Ti’Malice Sauce

Haiti

The first colds are about, and somewhere the cold has kicked the door down already, so here’s something to put on meat to warm your blood!

What do you need?

4 shallots or fresh onions
2 chives
4 lemons (or 2 oranges, or 5 cl of cane vinegar)
2 pieces of garlic
1 antillan pepper
salt, pepper,
3 spoonfuls of oil
Parsley

In time, the original recipe, a favourite with Hispaniola’s first buccaneers, incorporated onions, garlic, and chives, and was adopted by the slaves of the island, later named Santo Domingo.
Ti’Malice was a character in a tale told by those slaves, and later i’ll tell it to you.
What’s to do with all this stuff?

Chop the shallots, mince the chives and macerate together at least an hour in lemon juice, until the shallots become pink.
Put the marinade in a casserole with three spoons of oil, crushed garlic and chopped pepper, and cook slowly until it softens.
Get off the fire, add salt and pepper and cool down. Add some parsley, lemon and fresh pepper before serving.
Perfect on griots and grilled fish.

The tale of Bouki and Ti’malice

Bouki is ingenuous and gullible, Ti’malice is his clever trickster friend.
Both love grilled meat, and the sauce is born from one of their quarrels.
Everyday at midday, ti’malice is about to eat, and bouki comes calling to keep him company. Ti’malice does not like this, for he does not want to share his food with his guest, and so he decides to play him a joke: he makes the hottest sauce he can, then he slathers it on his friend’s meat, hoping that the strong taste will drive him off.

But bouki tastes the sauce, and eyes wide, and runs out shouting  “Me zammi, vini goûtè sauce Ti’Malice fai pou Bouki!” (my friends, come taste the sauce ti’malice made for bouki) calling all the city, who eats the remaining dinner of poor ti’malice, who had then to make more sauce and feed it to all the new guests.