Her' Heri
With all the posts in the ReggaeJAHM Community with banana as ingredients, I was craving this culinary art of a dish from Suriname for a while now. The picture my sister sent me last week to tease me probably had something to do with it as well. So I gathered the components I was missing over the past few days and went to work.
The dish is known in Suriname as "Her' Heri". The closest literal translation would be "whole whole", but I think it refers to the fact that it's a whole/complete platter of earthy foods. Not sure about this, but the combination probably stems from way back when plantations were still all the rage in the country and all the ingredients were even more common because of that.
The earth foods and plantains are usually combined with some greens, salted fish in tomato sauce and a boiled egg or two to finish. At least, that's the variations I know.
What do you need?
Base foods | Greens | Salted fish in tomato sauce |
---|---|---|
Potatoes | Kouseband (Yardlong bean) | salted fish |
Ripe Plantains | chopped onions | chopped chilies |
Sweet Potato | chopped garlic | tomatoes |
Cassava | nutmeg | chopped garlic |
Napi (type of Yam) | black pepper | chopped onions |
Green bananas | salt | salt |
black pepper |
As always apply amounts with "feeling". 🙃 If you have other earth foods, feel free to add them. I didn't have cassava, yams or green plantains, so I omitted them. It's pretty versatile.
Instructions
The first step is simple. Boil all the base foods in water until soft. Boom, you're done. Add some salt to the water for the ones that grow in the earth for extra flavor.
Wash your salted fish and then boil it in water to get rid of some of that saltiness. After that heat up some oil, throw in the onion, garlic and chilies. Then a bunch of tomatoes and some water to complete the sauce. Throw in the boiled fish and let it simmer. Salt and pepper to taste. Keep adding a bit of water as it evaporates.
The greens are also simple. As you can see, simplicity is key with this dish. Heat up your oil, brown the onions and garlic, add the nutmeg and some salt and pepper to taste. Oh, I added some tomatoes as well. You can pretty much use any kind of greens, I just happened to go with the beans.
Serve everything with some boiled eggs and enjoy! And if you're a functioning adult that doesn't know how to boil an egg, you may need to evaluate you life decisions. :)
How was your Sunday?
Your kouseband looks better than what I've seen at restaurants. Bless up!
Some tend to overcook it, then it becomes soft and yellowish. The trick is to cook it on high heat, or just steam it, just enough that's it's cooked but still has a 'crunch' to it and also a better more natural flavor in my opinion. This way it also keeps its bright green color.
Oh cool i didn't know there was another HIVE person from Suriname here! Nice to meet you.
Yeah, we've recently initiated a non-hostile takeover of Hive. Be prepared. :) Nice to meet you too.
This plantain /banana thing is confusing me now 😂 do you guys call plantains bananas there? Cause that is looking like a plantain.
Earthly foods with salt fish , in Jamaica it’s a popular breakfast, the region has more in common than I thought. I could go for some tough yellow and yam with green bananas and salt fish with the veggies right now. The egg in the side I’ve never seen though.
😂 The thing is in Dutch we call bananas 'bacoven' and plantains 'bananen', so that's why I mix up the translations sometimes. It's like how I would about 'voetbal'/football to an American and he wouldn't get it at all. Changing it to plantains.
yeah, I'm guessing the dish is very common in and around the region with the influences of African migrants and all the plantations in the past, with different variations of it of course.
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It sure is very tasty.
Thank you @nicanor-mosquera 💪