat.

A note on curry powder. When reading recipes, some simply said to include curry powder ​[1], [4], [5]​. From context, I think Trinidadian curry powder should be used. Looking around, I found a recipe for Trinidadian curry powder on Recipe Goldmine​[6]​. Two sources suggest using Madras Curry powder if a Caribbean version can’t be found ​[7], [8]​. For my recipe, I used a Jamaican curry powder I made a few weeks ago for another dish, based on a recipe in Vegan Eats World ​[9]​.

Interesting ingredients

Chadon beni, the local name for culantro, is used quite a lot in Trinidad&Tobago. I have not used this particular herb previously but managed to find it in the store Carribbean Corner in Kensington (Toronto). Having tasted it now, I find it very similar in flavour to cilantro, though the plants look very different.

For the doubles, I also purchased a jar of kuchela, a Trinidadian mango relish sometimes served on doubles. It is not at all like the sweet mango chutney or the hot and sour mango pickles you can find in Indian stores. Rather I find (this) kuchela tastes quite salty, more like an olive tapenade. But maybe it is just this brand. After trying it on my doubles, I have decided not to use it. I think the flavour clashes with the rest of the dish and the competition for space inside the small bara is fierce. Something has to go.

Conclusion

This is not the first time nor the last I will be making these delectable snacks. If you haven’t tried them before, you definitely should. Ingredients are cheap and easy to come by (substituting cilantro for chadon beni). Enjoy with a glass of cold sorrel.

Print

Doubles

This delicious street food from Trinidad and Tobago will drip all over you.

Course Main Course, Snack, streetfood

Cuisine carribbean

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Servings 5 doubles

Author Henrik Persson | veganphysicist.com

Ingredients

Bara

• 200 mL water
• 500 mL flour all purpose
• ¼ tsp sugar
• ¼ tsp sugar
• ½ tsp cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp dry yeast ~25 g fresh yeast

Chana

• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp curry powder see note
• 1 tsp cumin
• 500 mL chickpeas, cooked. Preserve liquid
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ habanero
• 5 leaves chadon beni see note

Chutney

• 10 leaves chadon beni see note
• 1 lime
• ⅓ cucumber

Instructions

Bara – dough

• Heat water to 37C (body temp).
• Stir in yeast and let it dissolve.
• Stir in salt, sugar, cumin and turmeric.
• Stir in the flour. The dough should be a bit loose, see pic below.
• Let rest for 1-2 h, until doubled in size.

Chana

• Make the chana while the dough is rising
• On medium heat, sweat the onion in some oil in a pot. Should turn translucent and start to brown just slightly.
• Stir in garlic and let it sweat until translucent.
• Stir in curry powder, salt and chickpeas.
• Add the about 200 mL of the chickpea cooking liquid and/or water.
• Let simmer for 30 or so min.

Chadon beni chutney

• Make the chutney while the chana is simmering and the bara dough is proofing.
• Cut cucmber into match sticks or grate it for a more liquidy chutney.
• Chop chadon beni finely.
• Mix cucumber and chadon beni. Add some lime juice.

Bara – frying

• When the bara dough has doubled in size, it is time to prepare them.
• Punch down the dough to remove a lot of the air.
• Coat a piece of parchment paper with some oil (e.g. canola).
• Pinch of a piece of dough, roughly 3 cm in diameter.
• Loosely shape it into a disc and place it on the parchment paper. Final disc should be 10-12 cm in diameter.
• Fold the parchment paper over the dough, leaving space on all sides.
• Roll into a flat disc, ~1 mm thick, using a rolling pin.
• Fry the bara in a thin coating of oil in a pan on medium heat.

  A few minutes per side.

  It is time for the first flip when you see the top is starting to get dry (similar to American pancakes).

  When done, place on a towel and start frying the next one.
• Keep rolling out bara while frying.
• This recipe makes ~10 bara.

Assembly

• Put two bara on a plate, slightly overlapping.
• Cover in chana and top with the chadon beni chutney.
• If you like it hot, top it with some habanero hot sauce.

Notes

Curry powder: The different recipes I’ve read in researching this post call for using curry powder in the chana without specifying which kind.I guess it is up to the chef. There are Carribean curry powders out there so I figured they ought to be what the different authors had in mind. 
A few weeks ago, I made a Jamaican curry powder based on a recipe I found in Terry Hope Romero’s book Vegan Eats World. I used that here.

Chadon beni: Chadon beni is the local name for culantro (not the same as cilantro). Its flavour is very similar to cilantro and I woudn’t hesitate to interchange the two.