Boil up

Ingredients

Ground provisions

• 500 gcassava, peeled and cut in chunks
• 500 ggreen plantain, peeled and cut thick
• 400 gsweet potato, peeled and cut in chunks
• 300 gcocoyam or yam, peeled and cut
• 2green bananas, peeled

Protein

• 600 gsalted pig tail or salt beef
• or 600 g fresh fish, in steaks
• 6eggs, in their shells

Dumplings

• 250 gplain flour
• 1/2 teaspoonsalt
• about 120 ml water

Broth

• 400 mlcoconut milk
• 1onion, chopped
• 4garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 sprigsthyme
• 1habanero, whole
• salt and black pepper
• water, to cover

Tomato sauce

• 4tomatoes, chopped
• 1onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoonsoil
• 1 tablespoontomato paste
• 1 teaspoonblack pepper
• salt to taste

Directions

1. Boil up is the Sunday one-pot dish of Belizean Kriol cooking. It takes most of a Sunday morning to prepare properly.
2. Peel away the whole pink layer under the bark. Never eat cassava raw or undercooked at any point. Peel everything and cut it into large even chunks. Rub your hands with oil first if you can. Keep the peeled pieces in cold water until you need them. Preparing the salted meat needs advance thought.
3. Salt pig tail and salt beef are heavily cured. They must be soaked before they can be used. Cover the meat with cold water and leave it overnight. Change the water two or three times if you can. Drain that water off and discard it entirely. Taste a small piece to check the salt level. Boil it again in fresh water if it is still too salty. Fresh fish needs none of that treatment.
4. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl. Add water slowly until it comes together. Knead it briefly into a firm dough. Belizean dumplings are firm rather than fluffy. Roll pieces into short thick fingers. Set them aside on a floured plate. Building the pot is done in stages.
5. Put the prepared meat in a very large pot. Add the chopped onion, garlic and thyme. Add the whole habanero without cutting it. Never let it burst, which makes the whole pot fiercely hot.
6. Cover everything with water and bring it to a boil. Adding the provisions is done by cooking time. Add the cassava and the yam first. Those take the longest to become tender. Add the plantain and the green bananas after that.
7. Put the eggs into the pot in their shells. They take on the flavour of the broth through the shell. Lift them out and peel them once cool enough. Return the peeled eggs to the pot at the end. Pour the coconut milk in once the roots are nearly tender. Never boil coconut milk hard, which splits it.
8. Keep the pot at a gentle simmer from that point. Season the broth well with salt and black pepper. Drop the dumplings into the simmering broth. They take about twelve minutes to cook through. Add fresh fish for the last eight minutes only. Fish falls apart if it goes in too early. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat. Fry the chopped onion for about six minutes.
9. Add the chopped tomatoes and the tomato paste. Cook them down for about ten minutes. It should become thick and jammy. Season it with black pepper and salt. Judging when the pot is ready takes a fork.
10. Taste the broth and adjust the salt. Serving it is done in wide bowls or on plates. Lift the solid pieces out with a slotted spoon. Arrange roots, meat, dumplings and eggs together. Ladle a little broth over the whole thing. Spoon the tomato sauce over the top. It is a large meal and needs nothing alongside.

Technique

• Ground provisions is the Caribbean term for starchy roots and tubers, and a boil up uses several of them at once.
• The New Zealand dish called boil-up is a Maori pot of pork bones and puha greens and is unrelated to this one.

Substitutions

• Fresh fish replaces salted pig tail entirely and needs no soaking.
• Any combination of ground provisions works, and cooks use what is available.

Variations

• Some households use only fish and no salted meat.
• A version with pig tail and no fish is equally common.
• Similar one-pot boils of provisions are eaten across the Caribbean.

History

Creole one-pot boil of ground provisions, fish or pig tail and eggs in coconut broth, cooked on Sundays along the coast.

Frequently asked questions

What is Boil up?

Boil up is a main from Belize: kriol boil of ground foods, fish, and eggs with tomato sauce. Creole one-pot boil of ground provisions, fish or pig tail and eggs in coconut broth, cooked on Sundays along the coast.

How long does Boil up take to make?

Boil up takes 40 minutes of preparation and 50 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 6. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Boil up?

Yes, within limits. Fresh fish replaces salted pig tail entirely and needs no soaking. Any combination of ground provisions works, and cooks use what is available.

What is the most important thing to get right in Boil up?

Peel away the whole pink layer under the bark. Never eat cassava raw or undercooked at any point. Peel everything and cut it into large even chunks. Rub your hands with oil first if you can. Keep the peeled pieces in cold water until you need them. Preparing the salted meat needs advance thought.