Oil Down

Name: Oil Down
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 8
Cuisine: St George's & Grenada
Ingredients: 400 g salt beef or salt pork, soaked overnight; 300 g smoked herring or salt fish, soaked; 400 g chicken thighs, in pieces; 1 large breadfruit, peeled, cored and in thick wedges; 3 green bananas, peeled and halved; 400 g dasheen or sweet potato, in chunks; 300 g callaloo or spinach leaves, shredded; 200 g plain flour; 0.5 tsp salt; 120 ml water; 1 litre coconut milk; 2 onions, sliced; 8 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 tbsp ground turmeric; 6 sprigs thyme; 4 spring onions, chopped; 1 whole scotch bonnet, left unbroken; 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper; 1 salt, to taste

Grenada's national one-pot: breadfruit, salted meat, callaloo and dumplings cooked down in coconut milk and turmeric until the oil separates

Origin: St George's & Grenada

From the journey of Coconut.

Oil down is named for what happens at the end of the cooking. Coconut milk is poured over a packed pot of breadfruit, salted meat, callaloo, and dumplings, and everything simmers until the liquid has been absorbed and the coconut oil separates out and settles in the bottom of the pot, oiling down. The dish is finished at exactly that moment, and a cook who leaves it longer will scorch it. It is Grenada's national dish and it is cooked communally, in a very large pot, often outdoors over a wood fire, at beach limes and at village events. The composition is not fixed and reflects what a household has: salt beef or salt pork, smoked herring, chicken, breadfruit, green banana, dasheen, callaloo leaves, and flour dumplings all appear, and the turmeric that colours it yellow is called saffron across the Eastern Caribbean, which confuses visitors. The callaloo here is the leaf of the dasheen, which is taro, and the distinction matters across the region: Jamaican callaloo is amaranth, Trinidadian and Grenadian callaloo is taro leaf, and the two are different plants used in different ways. Taro leaf contains calcium oxalate crystals and must be cooked thoroughly, which the long simmer takes care of. Breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis, was brought to the Eastern Caribbean deliberately as a cheap starch to feed enslaved plantation workers. Captain Bligh's first attempt in 1789 ended in the mutiny on the Bounty; his second voyage succeeded, and breadfruit reached St Vincent and Jamaica in 1793. The story is genuine and is the reason a Pacific tree is the foundation of a Grenadian national dish.

Ingredients

Meat

400 g salt beef or salt pork, soaked overnight
300 g smoked herring or salt fish, soaked
400 g chicken thighs, in pieces

Starch

1 large breadfruit, peeled, cored and in thick wedges
3 green bananas, peeled and halved
400 g dasheen or sweet potato, in chunks

Greens

300 g callaloo or spinach leaves, shredded

Dumplings

200 g plain flour
0.5 tsp salt
120 ml water

Liquid

1 litre coconut milk

Aromatics

2 onions, sliced
8 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp ground turmeric
6 sprigs thyme
4 spring onions, chopped
1 whole scotch bonnet, left unbroken

Seasoning

1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 salt, to taste

Method

Soak the salt beef overnight in several changes of water, then boil it for ten minutes and drain. Soak and flake the smoked herring.
Change the water on the salted meat several times. Everything else in this pot is mild and there is nothing to absorb an over-salted broth.
Make the dumplings by working the flour, salt, and water into a stiff dough and rolling it into small torpedoes.
Layer the pot: onions, garlic, thyme, and spring onions on the base, then the meats, then the breadfruit, green banana, and dasheen.
Tuck the dumplings between the pieces and lay the callaloo over the top, then the whole scotch bonnet.
Whisk the turmeric and black pepper into the coconut milk and pour it over. It should come about two thirds of the way up and no further.
Do not cover the contents with liquid. The whole point is that the coconut milk is absorbed rather than boiled, and a flooded pot gives a soup.
Cover tightly and cook over a medium heat for forty-five minutes without stirring.
Check that the breadfruit is tender, then uncover and cook for a further fifteen to twenty minutes.
Watch it from this point. It is finished the moment the liquid has gone and clear coconut oil appears in the bottom of the pot, and a few minutes past that it catches and burns.
Lift out the scotch bonnet, taste for salt, and stir everything together gently just once.
Serve straight from the pot, making sure each plate gets breadfruit, meat, greens, and a dumpling.

Notes

Soak the salted meat properly. Layer the pot and leave it alone. Two thirds of the way up with the coconut milk, no more. Watch the last twenty minutes closely: the oil separating out is the signal to stop and it goes from perfect to burnt quickly. Turmeric is called saffron across the Eastern Caribbean and is what colours the pot. The scotch bonnet goes in whole. Where breadfruit is unavailable, green banana, cassava, and potato will fill the pot, though Grenadians would not call the result oil down.

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control