Weekend leftovers

The past two days have been a mini festival for us really - celebrating the Irish cousins returning home to Barbados and taking time to catch up on the months and years since the last visit. The food was piled high in the kitchen between Saturday and Sunday, but has dwindled away to foil wrapped leftovers that found their way to our lunch plates today. The main event on Saturday however was the fish that  Hyacinth cooked for us. 

Hyacinth landed-early Saturday morning armed with 53 years of expert cooking for her own family and all the Bajan families she has worked for down the years. The main event was breaded flying fish - fresh from the village, and coated in a frothy batter of flour, baking powder, egg, sweet peppers and rum. The flying fish and another called dorado were lightly fried and served with the tastiest fish broth...what was in it I don't have a clue other than today it tasted even better on the left over rice and peas from yesterday. Now, that stuff is money ;) She also made a polenta like dish called coo-coo from corn flour thickened with the water from boiling okra. A definite comfort food! Breaded flying fish and coo-coo is the national dish of Barbados - just found that out on Google - all was served up with boiled sweet potato. Hyacinth spent about four hours in the kitchen and then went her own sweet way. Next morning there were six loafs of coconut bread delivered by her daughter, fresh from the oven (I think she gets up at 4 every morning). Food is definitely a joy but when given with such heart, tastes even better.

On Sunday it was Gran's curry with plantain chopped and cooked in the oven with cinnamon and brown sugar...WOW! Add to that Sylvia's chicken pilau, Larry's five day marinated pork, mango chutney, Charmaine's delicious black fruit cake (soaked in Guinness and other goodness)  and Gigi's banana bread.  

And hence the plate of weekend leftovers to remind us ;)  yum. Time now however to start cooking for ourselves!

By the way, apologies for no photos, technological glitch but they will follow...