Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Pom
A festive baked casserole of grated pomtajer root and citrus-marinated chicken, crisp on top and tangy within.
Surinamese · medium · serves 8
prep 40 min · cook 90 min
~681 cal · 41g protein · 57g carbs · 31g fat · 9g fiber · 9g sugars · 14g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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AI-generated illustration
Pom is the festive centrepiece of Surinamese cooking, a baked casserole most associated with the country's Creole and Jewish communities and brought out for birthdays, holidays, and celebrations. It reflects Suriname's remarkable cultural crossroads.
Its base is pomtajer, a grated root vegetable (a kind of /arrowroot) that some Jewish Surinamese families historically used in place of potato, layered with chicken that has been marinated in citrus and browned. Baked long, the top crisps golden while the tangy, savoury interior stays moist.
Sweet, sour, and savoury at once, pom is comfort and occasion food, often eaten in a soft roll as a pom broodje. It is a dish that carries the layered history of Suriname, where Indigenous, African, European, and Asian tables met and merged.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
2.5 lb chicken thighs, cut up
3 lb pomtajer or frozen root, grated
1 cup orange
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tomato
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup butter
3 tbsp piccalilli
Hard to find? sweet pickle relish sharpened with a little mustard - Dutch piccalilli is mustardy rather than sweet, so relish alone reads too sugary without the mustard
1.5 cups chicken or vegetable
a few sprigs each parsley and celery, chopped
to taste salt and black pepper
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp oil
Instructions
1
Marinate the chicken (or mushrooms and jackfruit) in half the citrus, garlic, salt, and pepper for 30 minutes.
2
Brown the chicken, then braise it with the onion, tomato, parsley, celery, hot pepper and stock until nearly cooked, and reserve the cooking juices.
3
Mix the grated root (pomtajer, or cassava and potato) with the remaining citrus, the piccalilli, sugar, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and enough braising liquid to loosen it to a spreadable mash, then work in most of the butter.
✎ Chef’s note
The grated root should be loose and spoonable, not stiff. Add braising liquid until it spreads easily, so it bakes up moist rather than dry.
4
Spread half the root mixture in an oiled baking dish, layer the chicken over it, and top with the rest of the root.
5
Bake at 375F (190C) for about 60 minutes, until set and golden-crisp on top.
Paramaribo Creole tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Paramaribo. Five kitchens share one city. Javanese contract workers brought saoto soup and bami, Indian indentured families brought roti eaten with the hands, Chinese shops brought stir-frying, Creole cooking runs on cassava and salt fish, and Maroon cooking came down from the rivers of the interior.
🗺️
Suriname. The Javanese layer arrived by contract. Between 1890 and 1939 roughly thirty-three thousand labourers were brought from the Dutch East Indies to Surinamese plantations, and most stayed; their descendants' cooking is now standard national food, including saoto soup served with fried potato strings and a Madame Jeanette pepper soy sauce. Hindostani indenture had begun earlier, from 1873.
🌍
South America. The Andes are the potato's homeland and still hold something like four thousand native varieties, selected over thousands of years for altitude, colour and texture. The high plateau also worked out how to keep them: frozen overnight in the cold, trodden to press the water out, then dried in the sun into chuno, which stores for years.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Suriname
BaraLittle savory fried rings of ground urdi and flour, green with chopped tajer leaf and heavy with masala, eaten hot with chutney or sambal.
Roti met KipGriddled split-pea roti served with a curried chicken, potato, and long-bean masala, Suriname's signature plate.
Bojo CakeA dense, moist cake of cassava and coconut spiked with rum and raisins, Suriname's Creole celebration bake.
Browse all Suriname recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Keeps 3 to 4 days refrigerated and reheats covered in the oven. Most bakes can be assembled a day ahead and baked when needed.
Make it a Suriname meal
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Bojo CakeDessert
Moksi AlesiLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Pom?
A festive baked casserole of grated pomtajer root and citrus-marinated chicken, crisp on top and tangy within.
Where does Pom come from?
Pom is a Surinamese dish from Paramaribo, Suriname.
Can Pom be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Pom recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Pom safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Pom take to make?
About 130 minutes total (40 minutes prep, 90 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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