Movie star chef’s go to evokes new characteristic at Pineapple Seashore Membership Antigua

Caribbean cooking shares rather a lot with West African delicacies, via substances like cassava, sure peppers, candy potatoes and plantains and spices similar to ginger, cinnamon and allspice which can be generally utilized in each cultures. That is one thing Los Angeles-based superstar chef Ameera Muhammad famous after a go to to Ghana and a subsequent go to to Antigua.

“There have been sure issues within the markets [in West Africa] that I could not discover once I returned dwelling to California, the place our meals is extra processed, however that I began seeing once more in Antigua,” mentioned Ameera, who merely goes by her first title. “My thoughts was blown. Midway the world over, I am discovering the identical substances, and I may see the cultural connections throughout the diaspora.”

The Pineapple Seashore Membership Antigua resort has launched a gourmand dinner collection that was impressed by Ameera’s go to to the resort. Beginning at $150 per individual, the resort will arrange a sundown dinner, both beachside or elsewhere on the property as requested. The collection will likely be a everlasting fixture on the resort, obtainable for dinner every night.

The resort related with Ameera via a collaboration with the Antigua & Barbuda Tourism Authority, and when she visited, she was let into the kitchen to start out cooking. That led to the resort providing her dishes to company on an ongoing foundation.

“Chef Ameera impressed our culinary group to get inventive with the incredible array of native herbs, greens, fruits and substances to raise our big day eating menus, that are good for honeymoons, reunions, and different particular occasions,” mentioned Sanjay Ambrose, managing director of Pineapple Seashore Membership Antigua.

What’s on the menu?

The six-course menu begins with an amuse-bouche of butter poached lobster, adopted by a plant-based conch salad made with hearts of palm, an arugula salad, and a soursop sorbet intermezzo. The principle course is a grilled spiced fish in a mix of Ghanian crimson pepper and native Antiguan jerk sauces. Lastly, a key lime coconut cream mousse is served for dessert.

Ameera’s objective is to fuse West African gastronomical affect with Caribbean delicacies, and throw in a bit of Los Angeles aptitude. She plans to spend extra time within the Caribbean and West Africa this 12 months, the place she’ll immerse herself within the meals tradition and convey some experiences again to the islands.

• Associated: Flavors of Europe, Caribbean share the plate at Antigua’s Tamarind Hills Resort

“Once I come to the Caribbean I all the time need a contemporary lobster or snapper,” she mentioned. “Recent seafood: that could be a spotlight of being right here. It is picked from the water each day. Once I was in St. Lucia, I went to the fish market and picked the fish they’d, and you may style the distinction.” There, final 12 months, Ameera hosted a workshop that mixed meals with spirituality, nature walks and dirt baths.

She hopes to broaden her workshops to different islands, as effectively, together with St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados.

“Meals is in my DNA. I have been cooking since I used to be 8 years previous,” mentioned Ameera, a former successful on the Meals Community’s “Cutthroat Kitchen.” “There are plenty of issues that we include into this world, and we simply must develop them.”