These fragrant Indian corn fritters make a crowd-pleasing appetizer or snack.
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]]>Chickpea flour acts as a flavorful binder in these Indian corn fritters from British Indian chef Romy Gill, whose promotion of West Bengali cuisine has earned her status as a Member of the Order of the British Empire. She serves these pakoras to her daughters, and they enjoy them with mint-and-cilantro chutney, or even ketchup on the side.
Featured in “The 2020 Saveur 100: 81-90.”
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]]>Skip the airfare and slow-cook your way right at home to this Windy City original.
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]]>When Chicago native Erin Scottberg was searching for an at-home version of this beef sandwich, a high-school classmate responded to her plea with a photo of a stained index card titled “Italian Beef—Aunt Tammy.” Our adaptation of the family recipe calls for sirloin, thinly sliced in advance by your butcher, then quickly poached in an aromatic broth.
Featured in: “The 2020 Saveur 100: 51-63.”
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]]>This dainty and sustainable species makes an easy sheet-pan supper.
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]]>The best way to cook mild-flavored, itty-bitty Atlantic butterfish is via the technique used by chef James Mitchell at the Midtown Oyster Bar in Newport, Rhode Island: liberally seasoned with dried herbs, then roasted in a hot oven over a bed of tomatoes, fennel, and garlic. His method works well with any small, white-fleshed fish. For more ways to cook whole fish, check out our favorite fish recipes.
Featured in: “The 2020 Saveur 100.”
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]]>Douse flaky, custard-drenched viennoiserie in a buttery hard sauce for this grown-up take on a cozy classic.
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]]>This extravagant bread pudding from author and editor Sarah Gray Miller uses croissants and a generous amount of heavy cream. Soak the raisins in the bourbon while you assemble the rest of the dish.
Featured in: “The 2020 Saveur 100.”
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]]>The only thing these crispy Puerto Rican corn sticks need is a side of mayoketchup.
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]]>Surullitos—cheesy, fried cornmeal sticks—are a popular snack in Puerto Rico. Dunk them in homemade mayoketchup, a simple sauce of ketchup and mayo, seasoned with garlic, and a dash of Sofrito, Adobo, or hot sauce. Every Boricua has their own recipe. (Heinz also has a ready-made version.) The dough can be kept in the fridge for a day or two before frying. Check out all items from the Saveur 100.
Featured in: “The 2020 Saveur 100: 81-90.”
Get the recipes for A) Shane Mitchell’s Southern Corn Fritters, B) Romy Gill’s Sweet Corn Pakoras, C) Rhode Island Johnnycakes, D) Puerto Rican Surullitos, and E) Perkedel Jagung (Indonesian Corn Fritters) >
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]]>Its tagline was “What’s the point of OK? Well, that’s the point of anything?”
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]]>In 1990, Richard Linklater revolutionized the indie-film world with Slacker, a movie that made doing absolutely nothing look like active rebellion. Then Nirvana more than underscored the point with Nevermind. Which inspired the 1992 grunge collection that got Marc Jacobs fired from Perry Ellis, and turned him into a star. Is it any wonder that the suits over at the Coca-Cola Co. saw a youth movement in need of a soft drink, and launched OK Soda in 1993? Sample tag line: What’s the point of OK? Well, what’s the point of anything?
Related: 11 Strange, Obscure Global Sodas You Have to Try
A bit of backstory: After realizing that “OK” was the only word more universally recognizable than “Coke,” the ad-agency creatives commissioned by the beverage behemoth decided that the word also perfectly captured Gen X ennui. TV and radio commercials described OK as “citrusy” and “spicy,” though young consumers more often compared it to the everything-from-the-soda-fountain cocktail known as a “graveyard.” Whether it was the drink’s “just OK” flavor or the marketing campaign’s over-the-top bleakness, OK never quite caught on. Following disappointing sales in test cities like Austin, Seattle, and Providence, Coca-Cola scrapped the project. But as someone who came of age during the launch of this strangely self-aware soft drink, I find myself, more and more these days, repeating its sole comforting catchphrase: Things are going to be OK.
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]]>A classic Caribbean fish salad for topping for Guadeloupean bokit.
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]]>Chef David Drumeaux adds West Indian piments végétarien (small sweet peppers) to this salad. They can be hard to find outside the Caribbean, so use mini bell peppers as a substitute.
Featured in: Bokit: The Soul of Guadeloupe in a Sandwich
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]]>A crunchy, French Caribbean slaw for topping bokit sandwiches.
]]>Chef David Drumeaux’s undressed version of the Haitian coleslaw, pikliz (“pick-lees”) adds freshness and crunch to every sandwich at Bokit Delux. Giromon is a type of winter squash popular in the Caribbean. Look for it in West Indian markets, or substitute another dense, sweet squash such as butternut or kabocha.
Featured in: Bokit: The Soul of Guadeloupe in a Sandwich
Pointe-à-Pitre chef David Drumeaux shares how he prepares the archipelago’s signature street food, from bread to fillings to relish.
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]]>Virtually every place has an iconic street food—that inexpensive, highly portable bite capable of telegraphing its geographical culinary identity to the rest of the world. The United States is known for hot dogs; Vietnam, banh mi. In Guadeloupe, the bokit (pronounced “BO-keet,” not “bo-KIT”) sandwich speaks volumes about the French-Caribbean archipelago’s complicated history with slavery and colonialism.
To call this wonder a sandwich would be to seriously undersell its bread. Yes, there are fillings: typically cod and conch, but also chicken and pork. Toppings too, including lettuce, tomato, and hot-pepper sauce. The main attraction, however, remains that perfectly crisp, pillowy envelope, reminiscent of the American South’s yeast roll, had said roll’s dough been deep‑fried instead of baked.
Versions of this bread—some yeasted, some incorporating cornmeal—are prevalent throughout the Caribbean, called djoncakes in Dominica, yaniqueques in the Dominican Republic, and dumplings in Jamaica. Their predecessor, the danquite, was a simple mix of flour and water fried in fat. Scholars believe it arrived on the islands of Guadeloupe by way of the Caribbean’s English-speaking colonies as early as the 17th century—right around the time the French enslaved West Africans and brought them to the West Indies to work sugar and coffee plantations.
Slavery was abolished in Guadeloupe for good in 1848, and the danquite, made from few ingredients and easy to prepare, became the sustenance of the recently emancipated. Eventually stuffed with salt cod and later filled like a sandwich, this fried dough evolved into today’s bokit.
“Bokit was poor folks’ food, made from cheap ingredients,” says David Drumeaux, the charismatic chef-owner of Bokit Delux. The casual spot, established in 2018, sits near the old section of Pointe-à-Pitre, across the street from Drumeaux’s music club, 1973 Food & Sound. The two restaurants—and their shared outdoor pavilion, sandwiched between building exteriors painted with giant murals of Guadeloupean men and women—have turned the block into a vibrant pocket amid an often-dusty historical city.
Why open a second restaurant while still plenty busy with the first? Drumeaux, who studied at Alain Ducasse’s École Ducasse in France, puts it thusly: “Our McDonald’s started selling a version of the traditional Guadeloupean burger, the agoulou. They called it the McGoulou. I did not want to see that happen to bokit.”
Drumeaux fills his version the traditional way, with salt cod, though his salt cod is more like a bright fish salad with fresh herbs, crunchy sweet peppers, onion, and a squeeze of lime juice. The most popular option on the menu, however, is pork that’s been stewed in a mixture of soy sauce, mustard, and lime juice for several hours before meeting up with a slaw of julienned cabbage, carrots, and winter squash, slices of zucchini, and a drizzle of the local cane syrup, sirop de batterie. When paired with that bread, the rich, shredded meat and toppings are nothing short of transcendent.
Once a month, area chefs are invited to craft their own take on the sandwich at Bokit Delux. Chef Arthur Karioua of Pointe-à-Pitre’s La Porte des Indes, or the Indian Door, recently contributed a bokit stuffed with potatoes, peas, beans, and cabbage, flavored with garam masala and turmeric, and topped with a mint sauce.
“Bokit is the Proustian madeleine of Guadeloupe,” Drumeaux reflects. “It is the food of grandmothers and aunties, and everyone here has a memory of it. This staple of our culture deserves to be celebrated.”
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]]>Guadeloupe’s beloved street food starts with this simple fried bread.
]]>The pillowy, deep-fried bread that is the base for Guadeloupe’s bokit puffs up as it fries, creating a hollow pocket. Be careful not the squeeze the steam out as you remove the bread from the hot oil.
Featured in: Bokit: The Soul of Guadeloupe in a Sandwich
Slow-Simmered Pork with French Caribbean Cane Syrup
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]]>Drumeaux uses a cut of pork called rouelle—a thick round slice with a bone in the center, taken from the pig’s hind leg—that is not likely to be sitting in your grocery store’s meat case. Special-order it from a butcher, or substitute a 2‑inch‑thick, bone-in pork-shoulder steak.
Featured in: Bokit: The Soul of Guadeloupe in a Sandwich
*While this dark sugar-cane-based sweetener is available at some Caribbean markets, you can also substitute ¼ cup molasses mixed with ½ cup cane syrup (we prefer Steen’s).
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