Haitian · main

Legim (Pureed Vegetable Stew with Beef and Salt Cod)

Name: Legim (Pureed Vegetable Stew with Beef and Salt Cod)
Prep time: 1 h 37 min
Total time: 2 h 37 min
Cuisine: Haitian
Ingredients: beef shin — 600 g; salt cod — 200 g; lime juice — 60 g; epis — 80 g; oil — 55 g; eggplant — 400 g; chayote — 300 g; white cabbage — 300 g; carrots — 250 g; watercress — 200 g; tomato paste — 30 g; scotch bonnet chillies — 5 g; fresh thyme — 8 g; water — 750 g; salt — 10 g; freshly ground black pepper — 5 g

Legim (Pureed Vegetable Stew with Beef and Salt Cod) reads sourness 5.6, citrus 5.4 and salinity 5.0 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Haitian main, about 2 hr 37 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

Umami & Savory — 5.8 / 10
Sweet & Fruity — 3.7 / 10
Sour & Bright — 7.2 / 10
Bitter & Earthy — 2.6 / 10
Rich & Fat — 4.6 / 10
Aromatic & Spice — 3.1 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Sourness 5.6 · Citrus 5.4 · Salinity 5.0 · Umami 5.0 · Richness 4.4 · Sweetness 3.2 · Heat 2.7 · Earthy 2.4 · Herbaceous 2.3 · Marine & Briny 2.1 · Fruity 1.7 · Warm Spice 1.4 · Bitterness 1.2 · Floral 1.1 · Funk & Ferment 1.0 · Nutty 0.7

What's in it (16)

beef shin — 600 g
salt cod — 200 g
lime juice — 60 g
epis — 80 g
oil — 55 g
eggplant — 400 g
chayote — 300 g
white cabbage — 300 g
carrots — 250 g
watercress — 200 g
tomato paste — 30 g
scotch bonnet chillies — 5 g
fresh thyme — 8 g
water — 750 g
salt — 10 g
freshly ground black pepper — 5 g

Time & effort: about 2 hr 37 min (1 hr 37 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 27.7 kcal, 0.6 g protein, 1.8 g fat, 2.9 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (9 steps)

Legim is one of the great Haitian dishes and it is regularly misdescribed as a vegetable stew, which undersells it. The vegetables are cooked until collapsing and then pushed through a sieve or mashed to a thick, dark, almost velvety purée, and the meat and salt cod are stewed into that. It should hold a spoon upright.
Wash the beef in the lime juice, then drain. Salted cod must be soaked overnight in several changes of cold water before it comes near the pot — it is a defining ingredient of the dish, not a substitute for fresh fish, and the mineral funk it brings is the point.
Rub the beef with the epis and leave it an hour.
Brown the beef in the oil over high heat, about 8 minutes, scraping the pot.
In a second pot, boil the eggplant, chayote, cabbage, carrots and watercress in the water for 25 minutes until everything is falling apart.
Push the cooked vegetables through a coarse sieve or mash them hard with a wooden spoon, about 10 minutes. Do not use a blender; it makes a smooth soup rather than the slightly fibrous purée legim should be.
Fry the tomato paste into the beef pot over medium heat for 4 minutes until it darkens.
Add the vegetable purée, the soaked salt cod broken into large flakes, the whole unbroken scotch bonnet and the thyme, and stew over low heat for 40 minutes, stirring often, until the purée is dark and thick and the beef is tender.
Season carefully with the salt and black pepper — the cod has brought plenty of salt already. Serve with white rice and a spoon of pikliz.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Soup Joumou — Haitian
Causa Limena — Peruvian
Steak Burrito with Charred Corn and Avocado — Tex-Mex
Panko-Crusted Cod with Tartar Sauce — American
Tuna Nicoise Salad with Parmesan — French

Keep reading: what sourness, citrus, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.