Trinidad Street Food

This post was originally published as Doubles (Trinidad Street Food) by Laurel on Health Food.

Ever since we got back from Trinidad, I’ve been dying to make some of the foods we ate on our trip. Last night I made curried chickpeas and fried bread (doubles). They came out great! When we were in Trinidad we ate doubles on the street several times and I loved them. They are loaded with flavor thanks to gobs of curry powder, garlic, onions, and hot sauce. I used a half teaspoon of some super-spicy homemade hot sauce we brought back with us from our trip.

Frying the bread was a new thing for me. I typically don’t fry my foods because it’s obviously not the healthiest cooking method. But this was fun for a special treat. Plus, the curried chickpeas filling is super healthy, vegetarian, and full of disease-fighting curry spices.

I used a Doubles recipe from the cookbook I bought on vacation: The Multi-Cultural Cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago & The Caribbean. If you want to make these doubles too, I found an almost identical recipe on the Fabulous Foods website.

It feels good to experiment with new recipes, and I know my boyfriend loves that I’m learning how to make homemade Caribbean food. Can’t wait to try more recipes from the cookbook! For more on Trinidadian food including pictures from my recent vacation.

Food To-Go In 2 Minutes

This post was originally published as Rickshaw Dumpling Bar by Laurel on Health Food.
Before I left for my 4th of July vacation in Florida, I stopped by the Rickshaw Dumpling Bar on 23rd street. I had heard about the Rickshaw food trucks, but just realized they have two stores in NYC.
The Flatiron store was very clean and I also got great service. I ordered my food to-go and it was ready in 2 minutes. There were lots of things I wanted to try, but I narrowed it down to the Vegetarian Edamame dumplings and one Herby Spring Roll as an appetizer. The spring roll was made with glass noodles, carrot, cucumber, jicama, cilantro, mint, basil, and a peanut dip. It was super fresh and served chilled. I love that they used three different green herbs in there.
The Vegetarian Edamame roll was made with mashed up edamame beans with lemon and wrapped in a whole wheat dumpling wrapper and served with a lemon sansho dip. They were pretty good and tasted healthy, but I thought they were a little plain. Next time I’ll try the mustard green dumplings with tofu, mustard seeds, and soy sesame dip instead. What I did love was the fresh Soy-Sesame Salad I got on the side of the dumplings. It was made with spicy-tofu that tasted like they were dipped in chicken wing sauce. Plus, there were a ton of crispy bean sprouts, scallions, and garlic. The flavor-packed salad made up for the mild-tasting dumplings.
Overall, I had a good experience at Rickshaw. I’ll definitely be back. They also have a Peanut Sate Salad I want to try that’s made with young coconut and thai basil.

Rickshaw Bar - Flatiron Location

Inside look at Vegetarian Edamame dumplings

Herby Spring Rolls

Vegetarian Edamame Dumplings and Soy-Sesame Salad

Garlic has higher levels of allicin

This post was originally published as Fresh Garlic is Where it’s at by Laurel on Health Food blog. 

Recent research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that freshly chopped garlic has higher levels of allicin than preserved, chopped garlic that comes in a bottle. Allicin is a key compound in garlic that’s responsible for most of the anti-bacterial benefits. Some other studies have found that allicin in garlic can prevent bacterial infections and food poisoning, blood clots, and cancer.

In this recent study, researchers compared the amount of allicin in fresh garlic with the amounts after storing it for one or two weeks in water, vegetable oil, or alcohol. The garlic stored in water lost about 50% of its allicin content in six days. The garlic in vegetable oil lost 50% of its allicin content in under an hour.

Bottled garlic still has some healthy benefits, but not as much as the fresh kind. If you’re someone who doesn’t like to chop up garlic or has a hard time doing it, try getting a hand-held garlic press or using a food processor. You’ll have fresh garlic in a matter of seconds!