The ULTIMATE Trinbagonian DOUBLES Recipe – A taste of Trini

Doubles is considered the ultimate street food in Trinidad and Tobago. With humble beginnings, Mr. Emamool “MamooDeen” sold doubles from his freight bike in Princes Town in 1936. Mostly consumed by hungry indian indentured laborers on the sugar cane estate, it was considered “poor people food”. Now, it’s a successful industry and doubles is enjoyed by people all around the globe! Mr. MamooDeen and Mrs. Rasulan Deen’s innovative minds and passion for cooking, created this perfection called doubles. What was a mean of income to feed their children and siblings became the most sought out street food, not only in Trinidad and Tobago, but around the world. It started as a bara with chutney, which then evolved into a bara with channa and chutney, and customers started to ask Mr. Deen to double up on the bara, and so the name doubles was born. It consists of two fried flatbreads called baras with spicy, melt-in-your-mouth channa nestled on top. It’s then topped with condiments such as roasted pepper, cucumber chutney, sweet sauce, mango chutney (sweet sauce), kuchela, coconut chutney, and that’s just to name a few. You can choose the amount of pepper you want- slight, medium or heavy. Doubles is a cousin to the popular North Indian dish, chole bhature. Doubles is usually eaten for breakfast, but it’s an all-day favourite. I have a favourite doubles vendor for each time of the day (the obsession is that serious).