When you are cooking Caribbean cuisine it is essential that fresh ingredients are used every time. Some spices, of course, will come dried and prepackaged, such as curry, geera, essences, salts, and oils to name a few. The main ingredients in Caribbean foods must be fresh to truly get the essence of the Caribbean recipes. All the fresh ingredients come with their own unique flavor and gives the Caribbean recipes their distinct taste. These fresh ingredients will include vegetables, seasonings, meats, fish and other ground provisions. They all must be harvested freshly to get the best flavor.
By skillfully blending these fresh ingredients together, and allowing them to naturally compliment one another, you can make authentic island foods. These skills are something that have been past down from generation to generation among those on the Caribbean Islands, but you can achieve it in part if you follow the rule of always using fresh ingredients. Most larger cities will have these items at your grocery store or specialty food store. Caribbean cuisine is going to vary. Depending on which island you’re on, you can taste the different a different culture’s influence on the Caribbean foods including Indian, Spanish, Dutch, British, African and French.
This is what makes Caribbean foods so well known all around the world for there masterful blend of spices and flavors. While the basics of Caribbean recipes are founded in the other cultures, the spices and produce come from the islands themselves. This is because once they arrived on the islands, the different cultures adapted their recipes to fit what the island had to offer in the way of meat, seafood and produce. Their ability to adapt is what has lead to the unbelievable popularity that Caribbean cuisine enjoys.
The Arawaks (the indigenous people of the islands) consummated the blend of cooking methods that are still some of the most popular methods for cooking in the entire world. The Arawak Indians devised a grate made of greenwood strips to cook the meat over a bed of coals. This allowed the meat and fish to absorbed as much of the coals smoky flavor as possible. Since they began this practice, the Caribbean Islands have been a mecca of influences from many cultures. Once you get the hand of making Caribbean foods for yourself at home, you will be shocked at how easy it is to make the exotic West Indian recipes that your entire family will love to eat.
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 at his blog Caribbean Recipes
