Kallaloo/Callaloo

[delboy]

My nearest and often dearest has given me some seeds and these have been put into a multipurpose compost and are now "up"...

What next?

Cultivation seems to be a hard thing to find out about in the UK.

Help...

[delboy]

[jamesmiddz]

Isn't it a relative of the Amaranthus? If so, expect lots of lovely blood red flowers soon! They have been used all over the world as an ornamental, leaf vegetable, cereal and even as a weed.

[Barnowl]

 Different places use different leaves which they sometimes call Callaloo but Callaloo is essentially a dish/recipe rather than a plant.  In Trinidad and Tobago I think they use the leaves from Taro plants because the leaves we got were green and not amaranth looking and that's what's in the recipes I've seen, but there's often one other leafy ingredient referred to as 'spinach' that could be almost anything - including real spinach :)

Any West Indian cookery aces out there who can give firm advice on this?

[djbrenton]

There are hundreds of varieties of amaranth, some grown for seed, some for leaf. Callaloo is the name used in Jamaica for those varieties grown for green leaf. I have grown 3 different types, one of which was only any good in the greenhouse, the other two were fine outside but are very frost intolerant.

Plant them out around a foot apart and feed well and regularly. As seedheads develop nip them off to maintain the production of leaves. You can harvest the leaves and stems quite brutally ( I use a machete) and further stems will grow from the remaining leaf joints.

To cook, strip the fibrous layer from the bottom end of the stems. Strip the leaf off the stem and chop the stem into 1 inch pieces. Cook the stem separately for longer before adding the leaf ( I steam the stem for 20 minutes then add to onions, garlic, chilli the leaf and tomatoes ). Contrary to common belief, you can freeze callaloo but you must prepare it first so that you can cook it from frozen. Defrost it and it turns black.

Taro is a different sort of amaranth with a more bulbous root and less vigorous top growth.

[Barnowl]

DJ good info on the amaranth,  but I don't think Taro/Dasheen can be any relative - it's a different order of plant.

[djbrenton]

DJ good info on the amaranth,  but I don't think Taro/Dasheen can be any relative - it's a different order of plant.

Sorry, I misspoke. Taro is also called callaloo in Trindad and some other parts of the West Indies.

[Squash64]

Most of my West Indian neighbours at the allotments grow Callaloo and as a result, I grow it too.  Not because I've planted it but because it seeds itself so readily everywhere.  My husband (Italian, not West Indian) really loves it so it isn't a problem.

I don't give it any special treatment at all. The plants at the moment are a few inches high.