A Tropical Caribbean Party

Have fun with a Caribbean themed party by decorating your party room with seashells, buckets and spades and straw hats. Arrange tropical fruits in a basket in the middle of the table. Play reggae and steel drum music and encourage your guests to wear T-shirts and flip-flops.

Havana Avocados

These are a meal in themselves if you have both halves or a substantial starter if you have just one half.

Ingredients

• 5 tablespoons corn oil
• 2 tablespoons wine vinegar
• 1 minced clove of garlic
• 1 waxy potato, cooked and diced
• 2 carrots, cooked and diced
• 1 beetroot, cooked and diced
• 50 grams fresh or defrosted peas
• 4 avocados
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 2 eggs, hardboiled and chopped.

Method

Mix the diced vegetables together. Make a vinaigrette by whisking together the oil, vinegar, garlic and seasoning and pour it over the vegetables, mixing well. Marinate for 20 minutes.

Cut the avocados in half lengthways, take out the stone and scoop out the flesh. Sprinkle the avocado skins with lemon juice and mix the meat with the other vegetables before piling back into the skins.

Dollop mayonnaise on the top and sprinkle with chopped egg.

Pumpkin Curry

This hearty curry is a traditional West Indian dish.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons corn oil
• 1 kilo pumpkin, peeled, deseeded and cut into large chunks
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 chopped pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1 small piece fresh ginger, finely minced
• Galangal powder
• 300 ml vegetable stock.

Method

Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the onion, pepper, garlic and ginger over a medium heat, stirring gently until the onion is soft.

Sprinkle in the galangal powder and cook for a minute. Tip into a large saucepan before adding the stock and pumpkin and bringing to the boil.

Lower the heat to a simmer for thirty minutes, stirring from time to time. Serve in bowls with plain white rice as an accompaniment.

Sweet Potato Pudding

This pudding was invented by Caribbean women who cooked special dishes to welcome home ships that were loaded with foods like condensed milk and butter which in those days arrived in tins! Cane sugar was a typical product of the Caribbean and gives this pudding its sweet but faintly smoky flavour. It’s very good eaten hot but even better cold with vanilla ice-cream.

Ingredients

• 1 kilo sweet potato, peeled and grated
• ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 small piece of fresh ginger, grated
• 200 grams brown cane sugar
• 1 large tin sweetened condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 400 ml water
• 200 ml butter

Method

Preheat oven to 190 Celsius and butter a 22 cm pan. Beat together the sweet potato, nutmeg, ginger root and brown sugar with a wooden spoon. Whisk together the condensed milk, vanilla extract, water and butter in a bowl before beating in the sweet potato mix.

When fully blended, pour into the pan and level the surface with the back of a soup spoon dipped in hot water. Bake for 75 minutes and check with a skewer through the centre of the pudding to see if it is cooked through. If not, cover the top of the pudding with a piece of greaseproof paper to prevent scorching and cook for a further 15 minutes.