Dominica

I started with my veggies. Callaloo is one of those dishes where everybody and their mama has their own recipe, and each one swears that theirs is the best, so I had a lot of leeway in what to add here. The dish itself is named for the callaloo leaves used as the main ingredient in the stew, but many different leaves are used. Literally every variation I found had different leaves, from chard to spinach to dasheen leaves. I chose collard greens because they’re readily available in my area, and I love a good mess of greens

From here, I’m allowed to let my freak flag fly when it comes to veggies to add. A lot of recipes can call for anything from plantains to yams to parsnips, but I had some red potatoes that I needed to eat up, so I’m using those.

I then got some carrots, an onion, a habanero pepper, and some garlic….because garlic. I washed and diced everything except for the greens and added them to a bowl

For the greens. I removed the stems and stacked the greens on top of one another.

From here, I tightly rolled each stack of leaves width-wise, like a sushi roll, then thinly sliced the rolls. I debated on whether to chop them more finely from there, but decided against it. You do you, though.

Traditionally, people use pig tails to flavor the broth, but unfortunately, I could not obtain any tails. I did, however, manage to talk my local butcher out of a ham bone. If you just happen to have a ham bone left over from an earlier roast, good for you. Heck, you could even take chunks of ham and throw them in the pot.

Anywho, I placed my ham bone in my trusty Dutch oven with 4 cups of vegetable stock over medium heat. If and when I do this recipe again, I might only use 3 to make the stew a little thicker, but it is what it is.

Once the vegetable stock started simmering, I added all the diced vegetables and greens to the pot and stirred to make sure everything was submerged.

Once everything was up to a nice boil, I added a can of full-fat coconut milk, one heaping teaspoon of curry powder, and some salt and pepper to taste. I turned the heat to low and let it simmer on the stove until the greens were tender. This part can take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes, depending on just how tender you like your greens.

Once everything was nice and tender, I turned off the heat and removed the game bone. There was still a few chunks of ham left on the bone, so I diced those up and added them back to the stew. Then it was time for the final ingredient…crab meat. I could have bought a whole crab and boiled it down, then painstakingly removed all the meat as per tradition, but I had neither the time nor desire for such a feat, not to mention that crab is pricey. I didn’t want imitation crab meat, so I went for the cheaper option of canned crab meat (Shhhh, I won’t tell if you won’t).

Now that that’s done, all I need to do is serve over rice and see how it turned out.

This turned out to be amazing! It was savory but not heavy. The crab and all the flavors came through and blended quite well. I was amazed that even though I added a whole habenero pepper and curry powder, it wasn’t spicy; there was a slight hint of heat, but nothing overpowering. As a bonus, the reheated leftovers taste even better the next day. I will definitely make this dish again!

Callaloo Stew