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Cooking Around The World: St. Kitts & Nevis

Oh, when the saints go marching in!

This is the moment I’ve been dreading/anticipating for months now. We have reached the “S” nations. And, with that, we are at the start of the weeks-long parade of “Saint” countries, nearly all of which are island nations. It should be quite the challenge to find variety!

And so, we have reached Week 144 of my alphabetical-globe-spanning, learn-to-cook-and-satisfy-my-OCD challenge with ... St. Kitts & Nevis!

So, how’d our first beatified island meal go? Read on to find out!

The Country

Roughly one and a half times the size of Washington, D.C., the Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis is comprised of two islands, the baseball bat-shaped St. Kitts and the baseball-shaped Nevis, which are separated by about two miles of water known as “The Narrows.”

The islands are situated in the northern Caribbean Sea, about one third of the way down the archipelago that runs from Puerto Rico to Trinidad and Tobago. Its closest neighbors are the Dutch island protectorates of Saba and Sint Eustatius, the British protectorate Anguilla, the French island of Saint-Barthélemy (St. Barts), the split French/Dutch island of Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten and the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda (Week 6).

The islands of St. Kitts and Nevis were first populated by Amerindian tribes some 5500 years ago, with the last of the tribes, the Kalinago, arriving in the 12th Century. Europeans first made contact when Christopher Columbus’ crew arrived in 1493 and claimed the land for Spain.

The French showed up a few years later and were evicted by the Spanish.  About 100 years later, both the British and the French established settlements there. And, unlike on most of the islands, they weren’t met with resistance from the indigenous population. This didn’t go well for the Kalinago, though, since the British and French collaborated to exterminate the native population just a few years later.  After a brief eviction by the Spanish, the French and British got ownership of the islands in 1630.

Over time, the islands served as a key jumping-off point for the British and French settlement of the Caribbean, one reason the islands are known as “The Mother Colony of the West Indies.” Eventually, the French bowed out and the British had sole control.

St. Kitts and Nevis were administered as part of a union with Anguilla for a while. But, come time for independence in the 20th Century, Anguilla chose to separate in 1971 and remain under British rule. This left Saint Kitts and Nevis to become the Western Hemisphere’s newest (and smallest) sovereign state upon independence in 1983.

BONUS TRIVIA:

The island of St. Kitts got its name by mistake. Allegedly, Columbus named the nearby island of Saba, “San Cristobal” (”Saint Christopher”) after his patron saint, but a mapmaker mixed things up and this island got that name instead. Upon independence, “Saint Christopher” was shortened to “St. Kitts.”

The island of Nevis was (allegedly) named for a Catholic saint who was, in turn, named for a surprising snowfall in Rome. Supposedly, the cloud-covered mountaintops of Nevis reminded Columbus of snow-capped peaks, with the Spanish word “nieve” (snow) becoming “Nevis.”

Feeling neglected by the federation government, the people of Nevis have been seeking to separate from St. Kitts, but weren’t able to get the 2/3 majority vote they’d need to pull that off. Yet, the movement continues.

St. Kitts & Nevis once had a large sugar industry. But, after that was deemed unprofitable, the state-run operation was shuttered in 2005. Today, the nation is almost exclusively dependent on tourism and subject to the fickle winds of that industry, and, not to mention, Atlantic hurricanes.

The tiny nation also engages in the somewhat controversial practice of allowing the mega-wealthy to buy citizenship there to, ostensibly, avoid taxes in their home nations.

St. Kitts and Nevis host popular annual music festivals of R&B, reggae and calypso acts. Also, St. Kitts is the birthplace of British rocker (and personal all-time favorite) Joan Armatrading. (Check her out if you aren’t familiar. Iz lovez her.)

The Food

The cuisine of St. Kitts and Nevis is, as one would expect, pretty typical of the British Caribbean, featuring salted fish, goat, coconut and papaya. Breadfruit and pigeon peas are also common features. As the nation also produces rum, it has created a number of recipes for rum-based drinks, something that, no doubt, is popular with the many visitors there.

When researching recipes, I have to admit I was intrigued by one national favorite called “goat water.” But I’ll be damned if I’m making a recipe that starts out calling for 10 lbs. of goat.

Hey, I’ve got many weeks of island nations coming. I’m sure I’ll get another chance to redeem myself with goat soon enough. [I screwed it up horribly twice before when cooking Congo (Brazzaville) (Week 39) and Djibouti (Week 48).]

Ergo, I decided I’d cook over two nights, making a one-pot dish for one night and three-out-of-four segments of the national offering for my second, primary cooking night.

For Night One, I’d make ...

Caribbean Cook-Up using this recipe.

And for Night Two, I’d prepare 3/4 of the national platter, serving up ...

Stewed Salt-Fish using this recipe ∫ˆ[2019 edit: archived link],

Spicy Plantains using the recipe on the same page, [2019 edit: archived link] and

Seasoned Breadfruit, also from the same site. ˆ[2019 edit: archived link]

Since I only have two hands, I decided against also cooking the fourth item from that platter, coconut dumplings. Three dishes at once is all I could handle. Really.

The Cook (Night One)

Shameless plug #1: I live-stream my cook/prep work on Meerkat, now available for iOS and Android and visible on the web. Follow @cliffieland on Twitter or Facebook for times. Also, now if you go to meerkatstreams.com, you can schedule to record live shows, DVR-style,  in advance.

You can watch the replay of this here.

The Caribbean Cook-Up

In case you’re wondering what is a Caribbean Cook-Up, it’s basically a one-pot dish of stewed cod, chicken wings, rice and pigeon peas.

To start, I was faced with the problem of how I was going to prepare this just after grocery shopping, since I wouldn’t be able to soak the salt cod (bacalao) overnight, as is routine.

So, to accomplish the de-salination process, I employed the boiling method I got here which I used when I cooked salt cod for Portugal (Week 139).

I measured out the cod and set it to boil in some water.

I rinsed and boiled it again until I had accomplished that three times.

Meanwhile, I took out the two chicken wings and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

(Here, my viewers gave me the tip -- no pun intended -- to cut off the ends of the chicken wings. Naturally, if I had had experience in this beforehand I would have known that already.)

When the cod was ready, I drained it one last time and flaked it with a fork.

Then, in a saucepan, I heated up some canola oil and browned the chicken wings.

When they were properly browned, I added in the chopped onion.

The chopped celery.

And the Caribbean-specific ingredient, something called “browning.” [Basically, it’s a thick, savory, molasses-y sauce. I first/last used it years ago when I cooked  The Bahamas (Week 12).]

Once the onions and celery were softened, I added in the water.

The rice.

A drained can of pigeon peas.

The flaked, de-salinated cod.

The grated carrots.

The tomatoes.

And salt. I stirred it all up and covered it to simmer for 25 minutes or so.

When it was finally dinner time, I scooped it out, placing a chicken wing on top.

Naturally, I was so busy yakking with my internet audience I totally forgot to get a picture of the final product. I did manage to get a screen cap off my meerkat replay.

Here’s what that looked like.

The Tasting

Well, it was tasty enough. The chicken, the nutty flavor of the pigeon peas -- a favorite of my own Puerto Rican people -- the flavor of the cod and the browning all instantly took me to the islands.

The dish was rustic and basic and made for a fine, Caribbean dinner. As leftovers the next day, it didn’t work nearly as well, though.

Note to self: Don’t be so skimpy with the salt. Sometimes a heavier hand is necessary.

The Cook (Night Two)

For this night, I would be cooking three dishes all at once. It got dizzying. So, I’ll separate things out for clarity.

The Salted Fish

This time, I had the time wherein I could soak the salted cod overnight. However, since I messed up cooking salted cod for Panama (Week 133) by getting too much of the salt out, I didn’t replace the water every few hours.

Here, since the fish wasn’t boiled, I wasn’t able to flake it with a fork. Instead, I sliced it into chunks.

When came time to cook, I heated up some canola oil in a large saucepan and added in the chopped green pepper.

The diced onion.

The chopped scallions.

And the diced garlic.

I cooked that over a low-medium heat for about five minutes.

Next, I added in the diced tomatoes.

And I simmered that for another 2-3 minutes.

I added the pieces of the salted cod.

And butter (since I wasn’t about to use margarine).

I seasoned with salt and pepper.

And I cooked it for another few minutes until it was ready.

The Spicy Plantains

I peeled and cut up the plantains into 2-inch chunks as instructed and added them to a bowl.

Into that I added the grated ginger and the chopped onion.

And I sprinkled on top the salt and hot sauce.

Here, I tossed the ingredients and set them in the fridge until I was ready to fire the dish. (I really didn’t see how that little hot sauce was going to be flavoring the dish, but I don’t normally cook with that, so I wasn’t really sure.)

In any case, come time to fire, I heated up some oil in a saucepan and fried the whole mess. (Not pictured.) However, since I think I had the heat up too high, I may have burned the onions and ginger in the process. The goal was to cook through those large chunks of plantain, though. So ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

The Seasoned Breadfruit

This would be only the second time I’ve dealt with breadfruit. I last dealt with it when I cooked Grenada (Week 67). That week, the fruit I used was overripe, something my mother explained to me after the fact. This week, I was determined to not have a soft breadfruit on my hands.

But the question then was, was it ripe enough?

We’d see.

After working hard to cut off the fruit’s rind and to carve out the core, I cut the breadfruit into one-inch chunks (as instructed) and got started on the cook.

I melted some butter (again, wasn’t going to use margarine)  in a saucepan and added the canola oil.

I dropped in the chopped onion.

And I sautéed until the onions were golden. Then, I added in the chopped red pepper.

The crushed garlic.

Fresh thyme leaves.

And chopped parsley.

Finally, after a few seconds, I added in the breadfruit cubes.

I covered that with chicken broth.

And I seasoned with salt and pepper.

Now, here’s the thing: The recipe simply said to heat this through and serve. But, upon tasting, it seemed clear that the breadfruit was either not really ripe or it wasn’t cooked as well as it should have been. Or both. At first the chunks were uniformly rubbery.

So, I covered the saucepan and let it simmer for a few minutes until I felt they were finally tender enough to serve.

I plated the cod and served it alongside the plantains and breadfruit. In the end, it looked like this.

The Tasting

The Breadfruit: My viewers asked me to describe the taste of the breadfruit and I still find that hard to do. And since it wasn’t really ripe/cooked uniformly, not all the bites tasted the same. The well-cooked ones were tender and had a perhaps-French-bread-like(?) taste and a texture akin to green papaya. And the seasoning did make it kind of tasty. Yet, I feel that I really should have cut the pieces much smaller and should have made sure the fruit was riper (and, thus, sweeter) in the first place.

The Spicy Plantains: It really is a shame that I overcooked the onions and ginger, since they would have given the plantains a dimension they really needed. Thankfully, I did make sure to cook the plantains well enough that they were, well, cooked. But, again, if I made this again I would a.) make sure to not burn the dressings and b.) cut the plantains into smaller, more bite-sized chunks.

The Salted Fish: Now, here we had a winner! This was truly delicious in every single bite. If you’ve been playing along, you’ll know that at this stage I’m really not a fan of salted cod. I had enough of it growing up and have screwed it up more times than I’ve done it well. 

However, this time “well-cooked” evens up the score on cod, since I had the sense to season the dish as it should be (salty). And the herbs and spices made this a truly delicious dish which carried me away to the Caribbean, bite by bite.

Well done, St. Kitts and Nevis! Now there is (at least) one more thing (besides Joan Armatrading) that I really adore about you!

Shameless plug #2 for those that scrolled down: I live-stream my cook/prep work on Meerkat, now available for iOS and Android and visible on the web. Follow @cliffieland on Twitter or Facebook for times. Also, if you go to meerkatstreams.com, you can now schedule to record live shows, DVR-style,  in advance.

Next Week: We take a small sea-faring vessel south just a ways for our second-of-five saints/second-of-five island states, St. Lucia!