Guyanese Cream Liquor

Here's one we got from a co-worker. She learned it when she was at University. Gosh it's great to know Uni students are pretty much the same all over the world!


Rum
Sweeten Condensed Milk
Coffee
Milk

Equal parts of everything. Stir and chill. Tastes just like Bailey’s!

Fried Plantains

What to do with plantains?? What’s better than frying them? NOTHING, except eating them with BBQ sauce!

Cut plantains in half and then long ways into 4ths. Heat vegetable oil and place plantains in, turning them until they are little brown and crispy. Season with a little black pepper and salt, or an all-purpose seasoning. Enjoy with sour* or BBQ sauce.

To turn into a dessert drizzle fried plantains with sweeten condensed milk and cinnamon**

*A Guyanese spicy sauce made with mangoes
** Idea from a Mexican dessert

This is the savory version! Hmmmm with some special Jamaican Pepper.

Bean Burgers

There is beef here, but it can be a bit expensive! So to satiate our American burger fix, Sara and I decided to use some beans. Why not? We've all have heard of boca burgers or bean burgers or some sort of vegetarian alternative to meat, so we took it one step farther and made it from scratch. It pretty quick once the beans are soaked and it tastes almost like home!


Black/red beans or garbanzo beans
Garlic (about 7 cloves)
Onion (one)
Sweet peppers (optional)
One egg
Seasoning:
Cumin
Thyme
Pinch of salt
Black pepper
Cheese (if you prefer)

Soak beans in water for about 8 hours. Cook, well, so they are soft enough to mash. Drain water and start mashing, add in chopped garlic, onion, sweet peppers, and seasoning. Beat one egg in separate bowl then add to mixture, mix everything well. With your hands form bean mixture into small patties. Cook on tawa or frying pan. Flip patties and top with cheese. Add preferred condiments and enjoy on hamburger buns, tennis rolls, or lettuce.


I think this is a channa burger, but channa is a bean too! So soak channa, pressure channa until soft, put it in a bowl add some garlic, onion, cumin and other spices (perhaps with a Mediterranean flair) then add an egg like above, mash into patties and grill them up!

Homemade Refried Beans

Refried beans are nowhere in Guyana. We’ve searched and searched looking for those little lard filled cans of love. One day we were getting desperate. We had beans, and we overcooked them and squished them into something that looked like refried beans (on accident, my bad I left it too long in the pressure pot (this is Tim btw)) but really it just wasn’t the same. So how can we make them? Necessity is truly the mother of invention.

Red Beans
4 or 5 cloves of chopped garlic
1 or 2 chopped onions
4 tbsp of oil (could be lard if you have any available)
Salt.

Soak the beans overnight or for about 6-8 hours. Pressure them for about 30 minute or boil them until they are edible and soft (maybe cook them longer if you want to mash them easier). Set the beans aside, but keep some of the water they were boiled in.
Put the oil in a kaharee or frying pan and heat.
Throw the onions into the oil and sauté until they are a bit brown.
Throw in the garlic, sauté.
Take some of the beans and place them in your pan or kaharee, mashing them with the back end of the serving spoon, mixing them with the garlic and onion. Pour in some of the water you used to boil the beans in, and then add more beans, mashing and stirring continually. (we don’t have non stick pans, so we need to constantly move the food around). Add salt to taste.
Continue to add beans until they get to the texture or look that you want or you run out of beans and Voila, refried beans!

Eggs and Calabrese

I know, I know eggs are easy, scramble them, cook them over-easy on a Tawa (a round flat cook utensil that sits on the stove top), etc. But being here has forced us to creatively prepare different egg recipes since eggs are a huge, cheap, source of protein for us and to be fair, without a bit of “spice” or colour we'd get bored real quick. There will be several egg recipes, but this one is special because it deals with a Brazilian sausage, a house favorite, called Calabrese, which reminds me a version of a polish sausage, but not one at all.

Eggs
2-3 green onions, chopped (scallions)
1 tomato (or more if you like tomatoes)
Calabrese (sausage), cooked
½ cup (or more) of Cheese
*A little bit of milk

*if you so desire

Scramble the eggs in a bowl, add a little milk if you want. Cut up the sausage (make sure it’s cooked first). Then, add the sausage to the egg mixture. Add some grated cheese to the eggs. Place the egg mixture in a kaharee or a frying pan and cook it up, stirring so as not to stick the eggs to the pan. About halfway until it solidifies (to your preference, some like their eggs more dry than others) stir in the green onions (these may also be added into the egg mixture in the beginning if you want) and continue cooking. Right before it’s finished cooking stir in the tomatoes then turn off the fire. Serve.

You can also add cheese on top after its cooked for aesthetic appeal

(you may add the tomatoes after it's off the stove as well, if you don’t want to cook them)

Guacamole de Guyana

Avocados are not called that here, they are called “pears.” At first this was quite confusing, considering we view pears as delicious fruits much like apples, but now it is much easier to transfer our thinking that pears = avocados (I almost wrote pears in the recipe, that would have been hilarious). Anyway, they are not very common throughout the country, but they are somewhat common in Linden. Recently a neighbor of ours gave us 6 massive “pears” and since we miss Mexican food with a vengeance, we needed to make some gorgeous Guac for our weekly “Taco Tuesdays.”

3 large avocados (# depends on how much you want to make)

4 cloves of chopped garlic

1 chopped medium onion

2 limes

2 tomatoes

*Salt

*optional

Take the avocado pits out of the fruit then remove the inside “meat” of the avocado, placing it in a bowl. Begin to mash the avocado pieces together adding the juice of one lime. Then, place the garlic and onion into the bowl while continually mashing the “meat”. Chop the tomato into smaller pieces then add it to the bowl. Add the juice of the second lime then mix well. Cover and place in fridge until it’s ready to use.

Black Bean Mango Salad

This one is a gem. It's fresh, clean, and really healthy. In a culture where greens are usually pressured/fried/cooked to non-existence and fruits are a rarity on the table this one is a beacon of hope, and I am pretty sure that if a Guyanese saw this on our table they'd look a bit askance at it. Granted it wasn't a Guyanese recipe to begin with; rather it was an adaptation from concept conceived/gleaned by Sara and Chelsea. But when mangoes are as plentiful as they are here and vegetables are fresh almost daily, this one seems like a no-brainer. If you ever need a little pick me up or the taste of summer in your mouth do try this one.

1 and ½ cup Beans
4 small Mangoes
1 Cucumber
¼ cup Green Onion (shallot)
1 Lime
Thyme or cilantro
*1/2 cup Corn
*optional

Soak beans about 8 hours and cook, either boil or pressure cook, let cool. Dice mango and cucumber, chop green onion and thyme/cilantro. Squeeze lime and mix. Add salt to taste.

Channa (chickpeas)

This meal is quick, easy and tasteful. Prior to coming to Guyana, I never thought I'd eat chickpeas. I heard of them, of course, and had hummus before, but I never really visualized them as a staple. Now I have them at least once a week. They look kinda funny, and at first I was skeptical, but after many trials and errors, this one is for sure coming home with us. Note: but if you're ever in Guyana, don't call them "chickpeas" because Tony did that once and was just stared at like a crazy person! Channa sounds wayyy more appetizing anyway!

Chickpeas

Garlic

Onion

Cumin

Salt

Black pepper

Curry

*All-spice

*Oregano

*Basil

*seasoning optional, do as you like

Soak chickpeas for about 8 hours. Either boil until soft or pressure-cook them for 25 minutes. Boil/pressure cook with oregano, salt, basil. Heat oil in kahari or frying pan sauté garlic, onion and cumin, throw in chickpeas, add curry, black pepper and spices, mix well coving all chickpeas.

*Not too good on the measurements as we just eye ball everything and go by taste. If you need exact measurements please send us a message and we will get those for you. Mostly everything is done with finger pinches...watch out for that curry!

It may not look too appetizing but it's so yummy!

Hobbit Balls

No explanation needed :)
See the top of the page.

Cassava
Eddo
Sweet potato/ potato
Yams
Plantains
Hard boiled eggs
Garlic
Vegetable oil

Boil cassava, eddo, sweet potato/potato, yams and plantains, boil them until really soft and mashable. Mash all tubers and add chopped garlic. Form into patties and cover over hard boiled egg. Place in hot oil and fry.