Fungee and Pepperpot

As tradition built it

Fungee and Pepperpot

Antigua and Barbuda's national pairing

Ingredients

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

• 6, cut into small pieces okra
• 4 cups salted water
• 2 cups cornmeal
• to cover cold water, to mix the cornmeal to a paste
• 500g, chopped spinach or callaloo
• 1 large, chunked aubergine
• 500g, peeled and chunked pumpkin
• peas
• chicken
• salted pork
• beef

Method

1. For fungee: boil the okra in around four cups of salted water until tender.
2. Mix two cups of cornmeal with cold water to a paste and work it into the boiling pot, stirring continuously until smooth and pulling from the sides.
3. For Antiguan pepperpot: brown and simmer a spinach or callaloo-based stew with aubergine, pumpkin, peas, chicken, salted pork and beef for one to two hours. It contains no cassareep, unlike the fermented, blackened Guyanese pepperpot that shares only its English name.

What a modern chef changes

Built-Up Depth, Held-Back Texture

Method

1. Brown the meats for the pepperpot hard and fast under direct Big Green Egg heat before the long simmer, for a depth the stew's later stages cannot build on their own.
2. Cook a portion of the pumpkin sous vide at a low, precise temperature until just tender, held back from the main pot and folded in at the end so it keeps real shape rather than dissolving into the stew entirely.
3. Dehydrate a portion of the callaloo or spinach and grind it in a spice grinder into a fine, intensely green seasoning dust, finished over the plated dish for a concentrated note the long-cooked leaf in the stew itself cannot carry.