World Travels - Trinidad and Tobago

June 18, 2025

World Travels - Trinidad and Tobago

My culinary travels have taken me to the Caribbean nation Trinidad and Tobago... the southernmost of the Caribbean nations and home to Calypso. So when you talk about Trinidad and Tobago you just have to mention the Trinidadian staple of doubles; a rich mixture of curried chickpeas on 2 leavened and fried flatbreads. How had I not found this recipe before? I came across this iconic dish through perusing the brilliant book 'Black Food' by Bryant Terry [1] (a ground-breaking book exploring Black foodways within America and around the world - I will have to explore more deeply at a later stage). I chanced on this recipe for doubles in the book. The recipe is from the chef Isaiah Martinez [2] who runs a Trinidadian street food cart Yardy on the streets of Eugene, Oregon and specialises in this particularly delightful dish. Discovering this recipe has since taken me down a bit of rabbit hole of culinary exploration... including the history of doubles which highlights the spread of Indian cookery and it's importance in nation building .

The History of Doubles

It all starts in the 19th century with the British Empire seeking to address labour shortages in its colonies like Trinidad and Tobago and plug the gap with thousands of east Indian immigrants that were 'recruited' into indentureship. Between 1834 and the end of the system in 1920, it is estimated that over one million Indians were transported across the oceans to work on sugar, cotton and rubber plantations. The system was often promoted as an opportunity for impoverished Indians but in fact involved exploitative contracts and harsh living conditions. Trinidad and Tobago had it's first ship of Indian indentured labourers arrive in 1845 [3]. With the immigration of labour from the Indian subcontinent came the introduction of rice and spices used in Indian dishes as well as blending the dishes they brought with them with staples of Caribbean culinary culture.

So this leads to the story of Emamool "Mamoodeen" Deen and his wife Raheman Rasulan Deen in 1936 who created the infamous dish of doubles [4]. Emamool and Raheman Deen were descendants of those indentured labourers brought over to Trinidad and Tobago from 1845 and still lived with that legacy trapped in poverty and the oppressive colonial system. Emamool was paid just 25 cents a day (in US Dollars this would roughly be about $5.56 in today's money) for working as a supervisor on a sugar estate.

This was not adequate to support his growing family so Emamool and Rasulan begun trying to create a new form of income from Rasulan's father's home; a rundown barrack-styled hut on Bonanza Street, Princes Town (an inland town about 11-12 km from San Fernando). Badru Deen, Emamool's son says: "They decided to buy some channa, salt, pepper and paper and wrap fried channa in cone-shaped packs with the plan of 25 packs at one cent each." In no time he was making more money selling the fried channa than on the plantation and decided to sell different versions of the channa to eat; boiled or curried. Now comes the real breakthrough with placing curried channa on a single bara and selling that to customers. They begun to ask him to double up on the bara which created what we know today as doubles.

The Deen family found that their business was booming and moved from Bonanza Street to Fairfield and recruiting other family member into the business (brothers to Rasulan). The business went from strength to strength and there still a Deen's Doubles on Trinidad and Tobago on Santa Cruz Old Road.

The Original Deen's Doubles (from Google Streetview)

Doubles

I found this amazing recipe for doubles on Cooking With Ria which I combined with the Isaiah Martinez recipe from Black Food. In Isaiah's recipe the chickpea mixture had butternut squash and potato in it as well... according to Cooking With Ria this is not authentic. (I will know better next time).

To Make the Filling:

To start I fry the onion in a large saucepan for about 5 minutes.

Then add the spices and garlic and fry for about 2-3 minutes .

Add the vegetables and the scotch bonnet and cook for about 30 minutes

Add the cooked chickpeas and cook for another 30 minutes... you just want to infuse all those flavours.

This is how it will look after cooking together.

I found that the filling was best if you kept it overnight... it certainly imparted the flavours well.

Making the bara:

Remember to follow the recipe from Cooking With Ria... but essentially you are making a leavened bread with turmeric and ground cumin, which you then fry for about 2 minutes on each side.

Making the cucumber chutney:

This is a mixture of grated cucumber, cane vinegar (or white wine vinegar), fresh coriander that is finely chopped and some Caribbean pepper sauce (I left this out as there was already a lot of chilli being used). If you combine it should look a little like this.

Making Chip Up:

I also made this spicy onion pickle with finely chopped red onion, crushed garlic, scotch bonnet chilli pepper finely chopped, vinegar and coriander leaves.... again Cooking with Ria has the exact ingredients. She talks about the inclusion of culantro [6] or chadon beni as it is known in Trinidad and Tobago which is kind of a stronger version of coriander. I currently cannot source the chadon beni but will be looking out for it to include in my next Caribbean recipe.

Making Tamarind Sauce:

The tamarind sauce was a condiment taken from the Isaiah Martinez recipe which is just a mixture of tamarind paste and jaggery or cane sugar. I decided to use the date and tamarind sauce that I had used for my Omani meal that worked well.

Building the Doubles:

The doubles are simply created by placing 2 baras on a plate, spooning over the chickpeas and then drizzling the tamarind sauce and then the cucumber chutney sprinkled on top.

Trinidad Callaloo

I turned to Cooking With Ria (valuable resource) again to find a great accompaniment to go with the doubles. Ria came up trumps with this flavourful dish... I actually used tinned Jamaican callaloo (amaranth leaves) instead of taro leaves but wish I had used spinach instead. I also left out the pumpkin or squash as I had already used that in the doubles filling. It was a great mix of herbaceous flavours from the thyme and 'green seasoning' and the richness of the coconut milk.