UPAR GAAR (MURTANI)

So nothing beats a Trini river lime!!! 

We all know as Trinis having a river lime means rum, pepper and curry and of course good people to make the lime interesting.

One of the main dishes in a river lime is none other than UPAR GAAR or some call it MURTANI.

This spicy choka is a mixture of bhigan choka and tomato choka blended together with a variety of other vegetables and of course the main one being PEPPER. HOT HOT HOT SCOTCH BONNET PEPPERS.

UPAR GAAR  is a traditional spicy choka that has been part of Trinidad culture for many years, it was thought up by the first East Indian settlers that came to Trinidad and over the years just like humans evolved so did the food.

So lets get started on this hot sizzling recipe of the famous UPAR GAAR.

*You can make as much as you want so that depends on the amount of veges you use okay. Here I'm just using an average, because remember this is hot so you will only use a little just like pepper sauce.

INGREDIENTS

1 Bhigan (melongene)

4 Tomatoes

4 Ochros

1 Onion (peeled)

1 head of Garlic (peeled)

1 lime

4 Scotch Bonnet Hot Peppers

5 tbsp Vegetable oil

Salt to taste

METHOD

Using a skewer or if the river you can use bamboo, skewer on the tomatoes, ochros, garlic, onion and peppers and put it to roast. The bhigan is quite big so you can roast that using a thongs. You can roast this either on your stove top or if in the river you have the famous fireside.

Roast all veges until its starts to char on the outside and soft on the inside. You need this to be soft on the inside so it will be easy to mash together.

In a Bowl combine all roasted ingredients and start mashing them together, you can mash them with a small pestle or any other kitchen tool of your choice that is easiest to mash this.  When all ingredients is mashed finely and combined nicely you are ready for the next step.

Cut lime in half and squeeze juice in the veges (remember to take the seeds out of the lime)

Mix together and add salt to taste.

In a Kalchul or Ladel or you can use a pot spoon, heat oil until it starts to sizzle then Chunkay the vege mixture. 

* Chunkay means to saute* 

In this case we just throwing the hot oil all over the roasted veges and stir well.

And thats it friends you have UPAR GARR. You can enjoy this with some nice dhal and rice and duck or any other curry dish of your choice. 

Hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Happy Cooking guys.