ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA: Chop-Up Breakfast for Dinner

Chop-Up is a vegetable mash that is part of a standard weekend breakfast in Antigua. Traditionally it is served with scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, sliced fresh veggies, and/or toast. I included those in this meal, but omitted many other even more common inclusions simply because the meal was already a well-rounded and the other components required cooking with some less common-to-the-US ingredients. Sadly, I did not get Susie's Hot Sauce, another typical addition to the meal, but do recommend serving this with whatever hot sauce you have on hand. A healthy start or end to a day!

Chop-Up Breakfast for Dinner

8 eggs

1 small onion

3 medium eggplant

1 lb pumpkin or butternut squash

2 tablespoons salted butter

2 cloves garlic

8 ounces fresh spinach (not baby spinach, but large leaf)

1½ teaspoons table salt

1 teaspoon cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

4 slices white bread

1 avocado

1 Persian cucumber

1. In a small pot or steamer, with water hard boil or steam 4 of the eggs, ~10 minutes.

2. While the eggs cook, peel and dice the onion. Peel and chop both the eggplant and pumpkin or squash into medium-sized pieces, ~2 inches cubed.

3. Heat butter in a large pot or sauté pan set over medium heat 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the onions. Sauté for 5 minutes until softened but not browned. Mince the garlic and add it to the pan. Sauté it for 1 additional minute.

4. Add the pumpkin and eggplant. Sauté for an additional two to three minutes.

5. Add water just to cover the vegetables and add 1 teaspoon of the salt. Turn heat to high and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the vegetables are soft, about 12 minutes. Strip the spinach leaves from the stems and discard the stems. Clean and chop the spinach leaves and add them to the pot. Stir and cook for an additional 3 minutes.

6. Pour the vegetable mixture into a colander and let drain.

7. While the mixture drains, scramble the remaining 4 eggs in a small skillet and toast the bread.

8. Return the drained mixture to the pot, add the remaining ½ teaspoon salt and cumin, and mash vigorously with a potato masher or a thick whisk. Season to taste. Serve with a small pat of the remaining butter on top.

#chopup #breakfastfordinner #globalcooking #guano #antiguaandbarbuda

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FUN FACTS:

• Nelson's Dockyard in English Harbour is the only surviving Georgian naval dockyard — a British Royal Navy facility built during the Georgian era (1714–1830) — in the world.

• The uninhabited rocky island of Redonda is famously claimed as a fanciful micronation. In 1865, a trader supposedly annexed it so his son could be crowned "King Felipe I".

• Despite having no freshwater, Redonda housed more than 100 workers in the late 19th century. They lived there to mine thousands of tons of phosphorus-rich guano (seabird droppings) used for European fertilizer and gunpowder.