SURINAME: THE FOOD

It’s time for spring break! Not that we’re really going anywhere, but I’m excited I can sleep in an extra hour for the next two weeks. And I finished my fundraising class last weekend, so now it’s time to finish up a few books that I had started. One of these days, I’ll catch up on sleep.

I dug right in and ate my meal before I even remembered to take this photo.

But today was for cooking food from Suriname. I started out making Bojo Cake with Pineapple. It was fairly easy to make, but it’s not like a cake that most Americans are used to, mainly because of the cassava. In a large bowl, I used 4 c of tapioca (cassava) flour + 1 c all-purpose, ½ c grated coconut, 1 c sugar, 1 ⅓ c pineapple tidbits (keep the juice for later), 2 cans of coconut milk (I only had one can, so I used a canful of whole milk), ½ c pineapple juice (that I saved from the can), 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp almond extract (I used coconut extract because I couldn’t find my almond extract), 1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp of salt, half a stick of butter (melted), 3 eggs, ¼ c white rum (I used Bacardi), and ⅔ c rum-soaked dried cranberries (I hate raisins, so I used cranberries instead, but use whichever you want -- even though soaking the cranberries in rum for a half hour creates a great cranberry-flavored rum that I sipped on all afternoon). Using a blender, I made sure that everything was smooth and poured it into a 13x9” cake pan and baked it at 350ºF for about an hour and 40 minutes. I keep forgetting that tapioca flour is going to set up differently than all-purpose. It’s far more dense and gooey, like the inside of pão de queijo. So, while the flavor was very good, the texture got me. I have a feeling that I’ll be the only one eating this.

It doesn't look like much here, but this was amazing. I bet it would also be good with a little malt vinegar.

The main dish was Matjeri Masala. I used cod filets, which I don’t normally cook with but enjoy a lot. I heated my oil and fried my fish like I usually do it (dipped in egg and then panko crumbs), even though it didn’t fry up very good. I removed the fish and some of the oil, and fried up some onions and garlic in the same skillet. After that, I added in some garam masala powder and a couple Tbsps of ketchup and stirred everything around. Then I added the fish back into the skillet along with a cup of water, and a little salt and sugar. Covering the skillet, I let this simmer for about 10 minutes. I really liked this. It wasn’t heavy on the garam masala, but enough to really flavor it. I served this with some string beans that I simply boiled in a little salt and minced garlic.

Clearly the winner for tonight!

The other dish I made was called Surinamese-style Nasi Goreng. I first sauteed my onions and garlic before adding in some ground ginger, green onions, black pepper, sugar, and a vegetable bouillon cube. After a minute of letting all of that saute, I added in my cooked rice and stirred everything together, adding enough soy sauce (about 2 Tbsp) to make it all look brown. I let the rice cook for a few minutes longer, topped with some cilantro, and some fried eggs. I actually messed up on my fried eggs, so it ended up being scrambled eggs. It was all good. Everyone loved this recipe -- they asked me which restaurant I got this from. Haha, jokes on them. It was good though.

This was one tasty meal, if I may say so myself.

I thought everything about this meal was good, and my husband thought so too. The kids were 50/50 about it. I could definitely tell the Indian/southeast Asian influence on the food. It’s a cuisine that I really like, so it was definitely ok by me. I guess I didn’t fully realize how much Indian influence has on Caribbean culture because of its history. I do know that I’m glad it’s there.

Up next: Swaziland (Eswatini)