Rundown Archives - Jamaican Girl to the World

Run Dung or dip and fall back is a tasty dish your great grandmother or grandmother from the country makes. It is a hearty dish, filling and rich with good fats, vitamins and minerals. Apart from being nutritious rundung is “poor mans” food that formed a major part of the diets of old time rural Jamaicans. All the ingredients can usually be found growing in the yards of many rural homes. As a matter of fact there is even a folk song about this tasty stew called “dip and fall back”. Based on the song after the war when everything was scarce a man was experimenting and came up with the dip.

Listen to it on youtube

Recently I realized I hadn’t had this dish in over 15 years and I couldn’t find a restaurant in the USA or Jamaica that served it. I tried to make it with canned coconut milk but that turned out to be an epic fail so I set out to make it the way my ancestors did….. well almost.

Let me pause here to say that is a true labor of love. This dish took me about 1.5 hours to make but the taste is so heavenly. It also involves making coconut milk, coconut cream which is the base recipe for coconut oil. The coconut Milk/Cream produced is very rich and creamy compared to that purchased in a can. With this in mind you can make a big batch of coconut milk/ cream to be used for thai curries, rundung, pina coladas, coconut pancakes and even coconut milk for cereals.

Ingredients

Coconuts, Onion, thyme, Escallion, pepper, garlic

2 dry Coconuts
3 Cloves Garlic crushed
2 stalks green onions
1 Habanero Pepper (optional)
¼ lb saltfish (soaked overnight, rinsed, deboned and chopped in small pieces)
2 Sprigs fresh thyme
¼ teaspoon grated ginger
1 tsp curry powder
Water to cover coconut in blender

Specialty Tools

Coconut Kernel Remover or dinner knife
High powered blender (I use a vitamix) or a regular greater
Cheese Cloth for straining or a fine mesh strainer
Hammer for breaking coconut (a rock can be used for this as well)

Method

Break Coconut with hammer (save water for drinking, its packed with potassium)
Use dinner knife or kernel remover to remove kernel by lodging knife blade between white kernel and hull. Rock knife and forth until kernel pops out. Blade MUST be DULL or you could slice your hand

3. Wash coconut pieces to remove any hull debris

Washing Coconut

4. Chop coconut into small pieces

Chopped Coconut. Round tool is coconut kernel remover

5. Add to blender and cover with water. Blend on high speed for 3-5 minutes

Blend Chopped Coconut and Water

6. Strain blended mixture with a cheese cloth and retain milk produced. This is coconut milk/ coconut cream. Use this in any recipe requiring these ingredients