Non Vegetarian
Chicken Peleau

As a Trinidadian, PELEAU is a dish that I MUST have on my website. It is one of the traditional dishes of Trinidad and Tobago and it is relatively easy to prepare. I have not prepared Peleau at my home for a long time, reason being, my husband does not like his meat stewed and would not eat Peleau. But the day I cooked Peleau to get my pictures for this website, I ate it for breakfast and it was delicious.

Method
Put a deep cooking pot on the stove to hot. Add the olive oil and the Brown Sugar. As the sugar begins to take heat, it will begin to bubble and melt and burn (I think this is what is called carmalization). As the sugar totally melted and gets to a nice black colour (it is called browning at this point) add the chicken.

Mix in the chicken into the browning and ensure that the chicken is nicely coated in the browning. Add onion, garlic and pumpkin. Allow the chicken and vegetables to cook for about 20 minutes, during that time, you may have to add some water. Add the dried pigeon peas (see more about pigeon peas below) and rice. Add some salt, pepper sauce and two cups of water.

A really good Trini Peleau consists of fresh pigeon peas. But there are times when you are in a rush, the dried pigeon peas work just as well. The fresh pigeon peas takes a little more preparation - it takes longer to cook. I remember as a young child, my mother would buy the fresh pigeon peas from the market and the peas would be still in their pod. We would then have to sit and patiently shell (remove the peas from pod) the peas. I normally chose to do this while watching my favorite movie.

These days the fresh pigeon peas can be purchased already shelled, which is great so all I have to do is to cook the peas. To save me some time, I will pressurize all the peas, cook what I need and freeze the balance. That way it would not take so long to prepare my next meal with the pigeon peas as they would already be tenderized.

Allow the rice to cook. On my many attempts cooking this dish, I had problems getting the rice the colour that I want. I figured out that I could just add some browning (that is sold commercially), just a small bit, and it does the trick.

When about 75% of the water has dried down, adjust your stove settings to its lowest and cover the pot. When the rice has thoroughly cooked, turn off the stove. Serve.

Peleau can be served with a fresh salad, potato salad (if you are watching the amount of carbohydrates per meal, I would not recommend this salad), cole slaw or even a nice Spinach Salad.

Step By Step Pictures