Home-made pholourie

Home-made pholourie with tamarind sauce | H is for Home

When I published my recent post on Trinidad street food, the eagle-eyed ones of you would have noticed a glaring omission to the round up. Pholourie – fried balls made from spiced flour and served with either a mango or tamarind sauce.

For some reason, every Indian food stall I visited while I was in Trinidad either didn’t sell or had run out of the delicious snack. Now that I’m back in the UK, I’ve cooked my own home-made pholourie. I used the recipe from my Trini food bible, The Multi-Cultural Cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago and the Caribbean: Naparima Girls’ High School Cookbook. I converted all the measurements from cups to metric and imperial as well as scaled it down so that the portions were right for two people. It made around 20 small balls. It would be simple enough to scale it back up again if needed.

Making split pea flour using an electric spice grinder | H is for Home

Where I live, it’s not easy to get hold of split pea flour without buying it off the internet, so I made my own. I have a little processor that’s for grinding spices so I used it to powder some dried split peas. It worked surprisingly well – I just sieved out the few residual lumps.

Pholourie ingredients in a clear glass bowl | H is for Home Wet pholourie mixture | H is for Home

Simply combine all the ingredients (except the water) into a large bowl, make a well in the centre, pour in the water, whisk and spoon teaspoonfuls into pre-heated oil. A useful tip: dip two teaspoons into the cooking oil before you heat it. Use these to drop the batter into the pan – it will just slip right off!

Frying pholourie in a small wok | H is for Home Removing excess oil from the cooked pholourie on kitchen paper | H is for Home

I looked for tamarind concentrate in the supermarket to make a sauce to accompany my home-made pholourie. Instead, I came across a bottle of imli pani, which I’d never heard of previously. Apparently, it’s served alongside panipuri.

Plate of pholourie with tamarind sauce | H is for Home

The imli pani ingredient list includes tamarind, sugar, cayenne, salt, chilli, mint, cumin coriander, mixed spices and black pepper. Not a million miles from a Trini ‘tambran’ sauce!

Plate of pholourie with a small bowl of imli pani | H is for Home

My pholourie was delicious – crisp on the outside, soft and spongy on the inside, with a lovely flavour. If I’d known how quick and easy they were to make… I might have set myself up with a street food stall – I’d clean up!

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Home-made pholourie with tamarind sauce | H is for Home

Home-made pholourie with tamarind sauce | H is for Home

Home-made pholourie

The multi-cultural cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago and the Caribbean: Naparima Girls' High School cookbook
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Course Snack
Cuisine Trinidadian
Servings 2 people

Ingredients
  

  • 250 ml/8¾fl oz vegetable oil for frying
  • 85 g/3oz split pea flour
  • 80 g/2¾oz plain flour
  • 1⅓ tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp turmeric
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp pepper sauce
  • 1 clove garlic finely chopped
  • 125 ml/4½ fl oz water

Instructions
 

  • Fill a deep, heavy-bottomed pan with vegetable oil up to at least the 8cm / 3" mark
  • Dip two teaspoons into the oil and set them aside to use later
  • Preheat the pan of oil over a medium flame
  • In a large mixing bowl, combine the split pea flour, plain flour, baking powder, turmeric, salt, pepper sauce and garlic
  • Make a well in the centre and add the water
  • Whisk together to form a thick batter
  • Using the pair of oiled teaspoons, carefully drop a teaspoon of batter at a time into the hot oil. The size of my pan meant I could fit about 6 pholourie at a time
  • When the pholourie begin to float (less than a minute), turn them over using a metal skimmer or slotted spoon so they cook evenly
  • Remove from the pan onto some kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil
  • Repeat until all the batter has been used
  • Eat immediately
pholourie ingredients
Serve with tamarind sauce or pepper mango chutney on the side
Keyword Indian food, street food

Etsy List: Caribbean Cuisine

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'Caribbean Cuisine' Etsy List curated by H is for Home

Much as I love Chinese, Indian, Thai and Italian food, the one closest to my heart is Caribbean cuisine. The sight & smell of it bring back such sweet memories – pastelles, sorrel and black cake at Christmas; ripe, pungent mangoes in the summer; pelau, callaloo and macaroni pie on a Sunday; roti, buss-up-shot, pholourie and doubles were my kind of fast food… I could go on and one!

It’s Caribbean Food Week next week, so of course I’ll have to rustle something up in celebration.

Caribbean Cuisine
Curated by H is for Home

Caribbean hot pepper sauce

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Jar of Caribbean hot pepper sauce with teaspoonful on a work surface | @hisforhome

Do you have the constitution that can handle Caribbean hot pepper sauce? I certainly haven’t!

Caribbean hot pepper sauce ingredients | @hisforhome

When I was growing up in Trinidad, my dad added a dollop on his plate with almost every meal. It’s like the tomato ketchup of the Caribbean! It’s a de rigueur accompaniment with most (West Indian) Indian dishes such as roti, buss up shut, doubles and pholourie as well as pelau (Google for the recipes!) and fried chicken (see Royal Castle below).

Caribbean hot pepper sauce ingredients in mini food processor | @hisforhome

I saw a couple of bags of Scotch bonnet peppers on the discount table in Morrisons – 19p per bag, with 3 or 4 to a bag. I can’t resist a bargain and this type of chilli isn’t always available.

Caribbean hot pepper sauce being decanted into jars | @hisforhome

Even though I’m a lightweight and don’t much like pepper sauce, Justin has acquired the taste. My sister even brought a bottle of the famous Royal Castle hot sauce back for him on her last trip back.

Jar of Caribbean hot pepper sauce | @hisforhome

It takes a mere 5 minutes to make, but leave it in its jar for at least a week before you use it to allow the flavours to infuse and develop. But beware, it’s VERY hot so you only need the tiniest amount to get a massive kick!

Caribbean hot pepper sauce

The multi-cultural cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago and the Caribbean: Naparima Girls' High School cookbook
Prep Time 5 minutes
Total Time 5 minutes
Course Condiment
Cuisine Caribbean
Servings 2 small jars

Ingredients
  

Instructions
 

  • Remove only the stalks from the peppers
  • Put all the ingredients into a mini food processor and pulse for about 10 seconds
  • Decant into small, sterilised glass jars
  • That's it!
Caribbean hot pepper sauce ingredients
Keyword chilli, chilli sauce, pepper sauce, sauce

Cakes & Bakes: Paratha

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Paratha with curry & rice | H is for Home #recipe #paratha #flatbread

When we order an Indian takeaway we always include a portion of breads to go with our curries. Our favourite is paratha – an unleavened, fried flatbread made with wholemeal flour. The name originates from the words ‘parat’ and ‘atta’ which means layers of cooked dough.

They can sometimes be made stuffed with vegetables, paneer or potatoes (aloo). We prefer them plain – and this time I’ve made half the batch studded with pan fried cumin seeds (geera).

Traditionally they’re cooked on a tawa but a large, cast iron frying pan will do. If you don’t want to eat all the parathas in one go, you can prepare the dough up to stage 10 and freeze the extra. Just place each circle between 2 pieces of parchment paper, stack them one on top of the other, wrap in cling film or zip-lock bag and store flat.

Paratha

Ingredients
  

  • 450 g plain flour I used an equal amount of chapatti flour + a little extra for dusting
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 350 ml water approx
  • 45 g ghee clarified butter or vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds geera
  • 55 g vegetable oil for brushing
  •  
  •  

Instructions
 

  • Sift together the flour, baking powder & salt
  • Add enough of the water to form a smooth, soft dough
  • Knead well and leave to relax for ½ hour covered with a damp cloth
  • In a small frying pan over a medium heat, dry fry the cumin seeds for about 3 minutes, shaking continuously to stop burning. Set aside
  • After the dough has relaxed, re-knead and divide into four balls (loyah)
  • Flour surface and roll out each dough ball into 20-23cm/8-9inch circle
  • Sprinkle half the dough with the cumin seeds
  • Spread with some ghee and sprinkle with a little flour
  • Cut rolled dough circles from centre to edge. Roll each tightly into a cone. Press the peak of the cone into the centre and flatten. Leave to rest for 30 minutes
  • Flour the surface again and roll out the dough very thinly with a rolling pin
  • Cook on a moderately hot, greased tawa/frying pan for 1 minute
  • Turn over, brush with ghee/oil and cook for another minute
  • As each one is cooked, stack on top of each other, wrap them in a clean tea towel and move on to the next
  • Eat immediately