Writing — Food & Photography

Discovering Eddoes — And Making Eddoes Choka for the First Time

Trying out great food in Trinidad & Tobago

Back in October, while celebrating Divali here in Trinidad & Tobago, I first had the opportunity to try out the dish called eddoes choka. It was made lovingly, along with many other yummy things to eat, by a host of beautiful Indian ladies.

Interesting, I thought to myself. So many intriguing flavors and spices. I knew I had to figure out this dish for myself.

What are eddoes?

Eddoes is a ground provision related to taro and also closely related to dasheen, the latter of which looks quite similar but is usually a bit larger than eddoes. It originally hails from China and Japan and was introduced into South America and the West Indies.

Spanish speakers may know it as malangas or yautias, while those who speak Portuguese may know the eddoe as cará or inhame. It is also widely consumed in India and Egypt, where the leaves are eaten in a similar manner to Spinach as well.

“A considerable number of varieties are known, some better adapted for puddings, some for bread, or simply for boiling or baking” — Eddoe — Wikipedia

The Prep

First of all, preparing eddoes for cooking is an adventure in itself. Really not trying to gross anyone out here, but to tell you the truth, peeling eddoes seemed akin to trying to peel a big hairy dead rat.

That’s really what I was thinking. No, they aren’t easy to peel by any means, and it requires a very sharp knife and care not to cut yourself while hacking away.

Once they are finally peeled though, and thrown into a pot to boil, they look like this:

Looks a lot like potatoes, eh? And indeed, they do seem like potatoes in many ways.

One way they are not like potatoes though is that boiling them takes a long time. I seriously wish I would have timed it. While potatoes may take 10 to 15 minutes to cook, the eddoes easily took an hour or more.

• Afterward, I did see this helpful video advising to make several slits in the eddoes so that they will cook faster. Noted for next time! Also, she boiled first and then peeled… just like a beet… might try that as well.

Once they were finally tender enough though, I was able to mash them up, like this:

Preparing eddoes choka

I decided to do what I always do when contemplating making a new recipe. I went to the internet and looked up recipes and watched a few videos on YouTube. So helpful.

I liked this video and decided to use it as a guide:

I liked that she used garlic… big garlic fan here… and salted butter… big salted butter fan here, too. Yum!

She also added in onions, green onions, chadon beni (culantro) and of course hot peppers — all staples of the Trini kitchen.

Here is the finished dish:

I loved it. It was so tasty and flavorful, and a fun foodie experiment as well.

Hubby, the Trini, had a rather lukewarm response… “Yeah, I ate all that stuff when I was a kid.”

His response is much different when I cook his favorites, which includes most any pasta, rice or potato dish.

What about you? Have you cooked eddoes, or one if it’s relatives, before? Have you tried eddoes choka?

Thank you to Jillian for this great publication, Sharing Food. Check out more awesome foodie stories, like:

Check out fine dining in Milan from Ophélie Quillier:

And, street food in Greece by Tony Papangelis:

Don’t miss another minute! Subscribe to my stories. Not a Medium member? Join an awesome community of readers and writers! Join Medium with my referral link — JoAnn Ryan.