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Oil Down (Grenada National Dish)


Grenada's national dish is called "oil-down". It is a very simple, delicious and robust dish, which is extremely popular at local "cook-ups", (barbecue parties at the beach). It's a hearty one-pot meal of salted meat, chicken, dumplings, breadfruit, callaloo ((KAL-la-loo) - made from young dasheen leaves) and other vegetables. The whole thing is stewed in coconut milk, herbs and spices to add even more flavour

Ingredients

1 lb. salted meat (beef, pig snout, pig tails, etc, you can also use salted ham or salted cod fish)
1 medium onion
1 large green breadfruit (about 2 lb.)
8-10 dasheen Callaloo) leaves (you can use spinach if you cannot find callaloo)
1¼ cups ilk extracted from small dry coconut (coconut milk is available in the international isle of your supermarket)
1 sprig celery
2 sprigs thyme

Method

1. Wash salted meat, cut into small pieces. Put into heavy aluminium pot.

2.  Add sliced onion and chopped celery, and thyme. Mix.

3.  Wash and peel the skin of the breadfruit. Cut into 4-5 pegs. Remove centre     core.   Cut pegs in halves across.

4.  Arrange breadfruit pieces on the meat.

5.  Wash dasheen leaves (callaloo), peel stems, break stems into pieces, add to pot.

6.  Spread leaves open on the top of breadfruit putting the smaller leaves between
    larger ones.

7. Add coconut milk. Cover pot tightly, put on medium to slow fire. Cook till all     water is absorbed and food begins to fry .  Remove from fire.

8.  Open pot. Using a fork and spoon, roll up leaves into a ball-like mixture.

Serve on a warm dish.   Add the breadfruit pieces to the dish, then the meat. Complete the meal with avocado slices and a fresh fruit or milk drink.

Note: If you are using salted cod fish (salt fish) for this dish, boil salt fish first by it self to get rid of extra salt.

Recipe: www.bellaonline.org/articles/art8617.asp