CARIBBEAN PARTY ON OUR TERRACE + RECIPES

I invite you today to a Caribbean party. We'll make truly Creole food and drinks that smell like the island I've lived on for almost half a year. I miss the climate of Guadeloupe lately so much that I dream about the nights. I remember the incredible color of the water, all those mornings, afternoons on the beach and evenings on the terrace among banana trees. Big and completely harmless iguanas, who walked around our garden unwaveringly.

This looseness of spending time in only one dress, a tan, coconut palm trees high as skyscrapers, music that was played at the neighbor's office from the very morning, morning shopping at the market and heavy grids from juicy passion fruit and pineapples and all those intense smells of sea, spices, juice from sugar cane and rum. She really wanted to go back there for a few days.
On my blog you will find a story about Guadeloupe. Why we got there, how we spent our time, what our life on the island looked like. Search in the ' travel ' tab and search for 'Guadeloupe' and 'Caribbean'

In the meantime, today I will show you a bit of the Caribbean. We will make stewed chicken in a rum-based sauce, shrimps and mango skewers, and two of my beloved Guadeloupe drinks that are made at home in summer and taste the same as those in Guadeloupe.

Let this hot summer we have in Poland will be a sufficient reason to leave the house and enjoy the time outdoors. There will be no better time for a picnic, for dinners eaten on the terrace or balcony.
Especially since organizing such a pleasant time does not require much effort. Little work - a spectacular effect and unforgettable moments - sounds good?

Let's go back to the story of the Caribbean island, because that's where I want to take you today using my recipes. Let's start with just eating, and when everything is ready we will make two simple drinks. Decide for yourself which one you will like more.

Food in Guadeloupe didn't knock me down when I lived on the island. I wrote about it in this post  At the end of my stay, I started looking for Creole recipes and translating them from French to Polish. Then I went to the market to find all the ingredients I needed and started to conjure up Guadeloupe cuisine. In this way, a very good "Colombo poulet"  which is our aromatic, stewed chicken in curry sauce and "acras de crevettes"  i.e. shrimp bites in a dough, ideal for beer. It turned out that food in Guadeloupe can be delicious, provided that we cook at home, and do not eat in restaurants.
Creole cuisine is intense flavors and lots of spices that make the whole island smell. Cloves, allspice, ginger, curry, cinnamon, lime and coconuts.
In the book, which I got from the owners of the apartment that we rented on the island, the most often repeated recipes are long stewed meats and seafood in a thick, aromatic sauce served with rice.
My recipe today comes from this little booklet, and its sauce is based on rum. Rum and cane sugar in Guadeloupe will definitely never run out of 
Ania, pineapples, coconuts, mangoes, passion fruit, guavas and bananas.

 
KREOLSKA CHICKEN STRAWBERRY (for 6 hungry people)
The secret is long marinated meat and a bouquet of aromatic spices. I chose this recipe so that you can easily find all the ingredients in the store.

Ingredients:
1.5 kg of chicken meat (thighs, breasts, wings)
2 limes
2 cloves of garlic a
few sprigs of fresh thyme or a tablespoon of dried
bunch of chives
2 spicy red peppers
½ cup flour
25 g butter
oil (can be coconut)
1 tablespoon curry
1 teaspoon spices garam masala (optional) a
glass of rum
salt, pepper

The basis is marinade! Put chicken pieces in a large bowl. Add the juice of two limes, squeezed through the garlic cloves, finely chopped chives and thyme leaves, 4 tablespoons of oil and finely chopped chillies. Mix everything very thoroughly so that the chicken is completely covered with the aromatic marinade and put it in the fridge. Preferably for the whole night, but 2 hours is also enough
After this time, in a large pot (such that all the meat will fit) warm up a few spoons of oil and melt the butter in it. Put the meat with all the marinade and mix well. Fry and stir every now and then (about 5 minutes). After this time, mix the flour with water in a bowl and add to the boiling meat. Pour a glass of rum, two glasses of water, curry and garam masala and mix the whole. A thick sauce should form and in this sauce the meat should stew for about 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper if needed.
Serve with rice, sprinkled with an additional chilli pepper (if you like spicy flavors) and chives.

Shrimps and mango skewers

Both shrimp and mango are something we ate in bulk in Guadeloupe. Mostly in the form of curry, but this time I have something extra for you. Something that makes an ideal rum-based drink appetizer. Shish kebabs with sweet and spicy aroma with fresh mango perfectly breaking the taste of sweet drinks and shrimps. Perfect composition and express recipe.

Ingredients:

a pack of large shrimps (I buy about 450 g of frozen packets, but if you have access to good and fresh ones - great!)
large mango (ripe, but easily diced) a
bunch of coriander
chilli peppers
½ cans coconut milk
lime
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 tablespoon cane sugar

Here, too, the marinade is the basis, so let's get to work. Place a bunch of coriander in a blender cup (leave some sprigs to sprinkle; if you don't like coriander, try parsley), coconut milk, coconut oil, lime peel, whole lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, garlic squeezed, cut finely chillies and mix everything. Immerse the shrimp previously peeled from the shells, tails, without the legs in the marinade. Marinate the shrimp for an hour. Mango cut into large cubes. Stick the shrimps and mango pieces on the shashlik sticks and place on a baking tray. Sprinkle the skewers with a little marinade and bake at 180 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Shrimps don't need much time to be ready to eat. All they need to do is change their color from gray to light pink.

Well, now it's time for drinks, which is the most pleasant part of the party. What are the Caribbean drinks? Sweet! Sweet to the max. Creoles love cane sugar and sweet condensed milk. And of course rum. Rum is the flagship product of the Caribbean islands. Today we can get the same in Poland without a problem. A truly summer and Caribbean campaign is underway at https://toqeervlog.blogspot.com/ . You can choose from different types of rum, exactly the one I used on the island. You can stock up for the whole summer. All you have to do is reserve alcohol and then collect it by paying for it at your nearest Lidl. In the meantime I will show you what Caribbean rum can be useful for. We're doing a party!

Rum is not only a mohito ingredient and an addition to cola. I will give you a recipe for my two favorite drinks today. One is the so-called Le Planteur (in this place I greet my Guadeloupe friend Kasia, who was doing the best planteur on the island <3). Planteur in a more modest version is nothing but juices from tropical fruits bought in a store, in a carton, mixed with rum, lime and cinnamon. In the rich version it is worth reaching for 100% juice from various fruits, or mix some fruit into mousse and add to drinks. It is best if it was orange, pineapple, passion fruit, mango, pomegranate juice. As you can see it is such a sangria, only in the Caribbean version With rum of course.
In the recipes given, I omitted the mega sweet cane syrup. In my opinion, there are enough sweets in these drinks.

LE PLANTEUR

Ingredients:
250 ml white rum (real, Caribbean you can book at winnicalidla.pl)
250 ml pineapple juice
250 ml orange juice
250 ml pomegranate juice
passion fruit (optional)
pomegranate seeds
cut into cubes mango
pinch cinnamon
peel peeled lime
juice from lime

Note a simple recipe - all you need to do is mix everything together and add ice cubes. You can also freeze previously cut fruit pieces for greater effect, and they will act as ice cubes. Add passion fruit pulp separately. Remember about cinnamon and peeled lime - they do an excellent job. A drink beautiful in its simplicity and ideal for transport, for example for a picnic. 
But I miss "Guada"!

PUNCH AU COCO
This drink brings back memories of hot evenings on the terrace in an apartment on the island. Tomek and I sat on deck chairs with windmills directed towards us. Wild sounds of some wood frogs were coming from the jungle, and the palms were red with the setting sun. When it happened, it was getting completely dark. That's when we fired up another episode of the iconic series from the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, "Miami Vice" and watched it with flushed face, sipping punch au coco You don't need the Caribbean to feel its taste. After all, temperatures in Poland recently higher than on "Guad"

Ingredients:
300 ml of white rum,
500 ml of canned coconut milk (thick, not cardboard),
150 g of sweet condensed milk, a
pinch of cinnamon,
seeds of two vanilla pods, a
pinch of grated nutmeg,
peeled lime

In a saucepan, boil coconut milk with condensed milk, vanilla seeds, cinnamon and a scoop. Cool and add the rum and lime zest. Serve very chilled with lots of ice.

 
For me, this is the perfect evening scenario: hot summer, outdoor time, friends, good food, drinks and stories about the travels of those who have taken place and those that are yet to come. It's good to bring your favorite recipes, photos and all these stories with them. I think it's probably the most valuable souvenir.