In the Spirit of St. Lucia

After our trip in November to St. Lucia, we came back with a renewed appreciation for different bananas. As it turns out, St. Lucia grows a different banana than we Americans are used to. It's small, and sweet, and they sell it primarily to the U.K. But since they grow bananas there, lots of their food incorporates bananas in ways I'd never before tasted.

In various different dishes, both plantains and green bananas provided the starch part of the meal. Sometimes the banana was cooked with cabbage, other times with fish. A month later, we had an urge to bring some of this back into our meals, so we created today's dish in the spirit of St. Lucia.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 chili pepper, minced
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 plaintains, diced
• 1 can coconut milk (we happened to have light coconut milk)
• 1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, thawed, drained, and chopped
• 2 cups or so chick peas (1 can is fine)
• 4 flavored sausages, such as onion and garlic, sliced about one-half inch thick.
• spices such as cumin and cayenne, for flavor and kick

You can prepare the ingredients ahead, or as you go.

Directions

1. Heat a large pan over medium heat, and warm the oil.
2. Add the minced chili to the pan, swirl it, and quickly follow it with the onions.
3. Once the onions are translucent or caramelizing, add the plantains, and brown them a little.

4. Add the coconut milk, spinach, and chick peas, and stir to combine. Cook for a couple minutes.
5. Add the sausages, and cook through.

6. Sample at least a piece of plantain and sausage for texture (doneness), and flavor.
7. Add spices accordingly—we added 3 shakes of cayenne and 5 of cumin—and mix everything together.

He said

Early on while planning this recipe, I thought we had some chicken broth. I'm still curious how this would have turned out with the broth instead of the coconut milk, but at the time I realized we were out, I wasn't interested in going and getting any broth. Instead with the longer slower cooking times I used because I prepared the ingredients as I went, the coconut milk ended up thickening into an almost cheese-sauce like texture.

While this was not what I pictured when we first thought of making this dish, and it is not at all anything we ate on St. Lucia, I was very pleased with how this dish came out. The plantains were not quite the texture I hoped for, but I think the problem was my desire for a diced potato consistency.

She said

This dish was so tasty, and it reminded me of our trip. We used chicken sausage flavored with garlic and onion for this recipe. If you use some sort of plain sausage, consider adding minced garlic, so you're not missing that garlic yumminess.