Top 10 Essential West Indian Ingredients
Pantry Items for Caribbean Cooking
There are certain ingredients that can be found in every Caribbean kitchen. However, there are variances depending on the cultural influence on individual countries. For example, in Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, an essential ingredient would be curry powder; for other countries, bay leaves and dried pasta are a must.
The following list of ingredients, however, you will find in all West Indian kitchens regardless of its make-up. These ingredients are at the top of the shopping list and give the cuisine its unique flavor, providing the key to many iconic West Indian meals.
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Green Seasoning
This is a blend of fresh herbs, onions, garlic, and hot peppers. Depending on which country you are from, ground spices such as cloves, allspice, and cinnamon are added to the mixture and impart a unique flavor. This herb mixture is used to season seafood, poultry, and meat for frying, stewing, baking, or roasting. It is also used as a base, sautéed in hot oil to cook vegetables.
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Hot Peppers
Mark Goebel Photo Gallery / Contributor / Getty Images
Scotch Bonnet pepper is the pepper of choice when cooking Caribbean cuisine. They are used to make the famous West Indian pepper sauces. However, it's important to find out how to control the heat when cooking with Scotch Bonnets.
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Limes
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Limes are used in combination with salt to wash/clean seafood, meat, and poultry. The lime juice and salt are lightly added to the ingredient, tossed, and rinsed thoroughly in water before use.
Fresh lime juice is also used as the base in certain pickles. On a hot day, jugs of lemonade are made with freshly squeezed lime juice, water, sugar, and vanilla essence.
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Salt Meat
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Salted pig tails and salted beef are used to flavor dishes and to season (salt) the food. Salt meat can be used in soups, stews, and rice dishes.
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Dried Peas and Beans
Diana Rattray Pigeon peas, kidney beans, black eye peas, and yellow and green split peas are the most commonly used legumes in the English-speaking Caribbean. They are used to make rice and peas, stewed peas and one-pot rice dishes such as pelau and cook-up rice.
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Rice
Foodcollection RF / Getty Images Rice is a staple, and it is cooked daily. It is served with rice and peas or cooked plainly using the absorption method or by boiling and straining it. Long grain parboiled rice and long-grain white rice are the two most common varieties used.
Rice dishes such as pelau, fried rice, cook-up rice, Spanish rice, etc., commonly make appearances on the dining table at weekends. We also use rice for desserts.
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Ground Provisions
Rodrigo Ruiz Ciancia Tubular root vegetables such as cassava (yucca), sweet potatoes, eddoes, dasheen, and yams are necessary ground provisions. They are all hearty and nutritious.
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Bouillon Cubes
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Instead of liquid stock, bouillon cubes are used to flavor most of the dishes when cooking, whether it is a stew, a sauce, soup, or rice and peas.