Oil Down: Grenada's National Dish

A plate of Grenadan oil down with breadfruit, dumplings, spinach, etc.

4.72 from 7 votes

Oil Down: Grenada's National Dish

The national dish of Grenada is a combination of chicken and pigtails steamed together with vegetables, dumplings, coconut milk and seasonings. Oil Down as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I know you’re going to love this recipe from Grenada!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Grenadian

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 1 10

Marinating/Boiling Time 25

Total Time 2 5

Servings servings

Calories 544kcal

Author Alexandria Drzazgowski

Equipment

Ingredients

Oil Down Ingredients

2 lb Salted Pigtail
1 Lemon cut in half
2 lb Chicken Wings or chicken backs etc
½ cup Green Seasoning See recipe here
4 cups Coconut Milk make it fresh if you can. If not, you can use canned
3-4 tsp Ground Turmeric use fresh if you can find it
1 lb Breadfruit cut into chunks
2 Green bananas sliced
4 Carrots peeled and sliced into rounds
1 lb Pumpkin cut into chunks
1 ½ cups Okra cut in half
5 oz Spinach use Callaloo instead if you can find it
1 tsp Salt

Dumpling Ingredients

1 cup all purpose Flour + 1-2 tbsp if necessary
½ tsp Salt
¼ cup Water

Instructions

Fill a large pot with water, 2 halves of (1) lemon, and 2 lb salted pigtail. Bring the water to a boil, and boil for about 25 minutes. When the timer is done, drain the pigtails.
In a small bowl, combine the 2 lb chicken and ½ cup green seasoning. Cover and set in the fridge.
In a large bowl, whisk 4 cups coconut milk with 3-4 tsp ground turmeric. If you can find fresh turmeric, blend the turmeric and coconut milk in a blender. Set aside.
Using a very large pot, add chicken (and green seasoning marinade) to the bottom of the pot. Layer the boiled pigtails on top of the chicken.
Next, add the prepared 1 lb breadfruit, 2 green bananas, 4 carrots, 1 lb pumpkin, and 1 ½ cups okra, and 1 tsp salt. Pour the coconut milk + turmeric combination over the entire contents of the pot.
Lastly, put 5 oz greens (spinach or callaloo) at the top of the pot. Cover the pot with a lid and cook over medium heat for 25 minutes. Do not stir.
When there are about 10 minutes left on the timer, start making the dumplings. To do so, add 1 cup all purpose flour, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ cup water to a small bowl. Knead the combination until a smooth dough forms, that is not sticky but also not dry or crumbly.
Roll the dough into dumplings the shape and size of your pinky finger. When the 25 minute timer is up, put the dumplings at the top of the pot, on top of the spinach.
Cover the pot again and allow it to cook for another 30-45 minutes. Do not stir.
When the timer is done, take the lid off of the pot. Make sure that there is a small amount of liquid left in the bottom of the pot. Now you can stir it and serve! Enjoy!

Notes

Recipe inspired by: Racquel’s Caribbean Cuisine, Art but Food, and Chosen One TV.

Recipe copyright The Foreign Fork. For educational or personal use only.

Salted Pigtails: Many Oil Down recipes call for Salted Pigtails. I found these at a Caribbean market. Make sure to follow the boiling step in the instructions as it will remove a lot of the salt from the pigtails.

Okra: To prepare the okra, cut the top off of the okra, then cut it again about halfway down, width wise. This will separate the okra into a top half and a bottom half, the perfect size for cooking in Oil Down.

Pumpkin: I was able to buy a quarter of a pumpkin at my grocery store that I could easily clean and cut into cubes.

Breadfruit: Breadfruit is a fruit in the South Pacific (and other tropical regions). It’s normally cooked before eating and rarely eaten raw. I found my breadfruit in the frozen section of the Caribbean grocery store I shop at. Buying it frozen meant it was already cleaned and cut, I just had to thaw it before cooking.

Coconut Milk: So many of the Grenadian recipes online recommend making your coconut milk from scratch. If you want to do so, I’ve linked to instructions. If you do not have the time to handmake your coconut milk, canned coconut milk will work in a pinch (though you may catch some flack from Grenadians!).

Greens: I wasn’t able to find Dasheen leaves (also called Callaloo) so the owner of my Caribbean grocery store recommended replacing the Callaloo with spinach. This worked just fine for me!

Chicken: Many recipes call for the back and neck of the chicken, but I had a hard time finding those. I also saw Oil Down recipes with chicken wings and thighs, so I chose to go with wings. I would recommend thighs as there are less small bones you need to worry about.

Green Bananas: These initially caused some confusion for me as I thought when the videos I watched referenced green bananas, they meant plantains. After some research, I realized that the recipe actually calls for unripe bananas. Ask your grocery store if they have green bananas in the back that they haven’t put out yet. The greener, the better!

Green Seasoning: I followed a recipe for Green Seasoning from Raquel’s Caribbean Cuisine. I had a hard time finding a few of the ingredients (pimento peppers, shadow benny, & broad leaf thyme) so I made the recipe using the ingredients that I did have. It was still delicious and the Oil Down still had a lot of flavor!

I would recommend staying away from chicken wings if possible. There are a lot of little bones that find their way into the dish and could be choking hazards. The Oil Down was delicious with chicken wings, but chicken thighs (or backs!!) might work better.
If you can find fresh turmeric instead of ground turmeric, use that instead
Other recipes for Oil Down will call for “saffron” to be added to the coconut milk. Grenadians call our turmeric “saffron”. They are referencing the spice that turns everything yellow (commonly called turmeric in the United States of America).

Nutrition