Doubles is a staple of Trini street food, a sandwich that consists of two fried flatbreads (bara) filled with curried chickpeas (curry channa). It is believed that doubles were invented in 1936 in Princes Town, and nowadays they are consumed for breakfast or as a late-night snack. The dish can be additionally enriched with ingredients such as pepper sauce, tamarind sauce, or green mango pickle with amchar masala, known as kuchela. In Trinidad and Tobago, doubles are typically sold wrapped in paper.
Bake and shark is a unique Trini street food item that is especially popular at concerts, festivals, and celebrations. It consists of marinated or seasoned pieces of shark meat, sauces, chutneys, and vegetables in a flatbread known as bake. The dish is often associated with Maracas beach which is filled with numerous bake and shark street stalls.
Aloo pie is a fried pastry filled with seasoned mashed potatoes from Trinidad and Tobago. Despite its name, it bears little resemblance to a conventional pie. It is usually long and slightly flattened, with a soft, golden fried shell surrounding a warm, savory potato filling. Aloo means potato, and the filling is the defining part of the snack. Potatoes are boiled until tender, then mashed and seasoned with roasted ground cumin (locally known as geera), garlic, salt, and hot pepper. Chadon beni, or culantro, is also commonly added, while some versions include onion or other green seasonings. The result is a strongly seasoned filling with plenty of cumin and pepper rather than a plain potato mash. The dough is relatively simple, usually made from all-purpose flour, water, salt, and a raising agent such as baking powder or yeast. After resting, it is divided into portions and flattened. A spoonful of potato filling is placed in the center, the dough is folded around it, and the edges are sealed to form an elongated parcel. The pies are fried in hot oil until puffed and golden brown. The oil should be hot enough to cook the dough quickly, but not so hot that the outside burns before the center is heated through. Freshly fried aloo pies have a lightly crisp exterior that gives way to soft dough and a substantial potato filling. Aloo pie is closely associated with Trinidad and Tobago's Indo-Caribbean street-food culture. It developed from the food traditions Indian migrants brought to Trinidad during indentureship. Their descendants adapted Indian ingredients, seasonings, and cooking techniques to the Caribbean environment, creating a distinctive Indo-Trinidadian cuisine that includes foods such as doubles, pholourie, saheena, kachori, and aloo pie. The precise origin of aloo pie is not documented well enough to identify it as a direct descendant of any single Indian snack. Street vendors often slice a freshly fried aloo pie open and add condiments before serving it. Tamarind chutney is one of the most common, providing a sweet-and-sour contrast to the potato and fried dough. Mango chutney, chadon beni sauce, and hot pepper sauce are also popular. Kuchela, a strongly seasoned relish made from grated green mango, can be served with it as well, although it is thicker and more intensely spiced than the chutneys normally poured into the pie. Another popular way to serve aloo pie is to fill the opened pastry with curried channa, or chickpeas, then add chutney and pepper sauce. The combination turns the relatively simple potato pastry into a much more substantial meal. Channa is usually added after frying rather than incorporated into the potato filling. Aloo pies are sold throughout Trinidad and Tobago, particularly from roadside stalls and vendors that specialize in Indo-Trinidadian snacks. Debe in southern Trinidad is especially well known for stalls selling aloo pies alongside doubles, saheena, kachori and pholourie. People eat them throughout the day, but they're especially common as an inexpensive breakfast, lunch, or quick snack.
Pholourie is a small, savory fritter made from a seasoned batter of flour and ground yellow split peas, fried until golden and served with chutney or pepper sauce. Crisp on the outside and soft and airy inside, it is one of the most popular street snacks in Trinidad and Tobago and is also widely eaten in Guyana and other parts of the Caribbean with strong Indo-Caribbean influences. The snack developed from the food traditions Indian indentured laborers brought to the Caribbean in the 19th century. Between 1845 and 1917, nearly 148,000 Indians arrived in Trinidad under the indenture system, most of them recruited to work on sugar estates. Many came from northern India, particularly present-day Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and brought techniques for making fried breads, fritters, and snacks from pulses and flour. Over time, these traditions adapted to local ingredients and tastes, eventually producing distinctly Caribbean foods such as pholourie. Trinidadian pholourie is usually made with all-purpose flour and ground yellow split peas or commercially prepared split-pea powder. Some older methods start by soaking dried split peas until softened, then grinding them into a paste. The peas are mixed with flour, water, and seasonings to make a thick, sticky batter. Turmeric gives pholourie its characteristic yellow color, while garlic, roasted cumin, hot pepper and chadon beni, or culantro, provide much of its familiar flavor. Recipes vary considerably from household to household and may include yeast, baking powder, or both to help produce a light, fluffy interior. The batter generally rests before small portions are dropped into hot oil. As they fry, they puff into irregular round balls and develop a lightly crisp, golden exterior. Properly made pholourie should be tender and airy rather than dense or greasy, with the earthy flavor of the split peas balanced by garlic, cumin, and herbs. Pholourie is closely associated with Trinidadian street food. Vendors commonly sell the freshly fried fritters in small paper bags, often with chutney spooned over them or served alongside. They are also made at home and served at parties, family gatherings and celebrations, either as a snack or an appetizer. Tamarind chutney is a classic accompaniment. Its sweet-and-sour flavor is often sharpened with roasted cumin, garlic and hot pepper. Mango chutney is equally common, while pommecythere, or golden apple, chutney is another popular option. Pepper sauce may also be added for extra heat. The fritters' soft, porous centers readily absorb these sauces, so the combination of warm pholourie and tart, spicy chutney is considered a must. Although pholourie has roots in Indian cooking, it has developed into a distinctly Indo-Caribbean food. Its combination of split peas, chadon beni, hot pepper, and Caribbean-style chutneys reflects the way Indian culinary traditions evolved in Trinidad, and today pholourie is eaten across ethnic and cultural lines as one of the country's most recognizable snacks.
Baiganee is a classic Trini snack that can also be served as a side dish. This vegetarian treat consists of sliced eggplant or baigan (hence the name) that is coated in a spicy batter, then deep-fried to golden-brown perfection. It is typically sold by street vendors who often pair it with a tamarind dipping sauce or mango chutney. Baiganee is also quite popular during festivities such as Divali.
Achingly sweet, extra hard, dense, and crunchy, benne balls are popular Tobagonian treats made with brown sugar and benne, which is an African word for sesame seeds. These treats are extremely simple to prepare - brown sugar is heated, combined with sesame seeds, and then the concoction is rolled into a ball and left to set. Benne balls are especially popular at street stalls which are located near the beaches, making these sweets an ideal beach treat – just watch out for your teeth while consuming them!
Saheena is a savory fritter made with dasheen, or taro, leaves and a seasoned batter based on split peas and flour. It is an Indo-Trinidadian specialty with a crisp fried exterior and a soft, earthy interior flavored with cumin, garlic, turmeric, hot pepper, and fresh herbs. Saheena developed in Trinidad’s Indo-Caribbean community after Indian indentured laborers arrived in the 19th century. They brought with them a strong tradition of pakoras, fritters, and other fried snacks made with pulses, vegetables, and leafy greens. In Trinidad, they adapted these cooking traditions to locally grown, readily available ingredients, including dasheen leaves. Dasheen itself is a variety of taro with Asian origins that had already become established in the Caribbean. Saheena has two main styles. The more elaborate version, usually called rolled saheena, is made by spreading seasoned batter over whole dasheen leaves, layering them and rolling the stack tightly into a log. The batter commonly contains split-pea flour, all-purpose flour, turmeric, roasted cumin, garlic, and green seasoning, often including chadon beni, or culantro. Hot pepper, onion, and lime or lemon juice may also be added. Recipes vary, and some include chickpea flour or ground urad dhal. The thick stems are removed from the dasheen leaves, and any particularly tough veins are trimmed or flattened. Batter is spread over one leaf, another leaf is placed on top, and the process is repeated to create several layers. The stack is then rolled tightly. In one common method, the roll is steamed until the leaves soften and the batter sets, then cooled and sliced into rounds. Other versions chill or rest the roll before slicing without steaming it first. The slices are coated with a little more batter and fried in moderately hot oil until crisp and golden brown. The second style is known as chip-up or cut-up saheena. Instead of keeping the leaves whole, the dasheen leaves are finely chopped and mixed directly into the seasoned batter. Portions of the mixture are then dropped into hot oil and fried as irregular fritters. This version has more exposed surface area, giving it plenty of crisp edges, and is especially common at street-food stalls. Dasheen leaves contain needle-like calcium oxalate crystals that can cause an unpleasant itching or burning sensation if the leaves are raw or insufficiently cooked. For this reason, people clean the leaves carefully and cook them thoroughly. Lime or lemon juice is also commonly incorporated into saheena recipes. Saheena is eaten hot as a snack or appetizer and is particularly associated with Trinidadian street food and Indo-Trinidadian celebrations such as Divali. It is commonly served with tamarind chutney, mango chutney and pepper sauce. Kuchela, a spicy grated green-mango relish seasoned with spices and hot pepper, can also accompany it. Tamarind chutney provides the familiar sweet, sour and spicy contrast to the rich fried fritter.
Kachourie is a Trini variation of a popular Indian snack. The flattened ball of dough consists of flour, channa, split peas, and seasonings such as salt, black pepper, turmeric, and chili powder. These dough balls are then fried in oil until golden brown. Unlike the Indian version, where the dough is filled with other ingredients, Trini version has ingredients which are incorporated into the dough. Kachourie is typically served with mango and tamarind chutneys, and this tasty street food snack is especially popular during Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.
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