Doubles

Trinidad's street breakfast of two soft fried bara breads heaped with curried channa, finished with chadon beni sauce, tamarind sauce, and pepper

Origin: Princes Town & Trinidad

From the journey of Chickpea.

Doubles are credited to Emamool Deen and his wife Rasulan, who in 1936 were selling curried channa from a cart in Princes Town, in the south of Trinidad. The chickpeas were served on a single bara, a soft flatbread raised with yeast and turmeric and fried in a few seconds, and the story the family tells is that customers began asking him to double the bara, so that the channa could be eaten as a sandwich between two. The name followed. Princes Town has since honoured the Deen family formally for the invention, and the family business moved to San Juan in the 1950s, where it still trades. The dish is Indo-Trinidadian from end to end. Chickpeas and the spice box came with the indentured labourers who arrived from northern India from May 1845 onwards, and the curry is theirs: channa cooked soft with garlic, turmeric, and geera, roasted cumin. What makes it Trinidadian is what goes on top. The vendor spoons over tamarind sauce, a sweet mango or cucumber chutney, and chadon beni sauce, the thin green sauce of culantro and garlic, and asks how much pepper you want; the answer slight is a recognised measure. Doubles are eaten standing, at any hour, but above all in the morning and after a fête, wrapped in greaseproof paper and eaten out of the paper, and a queue at a good stand at seven in the morning is one of the ordinary sights of the island.

Ingredients

Bara

  • 300 g plain flour
  • 1 tsp fast-action dried yeast
  • 1 tsp caster sugar
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 0.5 tsp ground cumin
  • 0.5 tsp salt
  • 200 ml warm water
  • 1 l vegetable oil, for frying

Channa

  • 250 g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight, or two 400 g tins, drained
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tbsp Trinidad curry powder
  • 1 tsp geera (roasted ground cumin)
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 500 ml water

To Serve

  • 1 batch chadon beni sauce
  • 6 tbsp tamarind sauce
  • 1 scotch bonnet pepper sauce, to taste

Method

  1. Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, turmeric, cumin, and salt, then work in the warm water to a very soft, sticky dough. Cover and leave for 1 to 1.5 hours, until doubled.
  2. If using dried chickpeas, boil them in fresh water until completely tender, about an hour, and drain.
  3. Heat the oil, fry the onion and garlic for 3 minutes, then add the curry powder, geera, and turmeric with a splash of water and cook the paste for 2 minutes, until it darkens and smells toasted.
  4. Add the chickpeas, salt, and water and simmer for 25 minutes, crushing some of the chickpeas against the side of the pot, until the channa is soft and the gravy thick.
  5. With oiled hands, pinch off pieces of dough the size of a walnut and flatten each into a round about 10 cm across and very thin.
  6. Fry the bara one or two at a time in oil at 180°C for 10 to 15 seconds a side, until puffed and pale gold. Drain.
  7. To serve, lay two bara overlapping, spoon channa over them, and add chadon beni sauce, tamarind sauce, and pepper to taste. Fold and eat from the paper.

Notes

Tinned chickpeas make good channa if you simmer them for the full 25 minutes; they need that long to take the curry. A grated cucumber chutney and a sweet mango kuchela are the other standard toppings.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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