Guyana

Menu: Pepperpot and plait bread | Recipe Source: metemgee.com and chilipeppermadness.com

Guyana is absolutely not the first heat-loving country that I’ve tackled, but pepperpot IS the first recipe where I was brave enough to match the called-for pepper amounts precisely (instead of doing little tricks like scooping out the membranes/seeds before adding them, downgrading to a more palatable pepper, etc); and with that said, I’ve barely recovered enough to write this. As the name implies, pepperpot is a blisteringly hot stew made of beef chuck, stock, cassareep (cassava root syrup), hot peppers (traditional recipes call for wiri wiri peppers, but since I couldn’t find those anywhere, I turned to the trusty habanero), cinnamon, cloves, allspice, onion, and thyme. The result is a dish that’s hot (thank you, peppers), faintly bitter (thank you, cassareep), and sweet (thank you, brown sugar & warming herbs).

Recipe writers love to describe foods as ~flavor explosions~ but I think this is the first dish I’ve actually tried that is explosively spiced. You taste the caramelized sweetness first; then the heat catches up to you; and then from somewhere in the shadows comes the smallest aftertaste of bitterness. It’s a dish that needs a mild-mannered sidekick to soften its blow, and plait bread is the perfect companion. Soft and gentle in all the places where pepperpot is feisty and assertive, plait bread’s cloud-like texture and buttery taste turn a spicy stew into a treat instead of a punishment. It’s reminiscent of a brioche or challah bread, and it’s a gift from the indentured Portuguese laborers who were brought to Guyana in the 1830s to work sugar plantations in lieu of freed slaves.

Ready to cook?

Plait Bread: (link): I only made two changes to this recipe! First, I swapped the anise seeds for caraway since I already had a jar of those on hand (and I’ve been looking for a way to use them up!); and second, I did yolk-only egg wash because who doesn’t love it when their bread comes out shiny?

Pepperpot (link): I made a few substitutions, beginning with using 3lbs of beef chuck instead of a mix of beef and pork. The recipe called for browning the beef chunks in oil but I decided to use tallow in the hopes of imparting an even beefier flavor, and when given a choice between water or beef stock, myanswer is ALWAYS beef. I couldn’t find wiri wiri peppers (the authentic Guyanese peppers used in pepperpot) or scotch bonnets, which were listed as the alternative, so I had to use habaneros as my plan C. I grated the garlic instead of mincing, added a bay leaf during the herb step, and used bouillon instead of plain salt!