Callaloo Soup

As tradition built it

Callaloo Soup

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

The base

• 1 tbsp oil
• green seasonings: culantro, chives, peppers, celery, basil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 tsp all purpose seasoning
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
• a pinch sugar
• to taste salt

The pot

• 1 bunch callaloo (dasheen) leaves, washed and cut
• as needed water
• ¾ packet coconut milk powder
• 225 to 450g smoked pigtail, cleaned and pressure cooked
• 450g dasheen, peeled and chopped
• 450g green fig (green banana), peeled and sliced
• 450g sweet potato, peeled and chopped
• dumplings
• thyme
• 1 Scotch bonnet

To serve

• to serve avocado

Method

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over a medium heat. Add the seasonings, all but the thyme, and fry a couple of minutes.
2. Add the callaloo, mix well, fry a few minutes, then add about a cup of water.
3. When it is cooked, break the leaves down with a swizzle stick. Add the coconut milk powder, the pigtail and more water, and bring it to the boil.
4. Add the provisions. Knead a dough for the dumplings meanwhile.
5. Add the dumplings, the thyme and the Scotch bonnet and bring it back to the boil.
6. When it is cooked, take it off the heat and serve hot with avocado.

Notes

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

The recipe is Cecilia's, of Spice Island Cooking, from Grenada: a Saturday soup with provisions, smoked pigtail and dumplings. It has no okra, crab, saltfish, nutmeg or coriander; those came from a Trinidadian callaloo, which is blended smooth.

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.