FRENCH CARIBBEAN TREATS
Most of the tropical recipes in the French Caribbean islands are mainly made from tropical fruits that grow on the land and that you can pick up yourself directly from trees. Cooking a sweet recipe is then fresher, costless, and effortless to please the greediest. Therefore no excuses to feel lazy!
To name a few, mangoes, pineapples, coconuts, guavas, bananas are the top five of our exquisite tropical fruits used in desserts, cakes, jams and drinks.
To name a few, mangoes, pineapples, coconuts, guavas, bananas are the top five of our exquisite tropical fruits used in desserts, cakes, jams and drinks.
Mango
Mango (Mangue in French and Mango in Creole) is a drupe and freshly fruit around a long flat seed which grows in most tropical climates. The ripened skin may be primarily yellow, or may be multi-hued with orange red tones and the interior of most mangoes is a deep orange. When fully ripe it may still be somewhat difficult to eat, as it is very juicy.
They are also fibrous, composed of many long thin fibres that easily stuck in between the teeth. We count over 100 different types of mangoes. In the French Caribbean islands mangoes offer particular forms, colours and tastes. We distinguished the fibrous and the non-fibrous ones. |
FIBROUS
Mango-fil: the most popular fibrous one where fibres stuck into your teeth, hence its name “fil” for fibres. It has an oval shape with rounded sides and is less juicy than the other varieties. Because of its fibrous texture. We have our own way to savour it:
We tap it on a hard surface (wall, palm of hands) to make it juicier. We bite the top of the mango. Then we suck up the juice and pressing the sides. |
IN-BETWEEN
Reine-Amelie : is an apple-shaped mango which has a fine skin that can be removed easily from the flesh.
Mango-pomme: is small and less fibrous and curved. Mango-boeuf: is a little bit bigger than the mango-pomme but its form is ellipsoid. |
NON-FIBROUS
"Mangue Julie”: is the most popular variety in the French Caribbean islands because of its rich, sweet, coconut/pineapple-like flavour. It has a flattened oval shape and is quite small. Regarding its colour it is greenish to mustard yellow, with a pink blush when exposed to the sun. The deep orange, fibre-free flesh is soft and extremely juicy, with a rich and spicy flavour.
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Pineapple
Pineapple is a tropical fruit with a sweet, slightly acidic flavour and very juicy flesh which is native to the Caribbean. There is a couple of specification which is worth knowing about pineapples: they are unable to continue ripening once they have been picked, so they must be picked at peak ripeness. A good pineapple will have rich, even colour with no sighs of greening. If the leaves can be pulled out easily or they are spotted, the pineapple is too ripe and it should be discarded.
In the French Caribbean islands, pineapples are used to make punches, cocktail fruit, jam and the popular pineapple cake. |
Guava
Guava is a sweet fruit characterised with a strong sweet odour, which grows in our islands. It may be round, avoid, or pear shaped. Its thin skin is bright yellow in colour, sometimes tinged with red. The flesh is white or orange pink depending of the variety, and contains many small, hard seeds. It can be eaten raw, either out of hand or seeded and sliced in dessert. In our islands we have got many varieties, the most frequently eaten species are the apple guava and the strawberry-guava.
There is countless recipes which can be made with the guava such as pies, cakes, jellies, jams, sorbets and home-made juice and punches. |
Passion Fruit
Passion fruit grows on a vine in its native tropical and subtropical regions. Commercially, it is grown in Brazil and in the Caribbean. There are two types of passion fruit that differ in appearance but taste the same. One is about the size and shape of a large egg, with a purple-brown skin. The other is quite a bit larger, round, and about the size of an orange. This type is bright yellow on the outside. Both contain a jelly-like pulp with hundreds of small black seeds. Passion fruit by itself tends to taste tart.
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Coconut
Technically, a coconut is a drupe, which means that it has a hard shell encased in a fibrous outer layer. When the shell is cracked open, it reveals a fleshy white meat and a liquid that is known as coconut water. The water found inside the shell is not the same thing as coconut milk, a popular creamy product which is actually made with the flesh of the fruit. Coconut water is crisp, cool, and refreshing, and it is often used in drinks in tropical regions. It is also used to flavour drinks and desserts. The flesh of coconuts can be grated and toasted as a garnish, added whole to desserts, chunked in soups and stews, and it may be fresh, dry, or roasted, depending on the dish and regional preferences.
The popular coconut recipe in our islands is the coconut sorbet. Made by turning a manual ice-cream maker. |
SPICES
We love spices! As we use a lot of different strong spices into our salty dishes to lift them up, the same rule kind of apply as well in our sweet recipes. No desserts will be prepared without the following inescapable spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, lime’s zest, vanilla and almond essences again to name a few. They will make all the difference as far as tropical taste is concerned.
Besides those spices we also use vanilla and almond essences but also the “Rhum arrangé” (Spiced Rum).
It is a rum-based preparation with spices, fruits or leaves incorporated. The preparation is then let to macerate for a couple of months, so the spices or fruits can release their aroma and flavour. On the top picture on the left we have three "rhum arrangés" from left to right : Guavas and a cinnamon stick are macerated in Bielle (from Marie-Galante) Rum. In the middle we have cinnamon, nutmeg and its mace, lime's zest and a split vanilla pod. In the third one, we have the passion fruit's pulp and seeds macerating in Bielle rum. |