Cooking Around the World Part 7: Guyana
G is for Guyana.
"All I want to do is season this world."
- Chef Tristen Epps
This post has been weeks in the making, and not just because it’s a slow-cooked recipe. It’s because I can be stubborn at times. I had a really hard time finding one ingredient for this recipe, and it’s an ingredient that not only had I never heard of, but it’s one that you can’t make this recipe without. I searched high and low in the specialty stores that are close to me, I asked local regular grocery stores if they could special order it, and I Googled, but I couldn’t find it - and I refused to buy it from Amazon, which was the only place I could easily find it.
I also didn’t want to skip to H and go out of order, or choose another Guyanese recipe because at this point, I had found myself on a quest to find it (and not pay $35 for it from a company that I have sworn off buying from).
It’s been long enough that now I can’t remember why I chose this recipe, but the fact that my favorite chef on this season of Top Chef made a version of this kept me going on my quest. Finally, I decided to change up my Google searches and found it shippable and relatively inexpensive ($18 all in with fairly quick shipping) from a Guyanese family-owned Caribbean supermarket in Orlando. P.S., if you add -ai before any Google search, it will bypass those stupid (and many times inaccurate) AI descriptions that now appear at the top of your search results.
So, what’s this elusive ingredient you ask? And what even is the recipe that I haven’t mentioned yet? Well I’ll tell you in just a minute. First, I want to make sure that we’re clear about the country we’re talking about. We are talking about Guyana, which is a country in South America that borders Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname - not Ghana the country in West Africa. There weren’t too, too many G countries to choose from, and Greece and Germany seemed like obvious choices (plus I’ve already chosen recipes from Europe and Africa).
So, without further ado, I introduce to you (maybe it’s not new to you, but it was new to me): Cassareep, a thick, fragrant, umami bomb of a condiment made primarily from the juice of the cassava (also known as yuca) root. Similar in looks to dark molasses, and smelling like a strange combination of dark soy sauce mixed with fish sauce (if you’re going to taste it right out of the jar, just taste a tiny amount), cassareep is the must have ingredient for my G recipe which is Guyanese Pepperpot. Evidently, you can’t call it pepperpot if you’re not using cassareep.
When I tried the cassareep straight from the jar I began to wonder if this quest and the time (and quite frankly, the money) had been misspent. It’s a taste that I was not familiar with and did not find pleasing at first. Let’s just say it tasted like a super-strong soy sauce mixed with sugar and warm spices and fish sauce. But then I thought that maybe its harsh tasted would mellow as it slow-cooked, and that the other ingredients, especially the brown sugar, would also help to temper the strong flavor.
If you’re not familiar with cassava, it’s a well-known starchy root vegetable (part of the tuber family and similar to a potato) that is fairly easy to find and is an important staple in the diets of many parts of the world. It’s also the origin source of tapioca and can be boiled, fried, or mashed. I think I tried cassava for the first time at a cooking class in Costa Rica. Once you’re aware of it, you’ll begin to see it everywhere.
This recipe is actually very fast and easy to put together. Quick chops of the onion and garlic, easy measures of sugar and spices, and even the searing of the meat, took maybe twenty minutes. Like most stews or slow-cooked meals, this recipe seems to be pretty forgiving and customizable as well. Don’t have allspice? No worries. Want to try nutmeg instead? Go for it. Want to use lamb or pork instead of beef - yep! Don’t leave out the cassareep though - or the scotch bonnet peppers (or more traditionally, were-weri peppers which are not readily available locally). Not only is it not a true pepperpot without the cassareep, it’s also not a true pepperpot without the peppers and the heat they bring to the party.
I should add that there is one ingredient that was mentioned in just about all of the recipes I looked at and that would be cow foot. The cow foot adds not only a deep, unctuous layer to the pepperpot, it also adds collagen, which helps to thicken and add texture to the sauce. In all, I went to probably ten different stores near me looking for the cassareep and saw cow foot in two of them. In both cases, I could not bring myself to buy and cook the cow foot. Not only was it kind of expensive (the oxtail was as well), but it was also huge and was a literal hoof. I just couldn’t do it. But that’s the beauty of many long and slow-cooked recipes, you can in most instances, add, subtract, and improvise.
Guyanese Pepperpot
2 pounds beef chuck steak
2 pounds beef oxtail
Six cloves garlic, minced
One small white onion, chopped
2 small scotch bonnet peppers, sliced (wear gloves and wash your hands thoroughly after slicing)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Orange peel from 1/2 a navel orange left to dry overnight
Spice mix of equal parts clove, cinnamon, thyme, cayenne pepper, and allspice (about one tablespoon of each except for the cayenne, which should be about half of the others)
1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper
One cup cassareep
Boiling water
Sear the meat in a hot pan until you get a nice brown crust. Set the meat aside. While the meat sears, start a pot of water to boil.
Pour the cassareep on the bottom of the crock pot/slow cooker.
Place the seared meat in the crock.
Add the remaining ingredients to the crock.
Fill the crock pot with the boiling water just until it covers the meat.
Cook the pepperpot on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4-6 hours, or until the meat is falling apart and the sauce has cooked down to a thick, almost sticky consistency.
You can use an immersion blender to blend up the cooked-down peppers, onions, and garlic if you want, but take out the orange skins first. They won’t blend well. Using the immersion blender will help to reduce and thicken the sauce.
Serve over grits, rice, or with a traditional Guyanese plait bread.
It makes sense that this is seen as a traditional Christmas breakfast in Guyana. It’s fragrant - all the warm spices and the orange peel combine to fill the air with a very wintery vibe as it cooks. It’s kind of decadent with all the meaty goodness, and it’s something that is traditionally cooked overnight and just requires a quick morning re-heat.
I started cooking the pepperpot on high at about 9am. By 2:30, the chuck roast had become soft and stringy and perfect. The oxtail I wasn’t sure about, being that it was my first time cooking with it. I knew they took a long time, so I removed the chuck roast and let the oxtail cook for a couple more hours. In those two hours, the oxtail softened, and the sauce thickened (I might use a little less water next time to make up for my lack of cow foot thickening power). I served the pepperpot over polenta and sprinkled with fresh corn kernels.
This recipe definitely lives up to its name. Just the two scotch bonnet peppers that were in there added a ton of lingering heat, and the warm spices are definitely flavor-forward. The harsh taste of the raw cassareep was gone and had blended nicely into the stew. This recipe reminded me a little bit of this carnitas recipe I’ve made a few times, minus the heat. It must be the sweetness and the citrus - even though they really don’t taste the same. I would make pepperpot again, but maybe in the winter, and maybe, just maybe, I’d give the cow foot a go…
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The main recipes I used included metemgee, Alicia’s Pepperpot, and Serious Eats.
© 2025 Kim Selby & Storm Your Brain, LLC. All rights reserved. All photography © Kim Selby unless otherwise credited.