Heri heri

As tradition built it

Heri heri

Served free on 1 July, Keti Koti, emancipation day, in both Suriname and the Netherlands

Ingredients

• 2 cassava, or napi
• 2 sweet potato
• 1 green plantain
• 1 ripe plantain
• 500g salt cod
• as needed, optional egg, boiled, optional
• 1 onion, sautéed
• 1, fresh green pepper pepper
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tomato, diced

Method

1. Boil the salt cod (500g) 15 to 20 minutes until it breaks apart, then skin, debone and rinse briefly but not over-rinse, so some of its salt remains.
2. Stew the salt cod with sautéed onion, pepper and garlic and diced tomato, covered, around 30 minutes.
3. Peel and boil the root vegetables, cassava or napi and sweet potato, separately, around 25 minutes.
4. Keep the green plantain in its own cooking water until the point of serving, so it does not toughen.
5. Serve together, with an optional boiled egg.

Notes

The name is said to mean "to heal."

What a modern chef changes

Sous vide salt cod and egg, dehydrated roots

Method

1. Poach the salt cod sous vide at a low, controlled temperature after its initial desalting boil, for a moister, more evenly flaked result than a rolling boil alone gives, then flake it through the tomato stew only at the very end.
2. Dehydrate a portion of the sweet potato and cassava separately, then rehydrate briefly in the salt cod's own cooking liquor for a genuinely more concentrated root-vegetable flavour, a real elevation of a dish whose whole original point was frugality with what a garden plot actually produced.
3. Serve the boiled egg soft, cooked sous vide to a still-liquid yolk, a small, honest departure from the traditional hard-boiled egg that changes the dish's richness without changing what it is.