Pom is a Surinamese casserole made from the roots of pomtajer (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) with pieces of chicken, flavored with citrus juice, celery, and stock cubes. It originates from a potato-based dish introduced by European Jews, who came to Surinam in the 17th century.
Pom is typically made on special occasions such as holidays or birthdays. Perhaps, this is due to practical reasons because, with a cooking time of around two hours, it is not exactly a quick dish. Pom is most often served with white rice or on a sandwich.
We made a wild and vegan adaptation of this dish using Jerusalem artichokes (Helianthus tuberosus) to replace the pomtajer, hogweed leaves (Heracleum sphondylium) to replace the celery and dried Boletus and morel mushrooms to replace the chicken.
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Wild Surinamese pom
Equipment
- 1 Blender
- 1 Oven or air fryer
- 1 Oven tray
Ingredients
- 400 gram Jerusalem artichokes
- 2 Onions
- 2 Garlic cloves
- 20 gram Dried mushrooms (We used a mix of morrels and boletus)
- 1 Tomato
- 2 tbsp Tomato paste
- 2 Hogweed stalks
- 1 Chili pepper
- 1 Stock cube
- 1 tbsp Ketjap manis
- 1 Lemon
- 200 ml Orange juice
- 250 ml Water
- 2 tbsp Oil
- 2 tbsp Picallily
- 1 tbsp Salt
Instructions
Preparation
- Soak the dried mushrooms overnight in enough water to cover the mushrooms.
Base
- Cut the artichokes in small pieces and put them in a blender. Add enough orange juice so you can blend the artichokes into a paste. For 400 grams of artichokes this should be around 200 ml orange juice.
- Add the salt and pically and mix well (no blending).
Mushroom and gravy
- Chop the onion, garlic, tomato, and chili into small pieces.
- Remove the hogweed leaves from the stems and cut them into small pieces.
- Fry the mushrooms and after a couple of minutes add the onions, garlic, chili and hogweed leaves and fry until they are soft.
- Add the tomato paste and fry for about 2 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomato's and fry until their liquid is mostly evaporated.
- Dissolve the stock cube into 250 ml of warm water. Add the stock to the mushroom mixture together with a squish of lemon juice and let it reduce by half or so.
Assembly and cooking
- Make a layer of about half of the base in an oven tray.
- Top the layer of the base with the mushrooms and half of the gravy.
- Add the rest of the base and top with the remaining gravy.
- Put the tray into a preheated oven (180c / 356F) and let it cook for 2 hours.
