Cassava can be used in a variation of ducana.
An unusual dessert, ducana is a type of dumpling made with sweet potatoes and coconut. Popular in Caribbean islands like the Grenadines, Antigua, and Saint Vincent, this dessert shares similarities with bread pudding. Cooked by wrapping the ingredients in aluminum foil, banana leaves, or cloth and steaming or boiling, ducana is quite easy to prepare. It is usually served with boiled or salted fish.
Ducana goes well with pineapple salad and pineapple syrup.
For dessert, it goes very well with a pineapple salad drizzled with a little pineapple syrup. The main ingredients are grated sweet potato, flour and coconut. Cooks also use raisins, sugar, salt, and some spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg. To add more flavor, they add a little vanilla extract. Recipe variations include ingredients such as refined sugar, cornmeal, and cassava.
To prepare the ducana, the grated coconut and the sweet potato are cooked. Sometimes they use a blender or a rack by hand. If you use a blender, you can add a little tap water or coconut water or milk to speed up the grating process. Mix the grated ingredients with the sugar, flour, raisins and spices in a bowl. The consistency of the batter should be thick enough to evenly coat the back of the spoon.
Cooks cut aluminum foil to the desired size or use pieces of cloth or banana leaves as wrapper. They place the dough in the wrapper and fold it tightly so that it completely covers the mixture. They make sure the dough doesn’t come out of the package.
Wrapped in aluminum foil or banana leaves with string, the ducana has the appearance of small flat cylinders. Cooks dip them into boiling water and cook them until firm. This can take between 15 minutes and half an hour. After removing them from the water, the cooks let them cool for about 10 minutes before unwrapping them.
For many Caribbean islanders, the dish is a staple eaten with salt fish and tomato sauce. Some restaurants serve it with salt cod and a local combination called chop-up. Chop-up is a combination of okra, eggplant, and spinach. This dessert can be sliced and served lightly fried or eaten cold.
It is sometimes prepared on days when islanders traditionally avoid meat, such as Good Friday. These days they usually prepare seafood and dishes such as ducana, which goes well with fish. Ducana and saltfish is a favorite combination of many Caribbean descendants and a must for tourists traveling to the islands.