Hudut

Ingredients

Sere (coconut broth)

• 800 mlfresh thick coconut milk (from 2 grated coconuts) or 2 x 400 ml tins full-fat coconut milk
• 1onion, sliced
• 4garlic cloves, crushed
• 1green sweet pepper, sliced
• 2tomatoes, chopped
• 6leaves culantro (recao), chopped, or 4 tbsp coriander leaf
• 1 tbspfresh basil, chopped
• 1 tspground annatto (achiote) or 1 tbsp recado rojo
• ½habanero, whole
• 1 tspblack pepper
• 2 tspsalt
• 2 tbspcoconut oil

Fish

• 4whole snapper or 800 g thick snapper fillets, scored
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 tspsalt
• ½ tspblack pepper

Hudutu (mashed plantain)

• 3green plantains, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2ripe (yellow-black) plantains, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 tspsalt
• water, for boiling

Directions

1. Rub the fish with lime juice, salt and pepper and set aside while you build the broth.
2. If using fresh coconut, grate the flesh, pour over 400 ml hot water, squeeze hard through a cloth for the thick first milk, then repeat with more water for a thinner second milk. Keep the two separate.
3. Fry the onion, garlic and sweet pepper in coconut oil for 6–8 minutes until soft, add the tomatoes and annatto and cook 5 minutes more until the oil turns orange.
4. Pour in the thin coconut milk (or half the tinned milk thinned with 200 ml water), add the culantro, basil, whole habanero, black pepper and salt, and simmer gently 10 minutes.
5. Boil the green plantains for 15–20 minutes and the ripe plantains for 8–10 minutes in separate pans of salted water, until each is soft enough to crush easily.
6. Pound the drained plantains together in a large wooden mortar with a long pestle — the Garifuna hana — working the green and ripe together until you have a smooth, stiff, slightly sticky dough. Add a spoonful of the hot cooking water if it seizes.
7. Wet your hands and roll the mash into a smooth ball or an oval mound per person, and keep it warm and covered so it does not crust.
8. Lower the fish into the simmering broth, add the thick coconut milk, and poach gently for 8–10 minutes until the flesh flakes at the bone. Do not let the coconut milk boil hard once the thick milk is in, or it will split.
9. Lift out the habanero, taste for salt and lime, and serve: a mound of hudutu in the bowl with the fish and broth ladled around it. You break off pieces of the mash and dip them in the sere.

Technique

• Hudut is Garifuna food from the southern coast of Belize, Dangriga to Punta Gorda, and the pounding in the hana mortar is central to the dish and to the culture around it.
• Green and ripe plantain together are the point: the green gives structure and starch, the ripe gives sweetness and softness. All green is stodgy, all ripe is a sweet paste.
• Fresh coconut milk, squeezed that morning, tastes markedly different from tinned — sweeter, less flat. If using tins, buy the highest fat content you can find.
• The Garifuna language, dance and music were recognised by UNESCO in 2001; the food travels with them across Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Substitutions

• No mortar: pulse the boiled plantain in a food processor in short bursts, or mash hard with a heavy wooden spoon — but avoid a blender, which turns it to glue.
• No snapper: any whole white fish such as sea bass, bream or grouper works. Culantro can be replaced by twice the volume of coriander leaf, which is milder.

Variations

• Some cooks add okra or cassava chunks to the sere, making it a fuller stew.
• Machuca is the closely related Honduran Garifuna version, where the plantain mash is served with a thinner, spicier coconut broth.

History

A Garifuna dish of mashed plantain with coconut fish broth; UNESCO proclaimed Garifuna language, dance and music a masterpiece of oral heritage in 2001.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hudut?

Hudut is a main from Belize: garifuna coconut fish stew with mashed plantains. A Garifuna dish of mashed plantain with coconut fish broth; UNESCO proclaimed Garifuna language, dance and music a masterpiece of oral heritage in 2001.

How long does Hudut take to make?

Hudut takes 40 min of preparation and 40 min of cooking. The recipe makes 4 servings. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Hudut?

Yes, within limits. No mortar: pulse the boiled plantain in a food processor in short bursts, or mash hard with a heavy wooden spoon — but avoid a blender, which turns it to glue. No snapper: any whole white fish such as sea bass, bream or grouper works. Culantro can be replaced by twice the volume of coriander leaf, which is milder.

What is the most important thing to get right in Hudut?

Lower the fish into the simmering broth, add the thick coconut milk, and poach gently for 8–10 minutes until the flesh flakes at the bone. Do not let the coconut milk boil hard once the thick milk is in, or it will split.