Barbados: Cou-cou, Flying Fish and Cassava Pone
Welcome to the island of Barbados!! Barbados an independent British Commonwealth nation in the Caribbean and is known for it’s beautiful clear blue beaches and fresh seafood!
I REALLY loved this meal. So colorful, fresh and delicious! I truly felt like I’d been transported to Barbados when I was eating this! After tasting the amazing Bajan flavors, I wanted to start planning a trip to this beautiful Caribbean island right away. For this meal, I chose to make the national dish of cou-cou and flying fish, and then cassava pone for dessert.
Cou-cou is made from buttery cornmeal and is really similar to polenta or grits, with the addition of okra and red pepper. I loved the extra pop of color and freshness from the veggies and thought it went SO well with the “flying fish.”
As you may have guessed, we don’t have flying fish in Colorado (they’re salt water fish and are native to the Barbados area), so I decided to substitute it with a mild white fish. I went to Seafood Landing in Denver and they recommended halibut because it doesn’t cook as quickly as other white fish and runs a lower risk of becoming overcooked.
This turned out to be a great suggestion since the fish was perfectly juicy, light and delicious. To prepare this fish dish, the halibut was coated in Bajan seasoning, rolled up and steamed over a buttery-oniony-ketchup-n-mustardy mixture, with tomatoes, peppers and herbs on top. It was so pretty and the flavors were amaaaazing!
*Bajan seasoning has lots of fresh herbs like parsley, dill, thyme, and marjoram mixed with habanero peppers, lime juice, onion, garlic, vinegar and a touch of Worcestershire sauce. Soooo good!!!
The dessert was sort of like a really dense spice cake made with cassava, grated coconut, spices, sugar and raisins. A lot of recipes called for the cassava to be grated, but since I had cassava flour leftover from a previous recipe I decided to use that instead and the result was a bit thick and gelatinous. It still tasted pretty good but was veryyy filling haha!
I would definitely make the cou-cou and flying fish again- it was so tasty and tropical and I’ve also been super into okra lately so it was fun to be able to incorporate that into a dish!