Culinary Tourism: Creole Cooking Class In Guadeloupe, French Caribbean
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We visited the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in April 2023 while living on the nearby island of Saint Martin. We fell in love with Guadeloupe and will be back! Guadeloupe is a French island with great beaches, jungles, volcanos, infrastructure, and FOOD!
*Updated January 2024*
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Our Culinary Experience with Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe
When looking for things to do on the island of Guadeloupe, we were blessed to discover this Caribbean Creole class by Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe! We were very excited going into the class, but we never could have expected what an absolute gem of an experience we found. Thank you to the team at Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe for everything you do!
Not only was it the most authentic cooking class we have taken to date, but it was the most affordable, budget-friendly seafood feast we might ever have! To relive the culinary experience, we intend to visit Guadeloupe again.
Authenticity: Our cooking class with Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe featured two local female chefs and a translator. The chefs spoke Creole French to our translator, and then she repeated the information/instructions in English. The venue where we prepared and ate the food is a family-run restaurant in Deshaies. One of the chef’s children even served us our bottle of wine.
Immersive Cooking Class: We were involved in every step of the process, from chopping to preparing and cooking each dish!
Accommodating To Allergies: In our booking notes, we put “one guest is gluten-free,” fully expecting to have some dishes substituted or left out. This was not the case! The team at Low-key Tours Guadeloupe chose to buy gluten-free flour and ingredients so that each dish could be made entirely gluten-free and sharable! We appreciated how flexible and accommodating they were!
Ti-Punch Aperitifs and a Day Full of Laughter: Before you start the cooking class, you will have opportunities to create and sample Creole Ti-Punch. After a couple of these, you enter the kitchen with a warm belly and a bubbly mood! Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe ensures you are entertained with stories, jokes, and laughter. Language is truly not a barrier for English-only speakers because the translator is very good at fostering conversation between the local chefs and their guests.
Do not believe us? Check out Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe’s website and Instagram for more inspiration to book this experience!
>Hyperlink For Booking The Cooking Class<
How To Make Caribbean Creole Ti Punch
Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe’s creole cooking class starts with a Ti Punch mixology course.
The guide/translator explains the local significance of Ti Punch before teaching you how to prepare a proper mix. Some locals in Guadeloupe drink Ti Punch like Fins drink coffee or Mediterranean countries drink wine, it is a dietary staple. Ti Punch is considered by some as part of the Creole wellness routine, a remedy for illness and a dietary aperitif.
The ingredients for Ti Punch are simple; lime, cane sugar, and local 40-50% rum.
How To Prepare Ti Punch:
(1) The lime is juiced and mixed with cane sugar to create a sugary syrup that serves as the base. Bartenders in Guadeloupe tend to use less sugar for tourists, and more sugar for locals.
(2) Local 40-50% rum is added to the syrup and stirred until blended. And there you have it, a Ti punch in its simplest form!
(3) From here you can add a garnish of choice like lime, lemon, orange, peppers, etc.
How To Make Caribbean Creole “Sauce Chien”
After mixing and enjoying Creole Ti Punch, the cooking class begins by creating Sauce Chien (Dog Sauce).
From our experiences Sauce Chien is a staple of Creole cuisine, serving as a marinade, glaze, BBQ sauce, and even salad dressing.
The ingredients for Sauce Chien depend on the recipe, traditionally it is made from items found around the kitchen/farm: onions, chives, garlic, sweet peppers, fresh parsley, cooking oil, and vinegar.
How To Prepare Sauce Chien:
(1) Chop the vegetables and herbs into bite-size pieces
(2) Marinate the vegetables in a vinegar-oil combo to help them release their flavours.
(3) Once the sauce has been prepared, use it throughout the entire cooking process.
How to Barbecue Caribbean creole lobster/langouste
Cooking food on the barbecue is an authentic Caribbean Creole experience. The lobster was cooked on a large BBQ with a lid.
Lobster cooked on the BBQ is delicious and a very different culinary experience for those whose palate is used to buttery, boiled lobster!
Q: What is a Langouste?
A: Large crayfish, spiny lobster, rock lobster
How To Prepare Caribbean Creole BBQ Langouste:
(1) Cut the langouste down in the middle (head to tail) while still raw. Please ensure your lobster has been humanely killed before cutting it. Once halved, you may choose to remove to the langouste’s intestines, or in our experience they were left in.
(2) Place your halved langouste on the BBQ grill shell-down, meat facing up. Drizzle sauce chien over the tails and watch as the tails begin to dance/wiggle on the grill.
(3) Apply Sauce Chien throughout the process to add flavour and keep the cooking meat juicy.
(4) Leave the langouste on the BBQ until the meat turns white. You can tell the langouste is cooked by the colour of the meat and tail. If you want meat that softly pulls right out of the shell, do not overcook.
(5) Many Creole restaurants would take this opportunity to BBQ plantain alongside the lobster.
How to make Caribbean creole mahi-Mahi tartare
Story Time: I remember the first time I ever had food served to me in a pineapple. It was at an Asian restaurant in Paris where they served chicken-pineapple rice in the pineapple used to make it. It was an eye-opening culinary experience of sustainable food practices. Let’s just say that the Creole mahi-mahi tartare prepared by the team at Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe is my new favourite pineapple-based culinary experience!
How To Prepare Creole Mahi-Mahi Tartare:
(1) Source freshly caught local fish. It can be tuna, it can be mahi-mahi, it can be something else, but it needs to be fresh! Choose a butcher you trust who does the due diligence to search the fillets for parasites. A safe practice for added precaution is to rub salt into the filet before you start.
(2) Chop the raw mahi-mahi filet into cube-sized pieces.
(3) Add vegetables (the same ingredients you used for the Sauce Chien) to a bowl with the mahi-mahi.
(4) Cut your pineapple in half and make grid-cuts to create cubes. Use a spoon to scoop the pineapple out of the shell.
(5) Mix the pineapple with the mahi-mahi cubes.
(6) Just before you serve, juice several limes on top of the mixture to “cook” the fish and make it safe to eat.
>Hyperlink For Booking The Cooking Class<
How to make Caribbean Creole salted cod fritters
The final component of the Caribbean Creole feast we experienced in Guadeloupe was salted cod fritters, essentially, fried fish balls that you dip in chien sauce.
Low-Key Tours Guadeloupe was accommodating to our dietary needs and altered their recipe to make gluten-free salted cod fritters!
How To Prepare Caribbean Creole Salted Cod Fritters:
(1) Soak the salted cod in water (while preparing other dishes) to remove some of the saltiness. We learned the hard way when trying to re-create this recipe at home that not all salted cod is made the same. Perhaps look for a low-sodium option because we found our re-creation extremely salty!
(2) Separate the cod into a hash using two forks
(3) Add vegetables (the same ones used to make Sauce Chien),
(4) Add water and spices (of your choosing)
(5) Stir thoroughly until the mixture turns into a paste.
(6) Use a spoon to scoop the mixture and create fish balls.
(7) Bread the fish balls with bread crumbs (gluten-free for us)
(8) Cook (pan-fry in oil or deep fry)
How to Lay out a Caribbean Creole BBQ Feast
The presentation of the final product from our cooking class at Low Key Tours Guadeloupe was straight out of a culinary magazine! When they brought it out, we were thrilled!
How To Lay Out A Caribbean Creole BBQ Feast:
(1) The BBQ langouste feast is served over a bed of salad greens, chopped pineapples, BBQ plantains and sweet potato fries.
(2) The mahi-mahi tartare is served in a hollowed-out pineapple.
(3) The salted cod fritters are layered throughout.
The final result is a mouth-watering display of Caribbean Creole cuisine and homage to hard work in the kitchen!
Our Recommendations For Best Things To Do In Guadeloupe
Hike La Grande Soufrière Volcano
Swim in the natural hot springs at the base of La Grande Soufrière
Relax on Plage de Grande Anse beach
Hike through jungle trails for great views of the Carbet Waterfalls
Explore Pointe-à-Pitre
More Caribbean Blogs By Bordersology
Ultimate Visitors Guide To Sint Maarten And Saint Martin (SXM)
Gluten-Free And Celiac Guide To St Martin And Sint Maarten (SXM)
21 Signature Cocktails You Need To Try In St. Maarten And St. Martin (SXM)
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