Caribbean · Main Course
Cou-Cou and Flying Fish
Barbados' national dish: a smooth cornmeal and okra mash served against flying fish fillets steamed in a light onion, tomato and lime gravy.
Method
Rub the 480 g flying fish with the 15 ml fresh lime juice and 2 g fine sea salt and set aside while the cou-cou is made.
Bring the 500 ml water to a boil with the 200 g okra and cook for 10m, until the okra is fully tender and the water has turned slick.
Reduce the heat to low. Sprinkle in the 220 g yellow maize meal a little at a time, beating constantly with a wooden spoon so no lumps form, then work in the 30 g unsalted butter and the 4 g fine sea salt and keep beating for 12m, until the mixture pulls cleanly away from the side of the pot.
Beating the cornmeal into the okra water in stages, rather than all at once, is what keeps it smooth instead of lumped; each addition has to be fully worked in before the next goes in.
Meanwhile, heat the 15 ml vegetable oil in a separate pan and cook the 80 g white onion for 8m, until softened, then add the 100 g ripe tomatoes, 5 g scotch bonnet, 2 g fresh thyme and the 200 ml water and bring to a simmer.
Lay the seasoned 480 g flying fish into the simmering gravy, cover and cook for 10m, until the fillets are opaque and flake easily. Remove the whole scotch bonnet before serving the fish and gravy spooned over the cou-cou.
Common pitfallFish this thin overcooks in minutes; it is done as soon as it turns opaque and flakes, and any longer in the gravy dries it out.
Cou-cou is cornmeal cooked down with okra until it forms a smooth, sliceable mash, and its closest relatives are found not in the Caribbean but across the Atlantic: Ghana's banku, made from fermented maize and eaten with okra stew, and Angola's funge, a cornmeal starch of the same texture, both work the same staple the same way. In Barbados, cornmeal and okra reflect the African culinary traditions carried to the island under slavery, and the dish stayed affordable and common through much of the island's colonial history because both its main ingredients were cheap and easy to grow [1].
Flying fish is what turns the dish from a starch into a plate. The species was once so abundant in the waters around Barbados that the island earned the nickname "the land of flying fish," and the particular skill of catching and boning it for the table was refined there over generations [1]. Steamed in a light gravy of onion, thyme and lime or seasoned and fried, the fillets are served over the mash, and the cou-cou itself (worked smooth in its pot with a wooden swizzle stick called a "cou-cou stick" [2]) is what gives the dish its name.
Cou-cou and flying fish was formally recognised as Barbados' national dish in the mid-twentieth century [1] [2], a status that persists even as flying fish stocks in Barbadian waters have declined in recent decades [1]. It remains most closely associated with Fridays, when it is served in homes and at local restaurants across the island.
Sources
- History of Cou-Cou & Flying Fish, Dine With A Bajan (Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.)Barbados' official tourism board's account of the dish's African-heritage cornmeal-and-okra tradition and its mid-twentieth-century adoption as national dish.
- More Than Flying Fish: Barbados' Unique Cuisine Tells the Story of an Island Through Food, Carib NewsroomRegional news coverage confirming cou-cou and flying fish as Barbados' national dish and describing the cou-cou stick used to work the mash smooth.