Flying fish and cou-cou recipe

Cornmeal beaten with okra and its own slippery cooking water into a smooth dome, topped with flying fish rolled in Bajan seasoning and steamed in tomato gravy.

1 hour and 40 minutesmedium12 ingredients

Ingredients

• 8 flying fish fillets
• 250 g okra
• 250 g cornmeal
• 2 onions
• 3 spring onions
• 4 clove garlic
• 1 bunch fresh thyme
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 lime
• 50 g butter
• 2 tsp salt

How to make Flying fish and cou-cou

1. Rub 8 flying fish fillets with the juice of 1 lime and a little salt, rinse them and pat them dry.
2. Make the Bajan seasoning: blend 1 onion, 3 spring onions, 4 garlic cloves, half a bunch of thyme, half a scotch bonnet, salt and pepper into a green paste. Spread some on each fillet, roll it up and secure it with a cocktail stick.
3. Make the gravy: soften 1 chopped onion in oil, add 3 chopped tomatoes, the rest of the seasoning, a few thyme sprigs and 200 ml of water, and simmer 10 minutes.
4. Lay the fish rolls in the gravy, cover and steam gently for 12-15 minutes. The fish is never fried or grilled; it takes all its flavour from the gravy.
5. Soak 250 g of cornmeal in 350 ml of water for 20 minutes.
6. Boil 250 g of sliced okra in 1 litre of salted water for 10 minutes until soft, then strain, keeping the slippery okra water and the okra separately. That water is what makes cou-cou smooth, and plain water will not do it.
7. Return 700 ml of the okra water to the pot, whisk in the soaked cornmeal and the okra, and stir hard with a flat wooden cou-cou stick for 15-20 minutes, adding more okra water as it thickens, until the mass pulls away from the pan.
8. Beat in 50 g of butter, turn the cou-cou into a wetted bowl to shape a dome, then tip it onto the plate and spoon the fish and gravy over.

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