Pineapple Chow
Pineapple Chow
Chow is a Trinidad and Tobago fruit preparation which is savoury and spicy. Traditionally fruit like mango/ pineapple / cucumber is seasoned with salt, black pepper, hot pepper, garlic and culantro is eaten as a snack.
I know there will be some eye rolls with this recipe because every Trinbagonian reading this will say , " Chow recipe? Wha? Just throw everything in a bowl with enough garlic, shadow Beni, salt and hot pepper , what more ?" Which is true but what if someone asked you for measurements ? How much garlic? Salt? Pepper? How much fruit? Which fruit? I made chow when I had some folks over and was asked for a recipe so I broke it down in the following recipe. As always, feel free to make this recipe your own and season/flavour it the way you like to eat. I love riper fruits for chow because I like it a bit sweeter, my husband prefers half-ripe and he also adds a splash of vinegar.
Tip:
Use hot peppers that contrast in colour to your fruit e.g. use red or green peppers with pineapple versus yellow. This way you can identify the pieces of pepper and choose if you want to eat them :)
Ingredients:
2 cups fruit cut into bite sized pieces
5 leaves of culantro minced
3 cloves of garlic finely minced
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 chili peppers or 1 scotch bonnet
Preparation:
Place all ingredients into a bowl and thoroughly mix together.
Random side note: a critical component to this dish is culantro which is native to Mexico. It is found in Caribbean, Latin and Vietnamese cooking. In Mexican, Latin and Puerto Rican dishes it can be called Mexican Long Coriander, Recao or Culantro and used as a flavouring base for beans, stews and soups. In Trinidad and Tobago it is generally referred to as Chandon Beni, Shadow Beni or Bandanya and found in curries, chow, barbecue…let's just say it’s a fundamental ingredient in everything. In Vietnamese cooking it called Ngo Gai and used to make soups, stews and even garnishes for salads and pho.