This recipe, adapted from one used at The Anvil in Birmingham, Alabama, calls for using corn stock. Sedesh Boodram's sweet corn-habanero sauce This floral habanero sauce, sweetened and softened with pureed corn and Vidalia onions, is frequently on the menu, served with pork chops as an ode to a dish that's Southern through and through: creamed corn. "A lot of my dishes have some element of heat, and I have to remind myself that not everything has to be spicy." "I have to remind myself to pull back sometimes," he said. Still, Boodram said he's learning to reel it in, at least when it comes to heat. When you grow up where practically anything goes, boundary-pushing becomes part of your basic nature. "At the end of the day, it is shrimp and grits, so you can't be too crazy, he said. It's one that might drive purists to fits. "The British at some point practically ran the whole world," Boodram said.Ī recent iteration of The Anvil's shrimp and grits came with curry-spiced coronation sauce, a nod to a classic British luncheon entree. The collards are braised in dashi.Ī world-spanning approach to British food is a fair take, considering the kingdom's aggressive colonization efforts. The corn sauce is kicked up with habaneros. That childhood dish still holds Boodram's heart.Īs culinary director of The Anvil, Boodram interprets British food through his own multifaceted lens and executes it with Southern ingredients.
in the same manner.īut until regional Southern food became popular, okra largely stayed in the South, thickening gumbos and riding sidecar to chicken and pulled pork. "I remember when I went to culinary school, most of my teammates didn't even know what it was," Boodram said.Īlthough there were no grits in Trinidad, there were practically infinite takes on curries and an interpretation of African stewed chicken, simmered with coconut milk and spiked with Scotch bonnet and habanero peppers. Okra, for example, is key in several Trinidadian dishes, a gift of the enslaved West African people who would become the ancestors of modern islanders. Not all Southern ingredients were foreign to the chef, who rarely stopped to consider the world of flavor surrounding him as a child. "I said, 'OK, I don't know what that is,' and I pulled the pastry chef aside and said, 'What do I do?'" "I remember on the first day, I walked in to cook in the restaurant and chef Chris (Hastings) said, 'You need to make grits,'" Boodram said. It wouldn't be the last.įruit, salad and more: 6 surprising things you can grill this spring, with recipes He picked up the art of pastry while working under chef Geoffrey Zakarian at Country.īut when he arrived in the South, a big bag of stone-ground grits in the kitchen at Birmingham's Hot & Hot Fish Club would be the first regional ingredient to stump him.
Later, following a dream to become a chef, he graduated from the French Culinary Institute, now the International Culinary Center, in New York. This is where chef Sedesh Boodram of The Anvil Pub and Grill in Birmingham, Alabama, was raised: between the ocean and a lagoon, with a world of flavors at his disposal. Those influences, and the nation's proximity to Venezuela, created a distinct culinary identity. Now independent, the island was colonized by a variety of European nations and also populated by enslaved people and indentured laborers from Africa, China and India. The Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago is home to a melting pot of cultural influences.
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