Are you nuts for Coconuts? Countdown to Vegan in the Sun – THIS SITE HAS MOVED

THIS SITE HAS MOVED TO WWW.ISLANDLOVEGOURMET.COM

 

 

I had to take time out the weekend to keep the blog going because many of you were checking back during the week. I have been tied down in my kitchen for over 8 hours a day and I have been dealing with my testers who are a great bunch so I have not had time to focus on this blog. From now on I will be blogging weekly or fortnightly to give you updates and sneak peaks for the book Vegan in the Sun. Note that none of the shots on the blog will be used in the book so expect something a little different in the book.

I wouldn’t say I am nuts for coconuts but I really like them. I am from the Caribbean but throwing coconut in a dish at random is not my thing. I like tried and tested recipes that really show off the coconut and not make it feel like some random addition.

For the first dish I contacted my friend Felix at Simply Trini Cooking for some guidance. It is a coconut chutney that is made in Trinidad and served on rice dishes and doubles. My friends from Trinidad kept telling me I had to put this recipe in the book but I never tasted it before and I did not want to take the risk. Coconut chutney is made from roasted coconut which you can do in your own kitchen without causing any annoyance to the neighbours. I peeled the hard skin from my coconut and I used a tongs and I roasted it on an open flame so it could looked like this.

The end result of the chutney is a very spicy flavourful sauce with a smoky coconut taste. Only for adventurous eaters!! I took out some of the liquid so that the chutney could photograph better but the chutney is  very liquid. Thank you Felix I made some changes to the recipe but you will always be my go to for OK -ing Trini food.

Coconut Chutney

The next dish is a coconut flan set with agar agar and garnished with grilled rummy pineapple. I love this flan and I will start to cook with agar agar more in the future.

Coconut Flan

This next one was created by mistake and it is a baked coconut flan in homemade short crust pastry with a delicate texture and complex taste in the middle.

Coconut Flan Tart

Finally, Barbadian Coconut Sorbet Blocks. These are colourful blocks of spiced sweet coconut milk frozen and served. The kids really love them and so do I. I tried dyeing  with turmeric and beet. The beet was not set yet so I had to show the  blocks that were set.

Coconut Sorbet Blocks

ALL of these recipes would be in Vegan in the Sun out later this year.

So now tell me are you nuts for coconuts?