Trinidad corn soup

Photo: CaribbeanPot.com

Late-night Carnival food in Port of Spain. Split peas, coconut milk, chunks of corn on the cob and little dumplings. Chris grew up on it.

From Chris De La Rosa at CaribbeanPot.com · @caribbeanpot

Trinidad's corn soup: split peas, pumpkin and sweet potato in coconut milk with chunks of corn on the cob, salted pigtails and little flour dumplings.

You need

• 1 1/2 to 2 lb salted pigtails, cut in 1-inch pieces (or smoked turkey)
• 1 1/4 cups yellow split peas, rinsed
• 5 cups water
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 6 sprigs thyme
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 3 tbsp chopped culantro (shado beni) or cilantro
• 3 pimento peppers (seasoning peppers), whole
• 2 bird's eye or 1 scotch bonnet pepper, whole
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 cups diced pumpkin
• 2 cups diced sweet potato
• 2 to 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/2 cups coconut milk
• 4 to 6 ears corn, cut in 1-inch rounds
• 1 can creamed corn
• For the dumplings: 1 cup all-purpose flour, a pinch of salt, about 1/4 cup water

How to make it

1. Boil the pigtails in water for 20 minutes, drain, and repeat if they're very salty.
2. Simmer the split peas in the 5 cups water until soft and falling apart, about 40 minutes.
3. In a large pot, heat the coconut oil and cook the onion, garlic, celery, thyme, scallions and herbs for 5 minutes. Add the pigtails, the cooked split peas with their water, the pimento peppers, hot peppers (whole, so they don't burst) and black pepper.
4. Add the pumpkin, sweet potato, stock and coconut milk. Simmer until the pumpkin melts into the soup, about 20 minutes.
5. Mix the flour, salt and water into a stiff dough, roll into small fingers and drop them into the soup with the corn rounds and creamed corn. Simmer 15 minutes until the dumplings are cooked and the corn tender.
6. Fish out the whole hot peppers, taste for salt and serve.

Written in our own words from Chris De La Rosa's recipe, with their quantities. The original: Trinidad corn soup, CaribbeanPot.com.

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