Recipes – Nutmeg Trail

The Nutmeg Trail RICA RICA PRAWNS

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tbsp neutral oil • 3 tomatoes, chopped • 100g spring onions (scallions), chopped • 4 lime leaves, vein removed • 1/2 tsp sugar • 360g raw peeled prawns, tails intact • Squeeze of lime

For the spice paste

• 5 large red chillies, seeds removed • 1–4 bird’s eye chillies, seeds in (optional) • 4 small shallots • 4 garlic cloves • 5cm ginger, peeled • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt • Juice of a lime

Eat with me

Yellow coconut rice for a good colour contrast You may also like a Sour-and-spice pineapple relish: Peel, core and chunk a small pineapple. Chop 2 red chillies, removing the seeds, then grind to a rough paste with 1 tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Loosen with 1 tablespoon vinegar and stir through the pineapple. Leave to sit for 15 minutes for the flavours to mingle.

The Nutmeg Trail by Eleanor Ford. Photography by Ola O. Smit. Murdoch Books RRP $49.99.

One of the chilli hotspots of the world is Northern Sulawesi. Here fragrant lime leaves, lemon basil and extreme use of chilli typify the food, for heat that hits you with shouts, not whispers. Spice pastes are often used in one-to-one ratio with the quantity of meat or seafood. Rica rica is the signature cooking style, the ‘c’ pronounced ‘ch’ as in ‘chilli’, which is also what the word means. Stoke the fire to your taste, by all means scaling up the bird’s eyes. These are for heat; the seeded larger chillies are there for flavour. Other chilli-seafood dishes of the wider region to explore include prawn sambal (Indonesian versions tends to be more tomatoey than the salty-sweet Malay renditions), Singapore chilli crab (hands-on eating with a rich, sweet red sauce), and the prized spanner crabs of the Philippines island of Mindanao, doused in spicy coconut milk red-stained by annatto.

Recipe:

Roughly chop the aromatics for the spice paste and blitz all the ingredients together in a blender to a rough paste.

Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok and scrape in the spice paste. Fry on a medium heat, stirring often, until it is sweetly fragrant and the harsh, raw edge has gone. Stir in the tomato, spring onion, lime leaves and sugar and cook so the tomato starts to break down to a sauce.

Add the prawns and simmer for about 5 minutes, until they lose their glassiness and are just cooked through and pink. Spritz in some lime juice and taste to see if any of the flavours need balancing – add more lime to brighten, or sugar and salt as needed. Serve at once.

The Nutmeg Trail EGG AND BACON ROUGAILLE

Serves 2

Mauritius is a nation with the spice routes woven into its fabric. The island was uninhabited before the arrival of European settlers during the spice race, when the Dutch, French, then British each took advantage of its strategic Indian Ocean position. A turning point in history came when an eighteenth-century French spice trader, impeccably named Pierre Poivre, smuggled nutmeg plants from Indonesian Maluku and planted them in Mauritius and Réunion, so breaking the Dutch trading monopoly and making spices more accessible to the world than ever before. (Poivre is possibly also the one immortalised in the tongue twister ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper’.)

The well-worn phrase ‘melting pot’ does capture Mauritian culture. A fractured past founded on trade has left a population of Indians, Africans, Chinese and Europeans, and given rise to one of the world’s great Creole cuisines.

A cornerstone of the home cooking is a gingery tomato sauce called rougaille. It can enliven seafood, salted fish, sausages or, as here, be used as a base for softly poached eggs. There is an unusual clash of Western and Eastern accents – thyme meets coriander – that is typical of playful Mauritian cooking. The result is electric.

INGREDIENTS

• 100g (¾ cup) bacon lardons • 1 onion, finely chopped • 3cm ginger, peeled and minced (1 tbsp) • 4 garlic cloves, minced • 1 bird’s eye chilli, seeds in, finely chopped • 1 tsp cumin seeds • Small bunch thyme, leaves stripped • 400g ripe tomatoes, chopped, or good tinned tomatoes • 2–4 eggs • Handful coriander (cilantro) leaves

• Flatbreads and hot sauce, to serve (optional) Recipe:

Put the lardons in a frying pan and set over a medium heat. Cook until the fat renders, then the bacon crisps. Add the onion and fry until well softened. Add the ginger, garlic, chilli, cumin and thyme leaves and cook for a few minutes longer.

Add the tomatoes and cook at a slow boil for about 20 minutes, squishing the tomatoes with the back of a spoon occasionally to break them down. The red should deepen a shade. Taste and balance the flavours with salt and a little sugar, if needed.

Make dents in the sauce with the spoon and crack an egg into each one. Sprinkle each egg with a little salt and cover the pan with a lid (or a plate). Leave the eggs to steam for 4–5 minutes, until the whites are set and the yolks are still runny.

Scatter with coriander and serve with flatbreads and hot sauce, if you like.

The Nutmeg Trail CASHEW CREAM CHICKEN Serves 4-6 Here is a showcase of chicken at its most festive and luxurious and yet, pleasingly, it is deceptively simple to cook. Cashew nuts make a silky cream sauce that has sweetness from caramelised onion and a subtle but definite prick of chilli heat fortified by judicious spicing. Scattered with a flourish of glassy red pomegranate seeds, it makes a splendid party dish or rather fine picnic fare if cooked in advance and chilled so the sauce thickens.

INGREDIENTS

• 8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs or 4 breasts • 4 garlic cloves, minced • 2cm ginger, peeled and minced • 1 teaspoon fine sea salt • 2 tablespoons ghee or neutral oil • 4 dried Kashmiri chillies • 2 x 5cm cinnamon or cassia sticks • 6 cloves • 4 green cardamom pods • 1 large onion, finely sliced • 200g (1¼ cups) raw cashew nuts • 140g (½ cup) Greekstyle (strained) yoghurt • Pomegranate seeds, to decorate (optional) The recipe comes from the Parsi community of India and, more specifically, from my friend and culinary anthropologist, Niloufer Ichaporia King. Parsis are the descendants of Persian Zoroastrians who set sail for India 1300 years ago and brought with them one of the world’s oldest culinary traditions.

During the maritime spice trade epoch, Parsis got on well with both local suppliers and foreign buyers, acting as mediators, brokers and interpreters. Whilst adapting fluidly to a new and changing land, the community clung to its roots and you can see in this dish links to Persian and Ottoman braises such as Fesenjan and Circassian chicken. Those are made with ground walnuts but Parsis are more likely to use almonds or cashews. Korma is another similar dish, also stemming from an Indian-Persian fusion, where nuts and dairy combine in voluptuous richness.

Recipe:

If you are using chicken breasts, halve them. Mix with the garlic, ginger and salt and leave to marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, heat the ghee in a large casserole pan. Toss in the chillies and spices and let them sizzle. The chillies should start to turn dark, and the cardamom toasty. Add the sliced onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden. Add the chicken to the pan and cook for 3 minutes or so, turning it in the aromatics. Barely cover with water and bring to the boil. Turn the heat right down, cover and simmer for 20–25 minutes, until just cooked through. Remove the chicken to a plate. Put the cashew nuts into a blender with the yoghurt and a ladleful of the cooking liquid. Be sure to leave the whole spices behind in the pan with the rest of the liquid, but fish out two of the chillies and add to the blender if you want some heat. Whizz to a smooth and creamy purée. Scrape the purée back into the pan with the cooking liquid and whisk until well combined. Taste for seasoning. Return the chicken to the pan. To serve, rewarm over a very low heat and scatter with a flourish of pomegranate seeds.