The Caribbean · Volume 15, Salt, Spice and the Limestone Coast
Pudding and Souse
Barbados
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Not statedNo source states a time and the atlas has too few comparable dishes to estimate one.
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Pudding and Souse
Barbados's traditional Saturday dish
Ingredients
- 2, split lengthwise and cut into 1½ inch pieces pig trotters
- cut into bite sized pieces, to make up around 2 lb combined with the trotters, snout and tongue pig ear
- cut into bite sized pieces, to make up around 2 lb combined with the trotters, ear and tongue pig snout
- cut into bite sized pieces, to make up around 2 lb combined with the trotters, ear and snout pig tongue
- juice of 3 limes lime juice
- as available vinegar
- 1½ to 2, peeled and grated or cubed cucumber
- 1 to 2, diced or sliced into thin crescents onion
- 1 scotch bonnet or chilli, finely diced hot pepper
- 1½ lb, peeled and grated sweet potato
- as available cleaned pig intestine, for casing the pudding
Method
- Boil the pig trotters, ear, snout and tongue.
- Dress in a sharp lime and vinegar pickle with cucumber, onion and hot pepper. Enslaved cooks originally made the souse liquor with the animal's own blood, a practice that fell away over time.
- Separately, steam seasoned sweet potato, traditionally cased in cleaned pig intestine, to make the pudding.
Notes
No in-tradition source with exact quantities or timings for this dish was found in the research behind this chapter; that gap is stated here rather than filled with an invented figure.
What a modern chef changes
Confit Trotter, Piped Purée
Method
- Confit the pig trotters and ear sous vide at a low, precise temperature for several hours before the traditional pickle, for a fully tender result the boiled method can only approximate.
- Finish the skin hard and fast under a Big Green Egg's direct heat for genuine crackling, rather than the soft-skinned result simmering alone produces.
- Dehydrate a portion of the pickling cucumber and rehydrate it in the finished pickle liquor for a more concentrated pickle flavour without diluting the dish further.
- Pipe the pudding mixture into its casing using a chinois-passed, perfectly smooth sweet potato purée rather than a hand-mashed one, for a cleaner set once steamed.