A Easter Holiday Dinner Menu A la Roatan
News from the Honduras Bay Islands and North Coast
15 April 2002
By Pierre Renaldo, The Coastwatcher©

I don't think I have ever talked about what we do in Paradise on the Easter Holidays. Since I was having house guests over the long weekend I decided to invite in a few more friends for a holiday dinner party, Roatan style.

I do not mean to indicate that any of the following is a tradition among the islanders, since this food preparation was a first for me and I did not announce my menu or recipe secrets in advance to anybody. In fact I really did not know for sure how I was going to fix the beautiful whole fresh ham, my house guests had sent over from the mainland several days prior to their arrival. Now that is what I call a very friendly gesture.

I had many fresh veggies and a small green pumpkin that my housekeeper brought in some weeks ago. I have never cooked pumpkin so it just sat there looking interesting and I was not tempted to try it. But Mistress T. is a total nag when she thinks I should do something and I finally relented by asking her to peel and seed the little green pumpkin.

While she had been concentrating her thoughts on what pumpkin tasted like, I was conjuring up an unknown cooking method for a whole fresh ham. I remembered one of those roasting bags left over from our last holiday cooking orgy and decided that I would try roasting a fresh ham in one of those things. If they work for turkey, why not ham?

There is one other ingredient that was jumping up and down on my brain, screaming from within its can and insisting that it be the crux of my new experiment. I was very confident that this would work, otherwise I would never trial run on guests, especially on a special occasion.

Here is the menu:

Garden salad a la Blue Harbor Plantation,* with blue cheese crumbled generously within, and a dressing of olive oil, tarragon vinegar, lime juice and a splash of water, all well blended.

Buttered Zucchini and Green Pumpkin
Roasted Potatoes
Roasted Carrots
Roasted baby onions (whole)
Coconut Roast Fresh Ham
Vodka and Tonic Red and White Wine(jug vintage)
Ice Cold Water Mellon
* Roatan's own hydroponics farm

Now I'll let you in on the secret of cooking the ham, which by the way received rave reviews, along with my latest novel "Ironshore".

I first cut many slots deeply into the ham, stuffing each incision with large fresh slivers of garlic.
Then I rubbed the whole exterior of the ham (which did not have a rind on it) with Creole seasoning, garlic powder, oregano, onion powder, seasoned meat tenderizer. I let this dry marinade set for about an hour then inserted the ham into the cooking bag and added two cups of coconut milk. I roasted it in a very hot (450 degrees) convection oven for two hours, removed it and let it stand for thirty minutes before carving. I served the broth from the cooking as a gravy.

The weather cooperated, bringing forth a brilliant, breezy, sunny, day. The Caribbean Sea was running high and my guests were hypnotized by the spectacle of the raging surf colliding with the ironshore coast, the geysers bursting skyward, and the sounds of the surf. All commented on the wonderful location of my house and were fascinated with the unique charm of a true coastal home.

The most common comment was,
"It's just like being on the bridge of a ship."

You can review the novel "Ironshore" at:
www.1stbooks.com/bookview/9189

Questions or comments: elouis@globalnet.hn

Ciao
Pierre

By Pierre Renaldo, Mountain Coastal S.A,. General Contractors, Construction Management and Construction Consultants.