Vegan Dasheen (Taro) "Oil-Down" & Callaloo Hash

Sometimes I feel like straying from the typical festive rice, lasagne and pastelles for Christmas lunch. Usually for me that means making dishes using ground provisions, mainly because my Christmas lunch prep almost always begins with a market run and since Callaloo and boiled Dasheen is a vegan dish I enjoy making during the year so I decided to do that but take a more “oil down” approach to it. Dasheen or Taro as its more commonly known, is actually the name of the whole plant i.e. the leaves as well as the root but in Trinidad & Tobago, when we say “Dasheen” we’re commonly referring to the root as we also differentiate from the leaves by calling it Callaloo bush or Dasheen bush. In Tobago its called Blue Food, derived from the bluish hue you get when you boil the root.

This dish calls for the simplest ingredients:

12 Dasheen Bush Leaves
1 Medium Sized Dasheen (2lbs)
1 Large Onion
6 Cloves of Garlic
4 Pimentos
2 Cups of Coconut Milk
1 Bundle of Chives
Salt & Black Pepper (to taste)

Method:

Peel and cut Dasheen into 1/2″ cubes

Saute aromatics for 1 minute on medium heat

Add Leaves & Dasheen to pot, saute for 3 minutes

Add Coconut Milk, Herbs and season with Salt & Pepper to taste

Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes on medium heat until Dasheen is fork tender

Enjoy!

Callaloo Hash

So we’re done with that dish utilizing the leaves of the dasheen bush, but what about the stalks? Do we throw it away? Nope! Zero wastage is our mantra so we can take those stalks and do a quick hash. It takes about 10 minutes to prep and 5 minutes to cook. Most of the prep is in making sure you cut the stalks into very think slices as well as the pumpkin into very small cubes and finely dicing your aromatics. This ensures that each ingredient cooks through with minimum time on the fire.

For the hash we need these ingredients but you’re going to have to eyeball it to know how much of each you’ll need: