Cooking St. Kitts Caribbean

Fairview Great House, St. Kitts.

The view and the cooking lessons at Fairview Great House in St. Kitts are grand. Built in 1702, Fairview has sheltered French, Irish, Scottish, English, Portuguese, Spanish, American and West Indian owners in its long history.

The view is exceedingly fair.

Recently it welcomed American, Canadian, French and English visitors eager to learn more about Caribbean cuisine and how to prepare it.

After touring the home we took seats in the adjacent facility, a spacious, open, colorful room with raked seating and overhead mirrors so all could watch what the chef was doing at the stove top and prep area. Menu and recipe sheets were at each place making it easier to ask questions as the meal progressed.

Chef Cheviour Lake welcomed us and began to prepare the day's menu:

Jerk Chicken
West Indian Steamed Fish
Red Beans and Rice
Vegetable Escovitch
Coconut Butter Bread Pudding.

I will start where she did, the Vegetable Escovitch now, and feature each dish's recipe in the coming weeks.

Vegetable Escovitch

2 cups - cooked vegetables, your choice. Suggestions: carrots, butternut squash, green banana, pumpkin, chayote.
1 oz. olive oil or vegetable oil
1 onion diced
1/2 each green and red pepper, sliced
1 clove garlic
zest and juice of 2 limes
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cucumber peeled, seeded, diced or sliced
salt, pepper, thyme, pepper flakes to taste

Saute onions, peppers, garlic and thyme until lightly brown.
Add lime juice, cucumbers, wine and pepper flakes. Season to taste.
Add the vegetables and mix together.
Can be served hot or cold.

Serves six.

Bread pudding extraordinaire

Miss Olivia

Miss Olivia doesn't tolerate dumb people or bad recipes, one reason her eponymous tea room in Maryville (pronounced Muryvl by the natives), Tennessee, is so popular.

Another reason to love Miss Olivia, this long-time food writer and beloved local TV personality shares her recipes.

Thus, I give you, Miss Olivia's extraordinary bread pudding. Hint: the secret's kin the bread for as Miss Olivia says, "stale bread, stale pudding."

Miss Olivia's extraordinary bread pudding

2 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
8 eggs
1 qt. half and half
1 TBS pure vanilla extract
7 cups cut-up croissants

Mix well first five ingredients in large bowl. Soak croissants in the pudding mixture overnight in the refrigerator or for at least one hour (longer is better).

Pour into whatever size baking dish (s) you prefer.

Note: Miss Olivia uses "small or medium-sized doo-dazzlers (ramekins!).

Place filled container in a water bath and cook at 350 degrees (f) until puffed and golden browns, 30 minutes or so.

Caramel Sauce topping
1 cup brown sugar
1 cip butter
1 cup whipping cream
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Bring sugar and water to a hard boil, stirring for exactly two minutes. Add whipping cream, boil one more minute without stirring. Add tsp. vanilla.

Sweet staff of life

If bread is the staff of life, Bread Pudding has to be the comfort food crown. There are as many recipes for this classic as there are grandmothers and mothers. And a big thank-you to them all.

Especially Mama Kay, the grandmother of Justin Pfeilsticker, executive chef at Trader Vic's at Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

As Chef Justin writes, "My grandmother Mama Kay was the Southern chef in the family. She grew up in Jackson, Miss., before moving to Arizona. I remember her making a bread pudding with like a praline on top of it."

Sad but familiar tale, he loved the bread pudding but never got the recipe because she cooked from her heart and never wrote them down (oh, for a recipe for my Nanny's gumdrop cake). When he opened his first restaurant, Cafe 181, in Chandler, Chef was determined to recreate her bread pudding.

"I now believe I came up with a close replica ... but of course it's never the same as Grandma's."

Put your heart in it and this version maybe come one of your family's favorite flavor memories.

Justin's Bread Pudding

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
5 beaten eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
1tsp ground cinnamon
3 cups cubed Italian bread
1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/4 lb softened butter
1 cup chopped pecans

Prehat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13" x 9" by 2" deep pan.
Mix together sugar, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla, milk and cream in a bowl then pour mixture over bread in a large bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes.
In another bowl, mix together brown sugar, butter and pecans.
Spread bread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle pecan mixture over the top and bake for 40-45 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Pour sauce over a piece and top with vanilla ice cream.

Sauce
1/2 cup rum
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 lb butter, cubed
In a small sauce pot simmer rum and reduce by half. Add brown sugar and salt and cook until sugar dissolves. Add butter slowly until incorporated but don't let it boil.