Trinidadian · sauce/condiment

Trinidad Green Seasoning

Name: Trinidad Green Seasoning
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 12 h 20 min
Cuisine: Trinidadian
Ingredients: fresh culantro — 100 g; flat-leaf parsley — 60 g; fresh thyme — 20 g; broad-leaf chive — 60 g; garlic — 60 g; yellow onion — 150 g; pimento seasoning peppers — 100 g; scotch bonnet chillies — 5 g; fresh ginger — 20 g; celery — 15 g; white vinegar — 60 g; lime juice — 30 g; salt — 5 g; water — 45 g

Trinidad Green Seasoning reads sourness 6.4, allium 5.6 and citrus 5.3 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Trinidadian sauce/condiment, about 12 hr 20 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

Umami & Savory — 3.8 / 10
Sweet & Fruity — 2.7 / 10
Sour & Bright — 7.9 / 10
Bitter & Earthy — 1.4 / 10
Rich & Fat — 0.0 / 10
Aromatic & Spice — 6.4 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Sourness 6.4 · Allium 5.6 · Citrus 5.3 · Herbaceous 4.4 · Salinity 3.6 · Heat 2.8 · Sweetness 2.1 · Warm Spice 2.1 · Fruity 1.9 · Umami 1.7 · Floral 1.6 · Earthy 1.3 · Bitterness 0.7

What's in it (14)

fresh culantro — 100 g
flat-leaf parsley — 60 g
fresh thyme — 20 g
broad-leaf chive — 60 g
garlic — 60 g
yellow onion — 150 g
pimento seasoning peppers — 100 g
scotch bonnet chillies — 5 g
fresh ginger — 20 g
celery — 15 g
white vinegar — 60 g
lime juice — 30 g
salt — 5 g
water — 45 g

Time & effort: about 12 hr 20 min (20 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 34.3 kcal, 1.6 g protein, 0.3 g fat, 6.9 g carbs

Dietary: Vegan — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (6 steps)

Green seasoning is the aromatic base of almost everything cooked in a Trinidadian kitchen, and it is not sofrito. The defining herb is chadon beni — culantro, the same long serrated leaf Puerto Ricans call recao — and the defining peppers are pimento seasoning peppers, small wrinkled fruit with aroma and no heat. Neither is optional. Sofrito is built on ají dulce and cilantro and leans sweet; green seasoning leans herbal and sharp, with thyme and vinegar in it that sofrito does not have.
Wash and pick over the chadon beni, parsley, thyme and chive, stripping the thyme leaves from their woody stems, and pick the celery leaves. About 12 minutes.
Peel the garlic and ginger, quarter the onion, and stem the pimento peppers and the scotch bonnet. Leave the seeds in the pimentos; they carry aroma.
Blend everything green with the garlic, onion, peppers, ginger and the water for about 3 minutes. Stop while it is still coarse and flecked — a smooth purée loses the herb texture that catches meat.
Stir in the vinegar, lime juice and salt. The vinegar is a preservative as much as a seasoning and lets the jar keep three weeks.
Chill at least 12 hours before using so the flavours marry, and store in a sealed glass jar in the fridge, or freeze it in cubes. Use 2 to 4 tablespoons to season a kilo of meat, rubbed in and left overnight.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Pikliz — Haitian
Salad Shirazi (Cucumber Tomato Herb Salad) — Persian
Leche de Tigre — Peruvian
Shredded Chicken Tacos with Salsa Roja — Mexican
Moroccan Tomato Soup — Moroccan

Keep reading: what sourness, allium, citrus 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.