Callaloo Soup

As tradition built it

Callaloo Soup

Grenada's dasheen leaf soup, about 45 minutes, serves 6

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• 12, young leaves, chopped dasheen leaves
• 2 cups coconut milk
• as available saltfish or crab meat
• 8, chopped okra
• 3 cloves, chopped garlic
• a good grating, to taste nutmeg
• a small handful, chopped, to taste coriander

Method

1. Cook the dasheen leaves down with coconut milk, saltfish or crab meat, okra, garlic, nutmeg and coriander into a thick, dark green soup.

Notes

Made from the local taro relative, dasheen, rather than the amaranth Jamaica calls callaloo by the same name; the two are different plants.

What a modern chef changes

Separated Protein, Two-Texture Leaf

Method

1. Cook the crab separately sous vide, or gently poach the saltfish, and fold it into the finished soup only at the point of serving, rather than simmering it through the whole pot and losing its texture.
2. Dehydrate and grind a portion of nutmeg husk, or extra nutmeg, into a fine dust in a spice grinder, dusted over the finished bowl rather than only stirred through, so its aromatic top note survives the long simmer intact.
3. Pass a portion of the dasheen leaf through a high-power blender and then a chinois for a smooth base, folding the remaining leaves through whole for contrast.