Cook This: 3 Caribbean recipes from Belly Full, including pepper shrimp

Our cookbook of the week is Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes by Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based author Lesley Enston.

Jump to the recipes: stew peas, calabaza pancakes and pepper shrimp.

Toronto’s Jamaican and Trinidadian restaurants and roti shops were part of the fabric of Lesley Enston‘s childhood. She grew up with tables at family functions “laden with food” — from the callaloo she avoided to the stewed kingfish she craved — and visited Trinidad often. Her mother, Merle Enston, was born in Princes Town in the south of the island and was known by the family as a legendary cook.

“My mom loved food. She wasn’t a fancy chef or anything, but she just loved cooking. She loved cooking for us. She took a lot of care with it, and I loved being in the kitchen and watching her do it. She cooked very easily, and I just loved that. I loved being around it — and everybody loved her food,” says Enston, a Brooklyn-based author, recipe developer and food writer.

Enston’s parents instilled an appreciation of food from the beginning, though understanding the origins of the Caribbean dishes she enjoyed came later. Studying communications at Hunter College in New York City, she immersed herself in Caribbean history, soon realizing that the history and the cuisines are intertwined. It wasn’t until moving to England for two years in 2008 — making many dishes from scratch for the first time — that Enston began to see food as a career. The idea of writing a Caribbean cookbook came in 2013, and in 2021 — after years of cooking and researching — she wrote the proposal for her debut, Belly Full (Ten Speed Press, 2024).

Belly Full tells the story of Caribbean cuisine by exploring 11 ingredients shared throughout the region: beans, calabaza, cassava, chayote, coconut, cornmeal, okra, plantains, rice, salted cod and Scotch bonnet peppers. Drawing on common threads, Enston showcases the differences and similarities in the food cultures of the Caribbean islands. Initially, she intended to focus on Trinidad, but the more Enston researched, the more links she found. Writing a pan-Caribbean book allowed her to explore these connections.

“There’s a misconception that this is just simple peasant food. And it’s not even that it’s not or that there’s anything wrong with that. But there’s so much more history to these dishes than I think people know — and layers of reason as to why they are the way they are and how these things came to be.”

Despite the sizable communities in cities such as Toronto and Montreal and the many excellent restaurants and roti shops, there are few Caribbean cookbooks, and understanding of the nuances tends to be limited. “(People) are like, ‘Oh, there’s some stewed food.’ And you’re like, ‘Yeah, but that bowl represents the first fusion food to ever happen on the planet,’” says Enston. “Conveying that was really important. And also that our food is just as important as Italian food or French food, and just as, if not more, interesting.”

Learning more about the origins of these dishes has affected how Enston sees the food of the Caribbean. “I said to someone once, ‘I feel connected to my ancestors cooking these foods.’ I think that’s much more so now, knowing where they came from, what they are and the stories they tell.”

Take pholourie (split pea fritters), for instance, which indentured servants from India brought to Trinidad and Tobago, and bammy, cassava bread soaked in coconut milk, which came to be when the Maroons (formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants) adopted a flatbread made by the Indigenous Taíno peoples in Jamaica. Guyanese pepperpot is another example of this culinary exchange, “combining the Indigenous knowledge of the preservation qualities of cassareep with the African penchant for making wet stews.” Enston had never heard of or tried cassareep before writing Belly Full and was mystified by why it’s not more prevalent in the region. Understanding the history “has given more meaning to the food, which makes it taste different.”

One of Enston’s priorities with Belly Full was to focus on traditional recipes from as many countries as possible — including Cuba, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique and Saint Vincent — and to feature ingredients with diverse applications across the region. Another was to strike a balance between well-known dishes, such as jerk chicken, and unfamiliar ones. She recalls an elated comment from a Bajan on Instagram when they heard jug jug (pigeon pea mash) was one of the book’s more than 100 recipes. “I dug through a lot to even come up with that. People from Barbados all know what it is, but outside of Barbados, it’s not a really known dish. They just thought it was so cool that that was in there, and I love that. That’s what I wanted.”

Having gravitated toward Toronto’s Trinidadian and Jamaican communities in her youth and learning about Puerto Rican and Dominican cultures when she started visiting New York City in the ’90s, Enston benefited from an outsider’s eye when she researched other Caribbean cultures. Being objective can be harder when you’re on the inside, she says. “I had to check myself with certain Trinidadian dishes, like, ‘This is always how my mother made it, so that has to be it.’ But it doesn’t have to be how it is.” Coming at it from the outside allowed her to ask questions she may not have otherwise. “Why do you use this? And why don’t you use that? And have you ever tried it with this? And would this be OK?”

“I’m really happy to be able to represent this region to the world, and I want to see more and more and more cookbooks coming out. And I hope that through this book, in addition to learning about our food, people can understand that we’re not a monolith. All these islands are very different. They have different things, eat different foods and have different traditions. But we also have this shared culture, and I hope we can all just get along based on that,” says Enston, laughing.

Jamaica

Serves: 6 to 8

Beans: 1 lb (454 g) dried kidney beans or other red beans 6 cups (1.5 L) water 1 (13.5-oz/400-mL) can coconut milk 6 garlic cloves: 3 smashed and peeled, 3 minced 1 tsp (5 mL) allspice berries, crushed 1 yellow onion, diced 5 scallions, thinly sliced 2 tsp (10 mL) fresh thyme leaves 1 Scotch bonnet pepper 2 tsp (10 mL) kosher salt, plus more as needed

Spinners (optional): 1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp (2 mL) kosher salt 1/4 to 1/2 cup (60 to 125 mL) water

Cooked white rice, for serving (optional)

Make the beans: In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, combine the beans, water, coconut milk, smashed garlic cloves and the allspice berries and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer, undisturbed, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until the beans are nearly tender.

Add the minced garlic, the onion, scallions, thyme, Scotch bonnet and salt. Stir to combine, cover and simmer for 20 minutes more, until the stew begins to thicken.

Meanwhile, make the spinners, if desired: In a medium bowl, mix the flour and salt together. Add the water, 1 tablespoon (15 mL) at a time, mixing until a stiff dough forms. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Pinch off a scant tablespoon of dough and roll it between your hands, creating a cigar shape. Place the spinner on a plate, and repeat with the remaining dough.

Add the spinners to the pot with the beans and gently push them under the surface of the liquid. Cover the pot and cook for an additional 15 minutes to steam the spinners; cut one open to make sure it’s cooked through if you aren’t sure. Remove the pot from the heat.

Taste for salt (beans can handle a lot of seasoning, so you may want to add up to a full teaspoon more). Serve alone or over rice. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 4 months.

Calabaza Pancakes | Curaçao

Makes: about eight 4-inch (10-cm) pancakes

1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour 3 tbsp (45 mL) granulated sugar 2 tsp (10 mL) baking soda 1 tsp (5 mL) ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp (2 mL) freshly grated nutmeg 1/4 tsp (1 mL) kosher salt 2 eggs 1 cup (250 mL) Calabaza Puree (see recipe) 1/2 cup (125 mL) whole milk 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract 1/4 cup (60 mL) raisins (optional) Coconut oil, for the pan Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy. Add the calabaza puree, milk and vanilla and mix with a fork until fully blended, then whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined. Fold in the raisins, if using.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When the skillet is hot, drizzle it with a small amount of oil (I love coconut oil, but anything will do here), then ladle 1/4 cup (60 mL) of the batter onto the skillet for each pancake, forming a 4-inch (10-cm) round. If you pour it in slowly, close to the pan, the batter will round out on its own.

Cook on the first side for 3 to 5 minutes, until bubbles begin to form on the surface and you see the edges turning brown. Using a wide spatula, flip the pancake and cook on the second side for a few minutes, until golden brown. Repeat the process with the remaining batter.

Serve immediately, dusted with powdered sugar or another topping of your choice. You can also let the pancakes cool, then store them in an airtight container in the freezer for up to a month.

Makes: 2 cups (500 mL)

2 lb (907 g) calabaza or other winter squash of your choice, halved, seeded and peeled

Cut the calabaza into roughly 2-inch (5-cm) cubes (you should have about 3 cups/750 mL). In a saucepan large enough to fit the cubes in no more than two layers, combine the squash and enough water to barely cover it. Cover and cook over medium-high heat until the squash is very tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Drain and let it cool a bit.

You can either mash the squash with a fork or a potato masher, or, for a smoother texture, you can process it in a food processor or blender. The puree will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for about 3 months.

Spicy Whole Shrimp | Jamaica

Serves: 4

1 lb (454 g) head-on, shell-on large shrimp 1/2 small yellow onion, minced 2 Scotch bonnet peppers, minced 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 tbsp (15 mL) crushed allspice berries 2 tsp (10 mL) fresh thyme leaves, minced 2 scallions, thinly sliced 2 tsp (10 mL) annatto powder (optional) 2 tsp (10 mL) kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 1 tbsp (15 mL) coconut oil 1/4 cup (60 mL) water 2 tbsp (30 mL) distilled white vinegar

In a medium bowl, mix the shrimp with the onion, Scotch bonnet, garlic, allspice, thyme, scallions, annatto powder (if using), salt and black pepper to taste. Set aside in the fridge for an hour.

In a wide skillet with a lid, heat the coconut oil over medium heat. Add the shrimp in one layer, with all the marinade, and add the water and the vinegar. Cover and cook until the shrimp are pink on the bottom, about 4 minutes. Flip each shrimp, cover the skillet, and cook for 4 minutes on the second side. Transfer the shrimp to a serving bowl, discarding any liquid in the pan. The shrimp can be served warm or at room temperature. Be sure to warn anyone eating them that these shrimp will make your fingers burn a little and your mouth a lot.

Recipes and images reprinted with permission from Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes by Lesley Enston ©2024. Photographs copyright ©2024 by Marc Baptiste. Cover illustration copyright ©2024 by Nicholas Huggins. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

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