Caribbean summer with Andi Oliver
We sat down with Andi to discuss her debut cookbook, Caribbean cuisine, and her favourite summer pastime: barbecuing.
Congratulations on your new book, The Pepperpot Diaries! How would you describe it?
The Pepperpot Diaries is a piece of me really — an insight into who I am, the families that I come from, and the traditions that I grew up with in the kitchen. The book spans everything from my own family recipes to recipes from everybody’s families right across the Caribbean. And there’s a whole lot of flavour!
What exactly is Caribbean cuisine?
It’s a truly global cuisine. There are influences from all over the world, from India, from China, from all across Africa. There are so many layers to Caribbean cooking and flavours — people are genuinely surprised and delighted when they try it.
There’s an interesting misconception about Caribbean food as people think that what we’re looking for is just heat, all the time. But what we actually like is deep flavour. So, the spices are important, the herbs are important, and of course the heat is important. But when you find the perfect balance, that’s a quintessentially Caribbean plate of food.
Do you have a favourite recipe in the book?
My grandmother’s pepperpot, which is the first recipe in this book and means a lot to me. The book is called The Pepperpot Diaries because it’s really a love letter to my grandmother Mamma. Her recipe is handwritten on a bit of paper and it’s a thing of great beauty, just like she was.
What did you discover about Caribbean food while writing The Pepperpot Diaries?
The interesting thing for me was researching heritage Caribbean recipes. There’s no one way to do anything – it depends on which island you’re on, it depends on which family you’re from, and it depends on what you want to put on the plate. The most important thing is confidence and being true to yourself.
What’s the one thing people should take away from The Pepperpot Diaries?
Actually there’s two things! I want you to get a sense of Caribbean cuisine’s deeply flavourful, heartfelt, kind, loving food, but I also want you to take away confidence. I want you to feel like this is a jumping off point and you could go into the kitchen, take one of these recipes and make it your own. The book is my heart to your heart, and I hope you enjoy it.
Tell us about your Caribbean Jerk-Spiced Chicken menu.
The two recipes at the heart of the menu came about in the Antiguan sunshine. We had these gorgeous, succulent prawns, with excellent butter spiked with honey and chilli that brought the whole platter to life. Then jerk is a dish that everybody loves - sometimes the flavours can get a bit muddy, I find, so I’ve added loads of orange zest and herbs to lighten it up and make it sing.
What’s a barbecue like at your house?
I love organised chaos. Underneath I’m a bit of a military woman — I like to be organised, I have things curing, I have things marinating. But on top of that, there’s family, noise, everything that makes me happy. The drinks are flowing and the tunes are on! I have a link to my Pepperpot Diaries Spotify playlist in the book – all life is there, and it will make you happy.
What’s your go-to barbecue dish?
It depends on what day I’m barbecuing and what time of year it is — I barbecue all year round. Right now, in the heart of summer, it’s energising, bright salads with wonderful chicken and beautiful prawns. As long as they’re marinated right, and finished right on the grill!
How should people enjoy it at home?
I don’t believe in rules for dinner, lunch, or even breakfast — have this menu whenever you want, with as many people as you like! Get joyful, eat it with the people you love, and have the best time.
Andi's top 5 barbecue tips!
Follow these golden rules while grilling and you’ll never burn a burger again!
Marinade, marinade, marinade
Try and get whatever it is that you’re grilling on the barbecue into the marinade the day before, because all of those flavours are going to come together overnight. The proteins in your chicken or lamb or beef are going to respond very differently if you just whack the meat on the grill straight away without marinating. You’re looking for flavour, but you’re also looking for texture, and the marinade will really help with that.
Think indirect heat
This is incredibly important — you just want the coals to be glowing. If you’re using a gas barbecue, take the heat right down and cook on the edges, not on the direct heat. Make sure you move your meat or fish around according to temperature.
Rest that meat
Always! Rest your meat for at least half the time that you’ve been cooking it. If you’ve been slow-cooking something for seven hours, you don’t need to rest it for three hours, but I’d rest it for 45 minutes at least. It means the meat is not going to bleed all over the place, and when you cut it, it’s more tender and much easier to carve. Meat is muscle and fat: the fat will have rendered at that point, and the muscles get tight when cooking, so when you rest it, everything relaxes again.
Up the ante with veggies
I love cooking vegetables in the embers. If you put a whole Caribbean breadfruit into the embers and leave it to cook down it goes completely black, and when you open it up, it’s creamy and delicious inside. It’s unbelievable. You can do the same with celeriac, butternut squash, pumpkin or carrot — root vegetables are really lovely cooked in the embers. You can barbecue lighter vegetables like courgette, marrow, spring onion and leek on the top of grill, then finish them off with something delicious like butter, just to push the flavours a little.
No barbecue? No problem
If you have no barbecue, you can still get that all-important charred flavour. Get a heavy bottomed pan nice and hot — preferably a griddle, so you get those nice lines that you’d get on the grill. Char your chicken or shrimp or whatever you’re cooking on each side, and then get it into the oven. That way, you’ll achieve some of those smoky, delicious, more-ish flavours that you get from barbecuing.