Heri Heri - Surinamese recipe with cassava and cod

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Heri Heri is a loaded dish. It comes from the Surinamese-Creole kitchen and dates back to the time of slavery. Because the enslaved were only fed leftovers, they were also dependent on everything nature offered them. Starchy ground fruits such as cassava and sweet potato, along with plantains and taro. That was the heri heri in its simplest form.

As time has passed, the dish has expanded further and further. Today, heri heri is usually made in combination with bakkeljauw (salted fish), egg and long beans.

The dish is inseparable from the celebration of Keti koti. On July 1, we celebrate the abolition of slavery and you can get a free portion of the heri heri in many places in the Netherlands.

In our documentary 'black on white' I made this dish in the second episode. That episode was all about our African roots.

This recipe is for 4-6 people.

Ingredients:

500 g fried cod
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 large tomato, cut into small pieces
salt and pepper to taste
4 shallots
4 cloves garlic
1 Madame Jeanette pepper (to taste!)
1 cassava (about 500 gr)
300 gr orange sweet potato
300 gr white sweet potato
1 green plantain
1 yellow plantain
3 Chinese tayer or taro tuber
300 gr long beans
6 eggs
sunflower oil

Method of preparation of the heri heri:

Rinse the cod and boil it in plenty of water for 20 minutes to desalt it. Then rinse it in a colander with cold water and squeeze it.
Heat 5 tablespoons of sunflower oil in a pan and fry 3 of the onions and 3 of the garlic cloves until light brown. Add the cod, tomato puree, pieces of tomato and black pepper and fry for 5 minutes.
Do you like hot? Then also add a chopped madame Jeanette pepper. Fry the cod until it falls apart completely.
Then cook the cassava, sweet potatoes, plantains and tayer in one large pan with boiling water and a pinch of salt. You first cook the cassava for 7 minutes, then add the rest and cook it for another 15 minutes. Remove everything from the pan and let it drain.
Hard boil the eggs, peel and cut into wedges.
Cut the long beans into pieces of about 5 cm. Heat some oil in a pan and fry the last onion and garlic (cut into pieces). Then add the long beans and 50 ml of water. Stew this for about 5 minutes, until the long beans are al dente.
To compose the heri heri, serve the cooked earth fruits with some of the long beans, an egg and some of the cod. Enjoy your meal!