Vegetarian recipes from Haiti

Meatless Haitian cooking starts from a raw aromatic marinade, epis: garlic, shallot, parsley, thyme, sweet pepper and chilli blended together, kept cold and added to almost everything. Starch comes from roots and plantain, boiled or fried, and rice is served with a sauce of red or black beans, sometimes sieved and returned to the rice as it cooks. Vegetables are not a side: legim cooks them at length, aubergine and chayote merging into a dense purée that stands as the dish itself.

The balance of a meal rests on the contrast between something soft and something raw and hot. Pikliz, shredded cabbage and carrot in vinegar with scotch bonnet, keeps in a jar and goes on anything fried or stewed; it replaces sauce as much as salt. Oil is used frankly, to fry green plantain twice or to sear roots already boiled. Lime is used before cooking, to wash and scent the vegetables, more often than at the moment of serving.