BLOC MAGAZINE WINTER 18-19

CARIBBEAN FLAVA Craig and Shaun McAnuff launched ‘Original Flava’ to teach people how to cook Caribbean food with easy step-by-step video guides... WWW.BLOCHOTELS.COM // 19 1. Add water to your pot and add your Saltfish then boil for 5 minutes, Drain water then re- peat until your happy with the salt amount when you taste it after boiling, we tend to boil it 3 times in total, we feels this gives it a perfect balance of salt left in the fish. Alter- natively you can soak Saltfish in a pot of cold water, draining and filling with fresh water every 3 hours. 2. Drain water from your pot and wait for Salt- fish to cool down, then use a fork and shred the saltfish into small pieces and set aside. Now you’ll need a large frying pan, pour in vegetable oil on a high heat, once the oil is sizzling hot, turn to a medium-high heat. Then add onions, garlic, and spring onions, scotch bonnet pepper and cook down until soft. 3. Add the Saltfish, dash in some black pepper, thyme, and pimento and mix di ting together and cook down for around 3 minutes. 4. Now you have to add in your red and green bell pepper dem, along with your tomato, mix together and cook down for 2-3 minutes. These ingredients help to bring a heat bal- ance, so it’s not too spicy. 5. Now you’ll need to add in your Ackee and dash in a likkle black pepper, then fold the ackee in very gently. The ackee is soft it’s important to gently fold the it, nobody likes mushy ackee, me nah like dat! Once folded carefully, simmer for 5 minutes. Food DUN! Enjoy. Flava tips: Eat with Fried dumplings or rice and peas. METHOD INGREDIENTS // Water (enough to boil saltfish) // 2 x 300g pack of boneless saltfish cod // 2 tbsp vegetable oil // 1 medium onion finely diced // 4 garlic cloves finely diced // 3 spring onions finely diced // 1 Scotch Bonnet pepper finely diced // 1tsp. black pepper // 1tsp of dried thyme // 1 tsp. ground pimento // ½ red bell pepper finely diced // ½ green bell pepper finely diced // 1 large tomato medium diced // 2x 540g tinned ackee (drained) A caribbean staple and the national dish of Jamai- ca, it's one of our favourite dishes to eat, with some fried dumpling pon di side JEEZ! Traditionally eat- en in the morning, it’s so versatile you can enjoy at any time of the day. Ackee is available in most supermarkets in a tin, but in the Caribbean it’s harvested straight from the trees - you have to be very careful to pick when it’s right as it can be poisonous, but be not afraid, the tin ones are perfectly safe! The texture of ackee is similar to scrambled eggs, but has much more flavour, and is married with boneless saltfish which is flava’d up with ground Caribbean spices. Brothers Craig and Shaun McAnuff, from Thornton Heath, South London, have gained more than 300,000 online follow- ers and 40 million video views in just 1 year after turning their love of Caribbean cuisine into a burgeoning online business. Taught how to cook by their Grandmoth- er & Mother, their online success has seen them feature on BBC radio, Buzzfeed, Evening Standard and doing live food demos at Westfield Stratford. The brothers have released a self-published cookbook after successfully crowd-funding campaign. The book went on to become a No. 1 Amazon best-seller. 'Original Flava' includes authentic & mod- ern caribbean recipes made easy, and pro- vides healthy ingredient alternatives. The book also includes inspiring sto- ries from Shaun and Craig, who faced a challenging upbringing in South London surrounded by gang violence. They now use this to inspire other young people at schools using cooking workshops to in- spire them go after their dreams. Find out more at: originalflava.com