St. David’s, Grenada : Debbie St. Paul is a lady of few words until you get her started on how much she enjoys her job as chef at The Water’s Edge Restaurant located at Bel Air Plantation.
As the first female chef here, St. Paul is realizing a dream (“I’ve always wanted to be in the hotel industry”) in her homeland. Bel Air’s owner, Susan Fisher, saw the promise of her talents and promoted her from sous chef a year ago, and as they say, the rest is history.
The petite chef has a repertoire of recipes of her own making that are an incomparable taste temptation even to the most discriminating palate. The emphasis is on local ingredients, fresh fruit, vegetables, seafood, and of course those famous spices (nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, mace, ginger and tumeric) that flavor the food served at the restaurant.
After arriving on Air Jamaica ’s direct flight from New York in time for lunch I was ready for a treat and what a tasty treat it was. The cream of callaloo soup was a smooth combination of blended leaves from the dasheen plant, flavored with coconut milk – a great alternative to those of us who are lactose intolerant (freshly baked breadsticks are optional.) I also had a choice of Fisherman’s Broth, a spicy soup with fresh fish and shrimp, or Bel Air’s version of the classic Waldorf Salad - chicken, pineapple, apple, celery and cashews in seasoned mayonnaise.
The tantalizing daytime appetizers featured Lambi Fritters with dill, lime and mustard, Spicy Buffalo Wings in a tangy tamarind barbecue sauce, Coconut Chicken Fingers coated with fresh coconut served with nutmeg dipping sauce, and Cornmeal Crusted Flying Fish complimented by a spicy golden apple remoulade and garden greens.
I soon discover that when it heats up in Grenada , nothing beats a rum cocktail and good food. The entrée selection offered even more island fare – yogurt and curry marinated Chicken Kabobs, tenderized Baby Back Ribs and green papaya with a nutmeg barbecue sauce glaze, guava sweet and sour sauce with Coconut Coated Shrimp or Grilled Shrimp and Pepper Kabobs served with golden apple scented barbecue sauce. Sandwiches, pizza (create your own) and vegetarian meals are also on the menu.
There are no manufactured sauces in this chef’s kitchen, only freshly bottled sauces she makes in batches. She uses saffron, cumin and ginger to add flavor, and often creates her own version of barbeque sauces ranging from tangy tamarind, to lemon lime and orange juice and honey, but nothing spicy.
Intuition and passion drives this 39-year-old mother of two, who constantly spends her spare time working on culinary ideas for the restaurant. Her biggest joy is to honor requests from guests.
Take a look at the dinner menu and your head goes into a culinary tailspin, but it’s worth every minute you mull over the selection of seafood, meat and vegetarian delicacies. Listen to other tablemates for their recommendations and you just might hit the jackpot as I did with the Coconut Lobster Martin and Sue raved about one night. Coconut coated lobster paired with sweet and sour guava sauce, what a brilliant combination!
Another locally inspired lobster dish is Callaloo Lobster.......fresh lobster enveloped by a coconut saffron sauce that sits atop callaloo. Let your imagination and taste buds run wild with the Grenadian Rum and Ginger Chicken and Jerked Pork Medallions served with raisin and pineapple sauce.
The chef likes cooking mahi mahi in her favorite fish dish flavored with Chandon Beni, and graciously shares her recipe with us below. Chandon Beni is the local name for the herb, culentro, and its leaves create a distinctly pungent aromatic seasoning. The herb is said to be a good source of calcium, iron, carotene and riboflavin.
The best finale to a meal is asking “What’s for dessert?” And to no one’s surprise, the talented chef also excels in this department. When I confess that I have already indulged in the Nutmeg Pie twice, her eyes light up with excitement as she names some of her delicacies I absolutely had to try before leaving Bel Air. They were Pineapple Rum Pie (it has a cake filling soaked in rum with honey and nutmeg syrup), Passion Fruit Tart, Papaya Tart and Beetroot Nut Cake - “It tastes wonderful with cashew nuts,” she says.
Self satisfaction does not come easy to this epicurean whiz who muses endlessly, “How would it look? What would it taste like?” But most of all, she believes people “eat with the eyes” and therefore food should be appealing to the guest and attractive presentation is also important. “I like when people come to Bel Air and try something for the first time.”
St. Paul never rests on her laurels, and judging from her ever-changing menus, guests can always anticipate a new taste sensation, sometimes subtle, sometimes bold.
“I’d like Bel Air Plantation to be the best on the island and I’m working towards that,” says the multi-tasking chef. “The standard here is very good and we just want to keep going up.”
In a nutmeg shell, the sky’s the limit for St. Paul .
Chandon Beni Fish
Ingredients
7 oz Fresh Mahi Mahi
2/3-cup fresh breadcrumbs
4 Chandon Beni leaves
½ cup Olive Oil
Pinch of white pepper
Pinch of salt
1-cup fish stock (make fish stock using bones, onion, garlic, chive, thyme, bay leaf and celery stalk)
Method
Season fish with salt and pepper and set aside for 10 minutes. Finely chop two leaves of Chandon Beni and mix with the breadcrumbs. Dip fish in olive oil, then coat with Chandon Beni and bread mixture. Place coated fish in an ovenproof dish and bake in a hot oven until fish is cooked and crumbs are slightly browned.
Sauce
Blend fish stock with the other two Chandon Beni leaves, add salt and pepper to taste and simmer for 5 minutes.