Tomato Choka(Trinidad)

 

Ingredients

• ▢8 - 10 large tomatoes
• ▢1 small onion sliced finely
• ▢4 garlic cloves chopped
• ▢Scotch bonnet deseeded
• ▢½ teaspoon black pepper optional
• ▢1 teaspoon pink salt
• ▢4 tablespoon of coconut oil melted

Instructions

• Wash and blot the tomatoes dry.
• Grab a baking tray or cookie sheet and cover with aluminium foil.
• Place the tomatoes evenly spaced out on the tray and broil/grill for 10 minutes or until the skin is charred and splits.
• While the tomatoes are being broiled/grilled, place 2 of the garlic cloves into a pestle and mortar (use a masher/blender if you don't have one) along with the skin of the scotch bonnet and pink salt.
• Mash into a smooth paste and set aside.
• Once the tomatoes have cooled down enough, peel off the skin so the pulp is left and place the tomatoes along with the garlic/pepper/salt paste in a medium sized bowl.
• Use the pestle/masher/fork to breakdown the tomatoes.
• Add the coconut oil to a frying pan (or kalcul) on medium-high heat and saute the onion and garlic until slightly golden.
• Chunkay (drizzle over) the oil with the onion and garlic onto the tomato mixture and stir in the black pepper.
• Serve accordingly

Eggplant Choka(Trinidad)

 Ingredients

2 eggplant aubergines

¼ a large onion finely sliced

2 garlic cloves sliced lengthways in half

pink salt and black pepper to taste

1 scotch bonnet or chilli optional

To Chunkay

2 tablespoon of olive oil

2 garlic cloves chopped

¼ a large onion sliced

Instructions

Preheat oven at 190C/374F or gas mark 5 and line a baking tray with parchment paper

Make some small vertical slits about 4cm long all over the entire eggplant./aubergine, be careful not to slice too deep.

Place 2 garlic slices in each eggplant

Rub the eggplants and scotch bonnet with 1tbsp of oil before placing on a lined baking tray and transfer to the oven.

Roast the scotch bonnet until darkened for the first 4-5 minutes then remove, continue to roast the eggplant until it looks limp and thin in size (should take 25 minutes).

In the mean time, prepare the onions and scotch bonnet in a bowl.

Once the eggplants have been removed from the oven, allow to cool before slicing length ways to scoop out the flesh into the bowl with the scotch bonnet and some of the onions, pink salt and black pepper.

Mash everything together until smooth.

Do the chunkay method by heating up the olive oil in a miniature sized pan with the garlic and onion until golden brown, proceed to pour the hot oil over the pureed mix