GRENADA: Brown Down Chicken Stew and Watermelon Salad with Cucumber and Mint

Brown down has many iterations across the web. While the cores are chicken and brown sugar, each variation comes in strong as to what makes the stew a true brown down. Many versions have carrots, underripe bananas, and/or sweet potatoes. Often dumplings, called spindles, are created and cooked in the sauce. Most versions use ketchup. As per my norm, I worked from the simpler versions I found, and took them down even another notch.

Pigeon peas are regularly found in Grenada chicken recipes, and occasionally in brown down ones, but as they are hard to come by, I subbed in a can of black-eyed peas. Feel free to use kidney beans or forego beans altogether if you prefer.

The watermelon salad is not ubiquitous or indigenous, but a similar recipe was published on the Grenada Food and Nutrition Council's website as a recipe-of-the-week. And that sounds official enough to fit the OWW bill. Glad I tried it. I've made watermelon salad with all sorts of additions, but never with cucumber. The mint, lime, salt, and pepper were fabulous together with the cukes and watermelon!

Brown Down Chicken Stew

3 lbs chicken drumsticks

1 yellow onion

1 small beefsteak tomato

2 cloves garlic

¼ Scotch bonnet pepper or 1 red Fresno pepper

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1 tablespoon ketchup

½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 can red black-eyed peas or kidney beans

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Chop the onions into small dice. Core and seed the tomato and chop into small dice. Mince the garlic and the flesh of the pepper. Place onion, tomato, garlic, pepper, and ginger into a Ziplock bag, large enough to hold the chicken. Add the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper to the bag, and massage the outside of the bag to fully meld all. Add the chicken and the thyme sprigs, seal bag, and place on a plate in the fridge for 15 minutes-overnight .

2. Heat the oil in a large lidded sauté pan or Dutch oven over medium heat wide enough to hold your chicken in a single layer. Place the chicken nearby, as once the sugar hits the proper color, you need to move quickly. Add the brown sugar and stir well. As the sugar melts it will liquify, then froth and change colors. Cook it until it turns dark amber. Immediately, remove the chicken from the marinade, saving the marinade, and add the chicken to the pot one piece at a time. It will splatter, so stand back. After you have added all of the pieces, use tongs to turns the chicken, "mopping" up any sugar caramelized on the bottom of the pan with the chicken. When you have no more sugar stuck to the bottom of the pan, and all of the chicken pieces are coated in caramelized sugar, place the lid on the pot, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 8 minutes. The chicken will release juice, so you no longer need to worry about the sugar burnings.

3. Remove the lid, turn up the heat to burn off any liquid. Add in the remainder of the marinade and 1-2 cups of water. You want enough to come up halfway the chicken pieces. NOTE: The recipe I used called for more water, and as a result I would have needed to boil my sauce for at least an hour to get it thick; thus ignore my photo. If any bits of onion are on the tops of the chicken, use your tongs to put them into the liquid. Drain and rinse the black-eyed peas or beans if using, and add on top of the chicken.

4. Close the lid and cook 15 minutes. Then remove the lid and cook another 15-25 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and sauce is thickened. Serve over rice if desired.

   
   

Watermelon Salad with Cucumber and Mint

¼ red onion

¼ cup fresh lime juice (from 2 large limes)

¼ full size watermelon or ½ a mini seedless watermelon

3 Persian cucumbers

1 cup packed mint leaves

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Slice the red onion as thinly as you can. Place the slices a bowl wide enough to lay them in a single layer and squeeze the lime juice over top. Let onion marinade to soften and lose their bite, 15 minutes-3 hours.

2. Chop the watermelon into 2-inch chunks and put into a large bowl. Dice the cucumers and add to the bowl. Tear or roughly chop the mint leaves. Toss gently. Remove the onions from the lime juice, putting the onions in with the watermelon, and pouring the lime juice into a small bowl.

3. Add the olive oil to the bowl with the juice and with together, with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Add the dressing to the salad and toss gently to incorporate. Taste for seasoning. Serve immediately, or chill for up to 2 hours before serving.

#browndown #chickenandrice #chickenstew #watermelonsalad #grenada

• 

• 

FUN FACTS:

• During the annual "Spicemas" carnival, revelers participate in the Jab Jab ritual by covering themselves completely in black motor oil and grease, wearing horned masks, and dragging chains to symbolize historic rebellion against slavery.

• The critically endangered Grenada Dove is found on Grenada, but nowhere else on Earth, making it a fiercely protected national treasure. It survives in only two small, separated areas on the island.

• Grenada is known as the Spice island, as it is the world’s second-largest producer of nutmeg after Indonesia as well as a considerable producer of mace, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Warm notes of cinnamon bark and sweet cloves drift on the breeze through fields and towns.