Seychelles is an island country in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, northeast of Madagascar, and has the lowest population of all African sovereign nations. Similarly to Comoros, the cuisine of Seychelles is influenced by a combination of French, east African, and Middle Eastern/Indian cultures. As an island country, the biggest form of protein is fish and other seafood, of course. So I made a "fish" curry, using super firm tofu as a stand-in. I also made ladob banan, which is plantains simmered in spiced coconut milk.
The first thing I did was prepare my spices. The recipe I used called for a variety of spices which essentially make up garam masala. Garam masala is a spice blend made from, most commonly: cardamom, coriander, cumin, cloves, and pepper. That blend comprise the majority of the spices used in this dish. I also used turmeric, chili powder, and a small bit of cinnamon stick.
The curry starts off with onions cooked until translucent, then the spice mixture is added in and fried lightly until fragrant.
Then the "fish" is added, along with garlic, thyme, tamarind water (I used pomegranate molasses mixed with water and lime juice to get a similar flavor), and broth. Normally fish broth would be used, in this case it was vegetable broth.
The mixture simmers until all the flavors are melded together. The recipe didn't call for coconut milk, but I use some anyway to give more body to the broth. The curry is served with rice; I made basmati rice with a bit of cardamom cooked in with it.
While the curry cooked, I prepped the spices for the plantains. Nutmeg, cardamom, and cinnamon join a split vanilla pod and brown sugar.
The plantains are cut lengthwise twice and arranged in a heavy-bottomed skillet, then the aforementioned spices and sugar added to the pan.
Coconut milk is then added to the top. My cans of coconut milk had tons of cream on the top, which I think helped the sauce tremendously.
The coconut milk is brought to a boil for about ten minutes, then left to simmer for at least half an hour. In my case, the plantains weren't fully ripe yet so I let them simmer a little longer than that.
The plantains are served warm with the coconut sauce in the bottom of the bowl. I sprinkled a little more cinnamon on the top because I just really love cinnamon.
In all I think both dishes came out okay. With the flavors involved I would have thought I would be way more content with the final results. The curry definitely needed something more, maybe more of the pomegranate molasses as tamarind stand-in. Or more heat from the chili powder. The recipe also didn't call for cooking it very long, and even though I did cook it longer than it called for, I think allowing the flavors to meld more would have been beneficial. I can see why you wouldn't want to cook fish that long, but with the tofu I definitely could have kept going.
As for the plantains, I just wish it were easier to find riper plantains at the grocery store. I had actually planned on cooking these dishes last weekend, but the plantains I had were, completely green. I even got them a week before that and they're still mostly green. Maybe in a couple months I'll be able to use them. The ones I used for this dish were yellow with brown spots, but truly ripe bananas should be basically black. They were still a bit too starchy for what the dish needed. I also think fried plantains are far superior anyway, so if I could go back and do it again I would honestly just use firm bananas instead. But hey, this is the first dish I've made with plantains that didn't involve frying them!
Recipes used: Ladob banan and fish curry
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