A lucky dip quickie
- rosemary
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
"This is Réunion. A union of people from everywhere, blended with vanilla, sugar and rum." Yasmin Khan
I am running out of time today, so a quickie.
Just a recipe really - for Poissons massale en poêle - well - fried fish with a masala paste.
The recipe alas is not online, but then it's sort of a non recipe because all it is fried with fish which has a spicy rub all over it. The fish can be any kind almost - our author Tessa Kiros - suggests cod, red snapper or sea bream. The only thing you need to know is the spice mix:
1/2 teaspoon, ground turmeric, 2 pinches of ground cloves, 1 teaspoon ground coriander, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, a grating of nutmeg, plus the obligatory garlic and ginger of course. Probably a good garam masala would do. A simple, homely and quick dish for mid-week meal on this island in the Indian Ocean with an amazing mix of cultures - African, Indian, Malagasy, European, French, Chinese and more.
The book Is Provence to Pondicherry by Tessa Kiros, and my lucky dip recipe is from the section on La Réunion. I have written about this book twice before - first when I bought it - Mussels from Provence to Pondicherry - and then when it was first recipe time for it - First recipe impact - is it why we buy?. So I really don't need to talk any more about the book.
Hence the quickie aspect.
There is not really a lot to say about the recipe either, because I really could not find any other versions of it, other than in French - and then only one or two. Besides as I said, it is not really a recipe - delicious though I suspect it would be.
However, I did find that the Cari de poisson (fish curry) seems to be - along with a chicken version - almost the national dish. Once again though most of the recipes were in French, which does indeed highlight the fact that this is a French colony - but I did find one recipe on the island's tourist body website, although without a picture. The picture is from a recipe in French from Le Journal des Femmes.
All of which is rather unsatisfying I guess, although I will say that if you ever see the book on a bargain table somewhere I recommend it. I made this Poulet au mangue (mango chicken) once and it was pretty nice. The recipe is on the Cool Food Dude website.
Creole was a word I often noted being used in conjunction with any talk of the food of La Réunion. It's a term used to describe fusion cuisines I guess. And if you sit in the middle of an ocean which is on a major trade route, and has been since men have been building boats, then it's no surprise that you collect a lot of different peoples as your population. Particularly if it's such a beautiful place.
"The cuisine here is like one of those parties where everyone brings a pot to put on the table. And all of it stayed - together becoming the traditional cuisine of the country."
YEARS GONE BY
August 27
2023 - Dribs and drabs
2021 - What's for dinner?
2020 - Missing
2019 - A 'real' chef
2018 - Nothing
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