Tips on Cooking Caribbean Inspired Vegetarian Dishes

You can easily transport yourself to the Caribbean in the comfort of your own home by using their tropical flavors in your vegetarian cuisine. The vegetarian recipes from the Caribbean include a multitude of exotic fruits and vegetables including papayas, mango, plantains andy chayote plus many more with equally vivid flavors and colors. Papayas are a sweet fruit that will bring island flavor to dips, dressings and vinaigrettes. Mangoes can be very versatile in salsas, salads, stir-fries, desserts, chutneys and frozen beverages. Plantains are shaped like large bananas and are roasted or sauteed, then added to soups and stews.

Chayote is a pear-shaped, firm squash the is pureed and made into soups, stews, cakes and breads.Caribbean vegetarian dishes also contain spicy peppers like the Scotch bonnet or habanero. Both of these fiery peppers inspire a wide variety of hot sauces and salsas. The are also many vegetarian recipes from the Caribbean that can act as comfort foods. One is the Sancocho, a spicy one-pot stew of hearty vegetables, herbs and plantains. Then there is Jamaican Cook-Up Rise, a aromatic side dish of coconut-scented pilaf. For desert you can enjoy Jamaican Rum Cake which is a thick, moist cake full of dried fruits and islands spices plus, of course, rum.

Spinach, called Bhaaji on the islands, is a stable leafy vegetable. It is steamed or used to make delicacies such as Sahina. Also eggplant, called melongene, is stuffed and baked, as well as curried or added to a stir-fry mix with other vegetables. Also popular for stir-fries are ochroes. Potatoes are another staple of the islands. They have a wide variety of uses in vegetarian recipes from the Caribbean. Called Aloo Choka on the islands, they can be stuffed to make appetizers called Aloo Pies. The Caribbean has many starchy root vegetables and tubers for vegetarian recipes. These include eddoes, cassava, dasheen and plantains. They are also called provisions and are used to soak up sauces.

They are also used in place of noodles or rice. These provisions are the bedrock of many vegetarian recipes from the Caribbean that include ackee, ochroes and salt fish. Salt fish in one of the many contributions made by the slave who were brought to the islands from Africa. Yucaa or manioc, also known as cassava, is the most popular root vegetable on the islands. It is used in Caribbean vegetarian dished in a variety of fashions including boiling, baking and frying. It can also be used to make breads, casareep, and tapioca. Casareep is a sweet but bitter syrup that is a classic sauce used to make a classic Caribbean vegetarian dish called Guyanese Pepperpot.

Would you like to learn to cook like a chef from the Caribbean? Let Chris De La Rosa guide you through some of the most tasty traditional and modern Caribbean recipes that's uniquely West Indian. We'll explore several cooking techniques that's used on the different islands that make up the Caribbean. Such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Cuba, Antigua and Grenada. This is all done via step by step recipes, pictures and videos which can be found in Caribbean Cookbooks Jerk is NOT the only food that comes out of the Caribbean.