Guyanese food is a mix of Caribbean, British, Indian, and indigenous influences.\u00a0 A strong contender for the national dish is a stew called “pepperpot,” which is based on a difficult to source sauce called “Cassareep.”\u00a0 Fortunately,\u00a0 Saf, my Guyanese coworker, was able to provide us with a bottle.<\/p>\n
As indicated in the picture, cassareep is made from Cassava root.\u00a0 It is dark brown in color, and simultaneously sweet and bitter.\u00a0 If only we had some sort of word that combined sweet and bitter.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n Pepperpot is a stew that can be made with whatever meat you have available.\u00a0 We chose beef, as our guests keep halal, and headed back to the same butcher where I got the lamb last week.\u00a0 You first steam the beef to make it easy to remove the fat, then it goes into a pot with the cassareep.<\/p>\n In addition, you also add cinnamon, orange peel, cloves, brown sugar, salt, and wiri wiri peppers.<\/p>\n Wait, WHAT was the last?\u00a0 Not to be confused with piri piri peppers, which we had to hunt down for Benin, these are small, not dried, and\u00a0incredibly\u00a0<\/em>fragrant.\u00a0 These were also provided by Saf. Seriously, this meal wouldn’t have been possible without her generous contributions. You’ll see a picture of one of these things a bit later on.<\/p>\n Ingredients added, the stew just stews for as long as you can possibly let it.\u00a0 We went for about three hours.<\/p>\n Trust us, there’s beef in there.\u00a0 After three hours of cooking, it had reduced to the point where you no longer have to trust us.<\/p>\n The traditional accompaniment to pepperpot is a plaited, soft bread.\u00a0 Never having made plaited bread before, our effort was… a bit of a chonky boi, compared to the longer, thinner shapes you see online.<\/p>\n For our other side dish, we made a channa fry. First, you boil some chickpeas, hopefully after remembering to soak them first, but if not, a pressure cooker is your best friend.\u00a0 Then you fry them with this nice pile of stuff.\u00a0 Upper right is the aforementioned wiri wiri pepper.<\/p>\n Also visible are toasted cumin seed, garlic, onion, paprika, black pepper, and salt.\u00a0 Fried up together, you get a delicious, spicy dish.<\/p>\n For OUR final contribution, we also made limewash, which is perhaps an unsettling name, but is essentially just limeade with a little added seasoning, either “mixed essence”, which we didn’t have, or vanilla, which we did.\u00a0 And we used fresh limes.<\/p>\n So. many. limes.<\/p>\n To finish the meal, Saf brought dessert – a delicious confection made from evaporated and condensed milks, agar-agar, and a little bit of food coloring.<\/p>\n And here’s the final meal!\u00a0 (We forgot to take a picture before we ate, so this is a slightly staged photo taken after dinner.)<\/p>\n First off, I’d like to add a confirmation that we rarely get with these meals – we actually seem to have done this one correctly.<\/em> Saf confirmed that the pepperpot, channa, and limewash were all more or less bang on.\u00a0 The bread was a bit dense, but still great for soaking up the sauce with.<\/p>\n So given that we got it RIGHT, how does it taste?\u00a0 Delicious!\u00a0 The sauce on the pepperpot is like really nothing else we’ve had so far on this project.\u00a0 It’s an umami bomb, but also quite sweet and thick. Definitely perfect for soaking up with bread.\u00a0 The channa was quite spicy, thanks to the peppers, and was a great compliment to the sweetness of the stew.\u00a0 Vanilla makes a great addition to limeaid, which I will have to remember in the future, and the dessert made for a nice refreshing finish to the meal.<\/p>\n All in all, Guyana was DEFINITELY worth waiting for, and we’re very grateful to Saf and her friend for joining us, and for making the meal even possible in the first place!<\/p>\n Next up, we return to your regularly scheduled alphabetical order with Iraq, unless we decide to wander off and do the Marshall Islands or something else inexplicable like that…<\/p>\n Recipes: Since we did Iran last week, next up in alphabetical order is (checks notes) Guyana!\u00a0 Wait, hang on.\u00a0 Oh right, we’ve had a pin stuck in Guyana for over a year, because I have a coworker from there, and we … Continue reading ![\"Cassareep](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/20221203_152428.jpg\")
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\nIt was also a bit denser than it should have been, which is probably down to underkneading.\u00a0 Seems it takes more than just WATCHING a million episodes of “Great British Bakeoff” to make one an accomplished baker.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nPepperpot<\/a>
\nGuyanese boil & fry channa<\/a>
\nGuyanese plait bread<\/a>
\nLimewash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"