Minced Meat with Asian Noodles

My first home cooked meal after the holidays. I wanted something quick and with minced meat.

I bought fresh minced meat, half pork and half beef at my local butcher. A bag of frozen veggies were sitting in my freezer for a while. Just carrots, bell peppers, sugar snap peas and mushrooms. Some fine Mung bean noodles add to the Asian touch.

This is really quick cooking. I dumped the frozen veggies with some soy sauce and Chinese seasoning in the microwave and cooked them.

Boiling water of the dried noodles and waiting 2 minutes is quick too.

The "most " work to do was the minced meat. I put it in a casserole with canola oil and a dash of sesame oil, took 4 wooden chopsticks and stirred until I had a fine crumb of meat. Seasoning with Sancho pepper, salt and Chinese five spice and 2 tbsp Hoi Sin Sauce.

The noodles went into the meat and I had to stir vigorously to mix them.
That mix went into the veggies and basically that was it.

Just some roasted sesame seeds and a bit of green onion on top.

ingredients:
80 g mung bean noodles
300 g mixed pork and beef mince
1 tbsp canola oil
a dash sesame oil
2 tbsp Hoi Sin Sauce
1 tsp Sancho pepper
salt
Chinese 5 spice
Soy sauce
400 g frozen mixed vegetables
sesame seeds roastedd
onion greens

Rougail saucisses or One Pot Sausage Dish

Rougails are a speciality of Mauritius.

The island is known for its cuisine with lots of different spices. But that does not mean chilies. Heat from chilies is not found in the dishes.

When you go to the island of La Reunion, they love a good hot chili flavour.

I never heard of Rougails before. They are often one pot dishes. When you do the necessary work with single ingredients first, you can finish the dish all in the same pot later.
The most basic ones are with sausages and intestine sausages - Andouille. But chicken, fresh or dried fish is used too.

The cookbook with the title "Rougails" contains other dishes, such as Cari. Better known as Curries in our region. These are of the one pot variety too.

recipe for 2:
2 large German Bockwurst sausages
2 shallots
3 spring onions
5 cloves of garlic
1 red bell pepper
150 g cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp sugar
1 cup water
salt
pepper
thyme
canola oil
parsley
1 cup basmati rice

Chop everything and cut the sausages in 1,5 cm slices.

Heat up a pan with a lid, get in with the oil and add the onions.
Fry them for 3 min, add garlic and bell pepper chunks.
Season with salt, pepper and thyme and sugar.
Now the tomatoes cut in halves.
Cook the rice.

Add the tomato paste and cook for 3 min. Add water and the sausages and let it cook. 

Reduce the heat and put the lid on. Cook for 10 min.
Sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve with rice.

Seafood Pasta in Grand Baie

Our last meal in Mauritius on the way to the airport had to be delicious. Eating Fast Food at the airport was not our aim.

We had to kill a lot of time. The night before the airport was shut down due to the second cyclone category III. Our flight to Dubai was resheduled 2,5 hours later. We hoped to make our connecting flight to Frankfurt

We did, because we hit the ground running after landing to catch our next flight. 30 min strong walk from B28 to C10.

Last time we have been in the le Croisette Shopping Centre and had a great fish dish at the RED Resto/Bar restaurant.

We went there again and were not disappointed.

The seafood pasta and the Salade Nicoise with a good amount of fresh seared tuna were very good.

Tourin de Maurice/Mauritius

Tourin d' ail doux is a French garlic soup. I have no idea, why this tasty potato, onion and garlic dish is named Tourin. But it is from my new cookbook from Mauritius.

The dish reminded me of a gratin without beeing cooked in the oven.

My friends wanted Schnitzel as the main dish. I used that to combine with something from the island.

I modified the recipe to the  possibilities of our holiday kitchen here. It is easy, but takes a bit of cooking time until the raw potatoes and onions get soft.

It is fun to cook these recipes in the country they originate from. It will a difference to cook them at home.

I never heard of binding a sauce with a mix of egg yolks and vinegar. That is completely new to me. But I will keep this method in mind for other recipes.

Recipe for 4:
4 potatoes
Butter and oil
1 litre chicken stock
2 medium onions
4 cloves of garlic
1 spring onion greens
1 litre chicken stock
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp vinegar
White pepper
Salt
Oregano
Spring onion greens

Peel the potatoes and cut zhem into thin discs. Cut the onion in strips and bash the garlic.
In a mix of butter and oil put the potatoes in snd let them sit in the pan for minimum 3 min without stirring. They need to get some crust, now turn and cook 6 more min, add onions and garlic. Season with salt and pepper and oregano.
Now it needs 5 min to cook, put in halve of the chicken stock and cook until most is gone, add more. Reduce.

Mix egg yolks with vinegar.
When the potatoes are soft, add the egg mix and stir. Take off the heat and sprinke greens on top.

Sea Tiger Prawns

I love a cooking challenge.

On our first trip to Super U in Grand Baie I discovered a freezer filled with extra large tiger prawns. My friend and I took the calculator out and started to do a Money conversion. Mauritian MRU rupees into Euro. 1 kg of these Sea Tiger Prawns - or 3 pieces- had the price of less then 35 €.  It took us the time until the cyclone shopping spree to finally buy these. Preparing them was new to me. But smaller ones were always good, so why not.

Cleaning them is the same as any other kind of prawns, only bigger.

I used the large heads to make a fond base.

Recipe for 3:
3 sea tiger prawns
500 ml water
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
Grilled Masala powder
Herbes de Provence
Dried chives
Salt and pepper
60 ml double cream
3 small slices of baguette
3 tsp cold butter
Oil

Put the washed heads into the water with the onion and garlic, with herbes de provence and pepper. Do not salt the water.
Cook for 20 min. Drain the stock into an other pot and reduce it 35%. Now salt it.
Take a third off into a cup and use for the rice later.

Add cream and bread and season to taste.
When it has cooked again, take it off the heat and put ice cold butter in and stir.
Do not reheat, but cover the sauce to stay warm.

Cut the body of the prawns along the back with scissors. Take a knife and pull out the intestine completely. Wash.

In a bowl with a bit of oil, add garlic, salt and Masala powder and let it sit 20 min.

In a hot pan with a little oil cook them for 3 min on each side, or more depending on the size.


Serve with seasoned rice and veg.

Cucumber as cooked veg

They sell huge white yellow cucumbers here. Grown on the island.
The imported green small ones are tiny in comparison, but 3 times the price. Buy local.

These cucumbers remind me of our garden grown cucumbers, that had too much time on the vine.
The peel has to be removed and the seeds too. Cutting them up into chunks came next.

I put 2 teaspoons of sugar in a pot and started to caramelize it, then added butter and onion.
When the onion was soft, in with the cucumber. Season with salt to draw out some moisture. Add a gluck of water if nescessary.

Some white pepper and chopped greens from a spring onion bring flavour.

Now in with 2 tbsp of vinegar.

Let it cook on low until the cucumber chunks have the softness you like.
It was astonishing how long they needed to cook.

Ingredients:
1 large white cucumber
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp butter
Salt
1 tsp salt
Water
2 tbsp vinegar ( I used light brown cane vinegar)
Spring onion
1 small white onion
Pepper

Chicken with Breadsauce

Our trip to the local Mauritian supermarket brought us chicken legs and Indian spices. Here are more then half of the islanders of Indian heritage  (about 68%). Garam Masalas, grilled Masalas and Chat Masalas are available in small, medium and very large packages. Turn around at the huge spice rack and you will find the big bags of rice. It took me a while to find a 1 kg package of Basmati.

The chicken legs got seasoned with salt and pepper and a good cover with grilled masala seasoning. A bit of garlic and onion slices and some oil finished the marinate.
They went into an ovenproof dish and baked at 200 C for 50 min.

White rice was the choice of side dish. But my friends are not fond of rice on its own. They love to douse it in sauce.

What kind of sauce is possible, I asked myself.
I checked the available ingredients and took a chicken stock cube and some double cream out of the fridge.
A bit of curry powder. Raz el Hanout. Dried chives. Salt and pepper. It tasted good, but was too thin. I reduced the liquid a bit, it intensified the taste, but still too thin.

I looked around the kitchen and saw leftover baguette from breakfast.
English Bread sauce! That was the solution.

This kind of sauce is not known in Germany. But who cared. I put about 30 g of fine shredded bread into the sauce.

A great dish.

Chouchoux Salad

I bought 3 small cookbooks from Mauritius in French language. One is all about Starters, one are Main Dishes and the last one is about Rougails.

Rougails can be found on the islands in the Indian Ocean. Some are more on the hot chili side like on la Reunion. The ones on Mauritius have a great amount of different spices. You can find this dishes on the Seychelles too.

The Starter book caught my eye, because several dishes containing chouchoux. I encountered this veggie a couple of years ago on the island of La Palma in the canaries. Since then, when I have a chance to get it, I buy it. But I can't find it in Germany.

It belongs to the pumpkin family, but reminds me of our Kohlrabi.
I prepared the salad dish from the book. But I exchanged fresh tomatoes for red bell pepper. I do not need an other allergy outbreak.

The veggies have to be cooked in their peel. It will take about 20 to 35 min depending on the size. Preparing them as a salad means peeling hot veg. Better cook them a couple of hours early, that helps and you wont burn your hands.

Recipe for 4:
2 or 3 chouchoux
1 hard boiled egg
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic
2 spring onions
1 lemon
Pinch of sugar
4 tbsp oil
Salt and pepper

Peel the cooked veg and discard the hard centre part.
Cut into fine slices.
Chop the bell pepper into small bits.
Chop the spring onions and mince the garlic with some salt.
Make the dressing and mix the salad.
Quarter the egg and place it on top.

Baguette with Garlic and Olives

After a long day on a katamaran trip zo the Ile de Cerfs or Dear Island we came home late after a long 90 min bus transfer. We had to rush to get to the supermarket to get the supplies and groceries for the mayor cyclone to come.

Usually during holidays we only buy the daily supply. We had to plan ahead and stocked up on various things.

Coming back to our house we still had the baguette from breakfast sitting in its satchel. In this muggy weather, bread does get soft over the day.


I mixed butter with oil, pressed garlic with salt and chopped fine spring onions.
Some dried herbs, salt, pepper went into the butter too.

With a spoon I spread it on the bread and chopped green onions.

We bought a box of Parmesan. It was not grated, but chopped inro fine slivers.

200 C in the oven for 10 min.

Food at the 7 Coloured Earth of Mauritius

It is long drive ftom the north of the island down to the Black River in the South of the island. It is only 56 km but it takes 1:45 hours to get there by car over long and narrow roads.

After the impressive site with lots to see, we needed some food. The village of Chamarel is streching along two roads and there are couple of restaurants on the roadside. But nearly 50 % were closed or out of business.
Since the mayor part of the tourists go there with small tour busses or taxis rented for a day, they visit more sites in the area and do not stop for food.

We found Citronella Restaurant which sold venison, fish and chicken, all Halal.

They had different Indian dishes either with chicken, fish or vegetarian.

I ate chicken and prawn curry with brown lentil dal and seasoned rice. That was tasty.

My friends had venison steak with fries and filled Chouchou or Chayote with prawns and cheese.

We all three were satisfied

RED Resto&Bar at le Croisette Grand Baie

Grand Baie on the Island of Mauritius is our neighbouring village. When you drive by on your way to the Motorway M2 you will pass a large shopping and apartment complex. From the outside it does not show how large it is.

When we visited it, we looked for something to eat. The food court has the fast foods available, but there are a lot of restaurants in the courtyard to choose from.

After studying several menus we went to RED.

A French style Mediterranean restaurant with covered setting outside.

We had local caught fish on a bed of sauteed green veggies and salad. It came with a buttery lemon sauce.

The fish was delicious and the veggie mix was great.

Broccoli and Mash with Cutlets

I bought a huge head of broccoli. More then twice the size of the ones I get at home. And excellent quality.
The three of us are meat eaters and after a vegetarian dish we wanted something else. The meat counter offered pork cutlets.

At a rental house cooking is always a challenge. You have to work with untensils and few spices you have. That brings up new flavour combinations.

Ingredients:
1.2 kg broccoli
Salt
2 slices of bread
2 Cloves of garlic
3 Spring onions
Butter
Herbes de provence
50 ml double cream
200 ml chicken stock

Cutlets
Salt and pepper
Raz el Hanout
Grated baguette or breadcrumbs
2 Eggs
Oil and butter

750 g potatoes
40 g butter
120 ml milk
Salt and pepper
Raz el Hanout


Start with cooking the peeled potatoes.
Next split the broccoli in small florettes and cook it for 6 min.
Prepare the curlets.
Drain the potatoes, add butter and seasoning and mash them. A bit of milk at the time.
Make the dressing for the broccoli in a pan, drain the broccoli and reserve 1/2 cup of cooking water, add chicken stock and cream and season. Put the bread dressing on top.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms vegetarian

The first day after our crazy trip to the island of Mauritius we went to the large shopping center in Grand Baie where a Super U Hypermarche is.
More then 3 hours later we not only had the basic groceries for our rented house, but a couple of souvenir items and shirts.

We planned the first two dinners at the store. We had to see what they offered.

Many goods are imported and not cheap. I  checked the origin and the price and a lot of things fell out of our food routine.
I do not pay about 8 € for a bag of Bonduelle salad. I bought a local yellow cucumber instead.

On the hot and humid day, I went for a vegetarian option. Stuffed portobello mushrooms and rice with cucumber salad.

Ingredients for 3:
9 portobellos
2 spring onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 small yellow onion
60 g sugarsnap peas
1 tomato
50 g grated mozzarella cheese
Parsley
300 ml chicken stock
50 ml double cream
Salt, pepper, herbes de provence
1 1/2 cup basmati rice

Preheat the oven 180 C
Chop onions, garlic, peas, tomatoes and parsley. Use halve of the parsley for garnishing the rice.
Mix it and season well. Cook it in a pan to soften for 5 min.
Stuff inside the mushrooms and top with cheese.
Fill stock and cream with the herbes de provence into the oven proof dish and set the mushrooms in.
Cook the basmati and add parsley.

Bake for 12 min.

Congee Breakfast in Dubai

Take a plane and you can tell a story.

On my way to Mauritius I had to change planes in Dubai. But our crazy climate change made travelling very turbulent.
Dubai had more then 2 days rain storms and thunder storms that ruined all air travels and left the area flooded. Staff could not get to work on the airport because the mayor roads and part of the city were flooded.

We had 4 hours delay in Frankfurt to begin with and did not made our connecting flight to Mauritius

We stood more than 4 hours in line then got 3 seats on an other an other flight. That got delayed on the tarmac due to heavy thunderstorms running in one after another.

We just had about 40 min time to get some food and pay with the food vouchers.

To get to the restaurants meant more security checks and long walks so time was very short.


At an Asian restaurant they selled to kinds of breakfast: Continental or Congee.

Sweet Corn Soup

A warm and comforting soup on a cold winter day.

I still have some things in the fridge that needed to be cooked. Some canned sweet corn is a staple in my pantry and fresh veggies were in the drawer of the fridge.
Easy to make a hearty meal.

I love this combinations when I do not know from the start how the dish will end. That it will taste good is given, when I checked the ingredients list. What can actually go wrong? Too much salt or too much cream may be. But tasting during cooking can prevent that. And I had just a 3 tsp of whipped heavy cream left over. No worry, not too much cream.

ingredients:
50 g Tyrolean bacon
5 cm white of a leek
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp butter
3 parsnips
1 1/2 cans of sweet corn
2 tbsp cream cheese with sea salt
3 tsp whipped heavy cream
pepper
600 ml beef stock
150 ml white wine
fresh herbs

Peel and chop every veg and drain the sweet corn can.

Melt the butter in a pot and toss in bacon bits, onion, leek and garlic.
Give that 3 min to soften then chuck in the parsnips. After 2 more min, add wine and try to deglaze the pot. Now comes the beef stock.
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, close the lid and cook until the parsnips are soft. Season with pepper.

Now chuck in the whole can of sweet corn and bring back to a boil. After 3 min the soup is ready for the immersion blender. Do not blend it too fine.
Now in with the rest of the sweet corn, the whipped cream and the cream cheese.
Chop the herbs and finish the seasoning of the soup.

Ragú di Salsiccia con Pasta Paglia e Fieno

Italian Bratwurst or sausage.

These ones are seasoned with fennel seeds, very typical.

Ragú is the name of all meat sauces. The most famous is the world wide known Bolognese sauce. But do not visit Bologna and order Spaghetti bolognese. The locals wont like it.

I had 3 sausages left from an other dish. Some vegetables went into the sauce and a jar of tomato passata. The first thing to do was peeling off the casing from the sausage.

Recipe for 3:
3 salsiccia sausages with fennel
10 cm white of a leek
3 spring onions
2 large cloves of garlic
1/2 large red bell pepper
100 ml white wine
400 ml tomato passata
1 tbsp oil
Salt, pepper
Thyme
1 tsp hot paprika powder
250 g Pasta paglia e fieno (straw and hay)
Grana Padano cheese

In a little oil saute the chunks of sausage for 5 min. Add chopped leek, onions and garlic. Season with salt, pepper and thyme.
Cook until onions are a bit soft, then add the cubed bell pepper. Now add the wine.

Now you can cook the pasta. It should be ready together with the sauce.

REMEMBER: the sauce always waits for the pasta, never the other way round.

After a couple of minutes to reduce the wine, add the tomato passata.
Add paprika and cook to reduce the sauce a bit. Taste for seasoning.

Serve on top a bed of pasta and add some cheese.