Selina Periampillai – Food for Thought
Reflecting on the beauty of the island of Mauritius, the American writer Mark Twain once said: “Mauritius was made first and then heaven; and heaven was copied after Mauritius.” With its palm-fringed beaches, sapphire seas and polychromatic reef life is it any wonder that the “island where God practised creating Eden”, attracts hundreds of thousands of people to its celestial shores year on year. What’s more, Mauritius is a melting pot of culture, drawing on influences from Africa, Europe, China and India. So, as you can imagine, when it comes to the food, Mauritian cuisine is in a league of its own.
Selina Periampillai is a British-born Mauritian food pioneer, self-trained chef and food writer. Born to Mauritian parents, she became inspired by her heritage. She began to share recipes, bringing Mauritius to the masses by hosting supper clubs in Croydon, running cookery classes and selling street food in central London. As time progressed, she compiled all her research into a cookery book called Island Kitchen. It was hugely successful and was the second-best-selling cookbook in the UK (just behind a book by the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver).
Periampillai’s love story with her native cuisine began from watching her mother and father bring a taste of the Indian Ocean back to their home in the UK. “When my parents moved over from Mauritius in the 1970s, they didn’t know anyone and so would host lots of gatherings which were always centred around food,” Periampillai recalls as she describes the various curries, rotis and cakes her mother would unfurl across the table. “I was in awe watching my mother [Sabita] cook; she wouldn’t even count the grams and made it all look so easy.”
Upon mention of her mother’s Mauritius-inspired sweet potato cakes, Periampillai’s eyes suddenly widen. “She would roll out the sweet potato dough, mix fresh coconut with sugar, cut our a circle shape and put sugar in the middle. She would then pinch the edges together and fry the ball till it was golden brown, and when you bit into it, sugar would ooze out. Even today, as a cook and chef, “I still ask my mum to make those cakes,” she says. “My love of food really did come from her.”
Periampillai visited the island of Mauritius with her parents every year. “The people are so friendly out there. They fling open their doors for you and are always willing to share their stories and their food,” she says. “Whenever I go there, my maternal grandmother will make a massive feast of curries, rice and roti, octopus and salads, lychees and fresh mangos from the back of the garden.”
After a stint as a picture researcher for a news agency, Periampillai craved something more and realised she put more effort into baking fresh cakes for her colleagues than her 9-to-5 career path. Then, around eight years ago, “supper clubs” came on the scene. “I decided to quit my job and start hosting them. As you can imagine, my parents were horrified at the idea of me leaving my job to host a bunch of strangers in my home for dinner. I had just got a house and a mortgage, but I couldn’t wait to cook for people, make them a dish, and share it with them. It was a risk, but it felt right.”
Periampillai had her finger on the pulse with her brand of “home-cooked Mauritian food”. She hosted pop-ups, serving street food and running cookery classes. But, eventually, it felt like something was missing. “I realised there was nothing really written about Mauritian cuisine, and so I thought it’d be great to have a book,” she says.
The idea was inspired by the melting pot of culinary influences on the island. “When people came to work on the sugar plantations from France, China and India, they brought their cuisines with them,” she says. “That’s why, when you visit, you can have samosas and biryani, which are typically Indian, but then you can head to Chinatown and have noodles and dumplings. It’s the one place you can have roti or croissants for breakfast.”
Periampillai describes how Mauritians then add their special twist to these influences, harnessing the island’s bountiful ingredients. “Everyone in Mauritius has their own way of making this, and that’s what I wanted to communicate to people.”
Periampillai describes the classic dish of “Rougaille” as an example. Rougaille is a rich tomato and thyme sauce and is used as a base in many dishes. It has origins in southern France, and the thyme is a distinctly French herb, but once mixed with salt fish and chilli, it could also be African creole. It is then served with dhal, rice, or roti, making for a native Mauritian dish that tastes like multiple countries at once.
However, when presenting her idea on encapsulating the diversity of the cuisine, Periampillai faced a cycle of rejections. Publishers called the book proposal too “niche” to be publishable. Eventually, the chef had the last laugh and found someone at Bloomsbury publishers who believed in her idea.
To cast a light on the smaller islands of the Indian Ocean, from Seychelles to the Maldives to Mauritius, Periampillai compiled over 80 recipes for Island Kitchen from her time spent out there to show the islands’ history, culture and stories of migration through food. The book includes recipes for: slow-cooked duck with cinnamon and cloves (salmi de canard); Maldivian tuna curry (dhona riha); lobster in vanilla cream sauce (langouse à la Vanille); chilli dhal fritters (gateaux piments); and pineapple upside-down cake with cardamom cream.
For her last ever supper, Periampillai opted for a theme for things “she loved and grew up on”. For her starter, a “dhal with spicey chutney” and for her main course, a “chicken biryani with vegetables and mango chutney and rotis.” For pudding, “a really good chocolate fudge cake with custard,” and to drink “a gin with elderflower, slices of cucumber and chunks of ice.”
In an era of armchair travel, why not try your hand at some of the recipes from Island Kitchen and let Periampillai bring a taste of the Indian Ocean home to you – no quarantine needed.
Read her recipe for Maldivian Tuna Curry from Island Kitchen here:
Selina Periampillai’s Maldivian Tuna Curry
This warm, tangy fish curry is cooled with mellow coconut milk. It celebrates two cherished ingredients in Maldivian cuisine: tuna and coconut. The latter is served at almost every meal, whether the milk is extracted and added to curries like this or it is freshly grated or sliced and used as a condiment.
The tuna is enhanced with southern Indian spices including cardamom, curry leaves and turmeric. It doesn’t take long to cook, so this dish can be ready to eat in under thirty minutes, perfect for a midweek meal with steamed rice. ʻDhon rihaʼ is also enjoyed at breakfast by locals, served with rice, chillies and ʻroshiʼ (thin Maldivian flatbreads) or my Island-style rotis on the side, which are perfect for scooping up the sauce.
Ingredients
Serves, 2 – 4
500g tuna steak, cut into 2.5cm pieces
1 tbsp coconut oil
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 cardamom pods, seeds only, crushed
2.5cm piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
10 curry leaves, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely sliced
1 onion, finely sliced
½ tsp ground fennel seeds
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp black pepper
400ml tin coconut milk
1 cinnamon stick
Sea salt
Coriander, to garnish
Method
Lightly salt the fish and set aside.
In a large saucepan, warm the coconut oil over medium heat until simmering. Add in the garlic, cardamom, ginger, curry leaves and chilli.
Let this sauté until fragrant – usually around 30 seconds. Add the onion slices and cook until softened, around 5–7 minutes.
Add the rest of the spices: the fennel, cumin, turmeric and black pepper. After around a minute they will mingle together and become aromatic.
At this point, transfer everything into a food processor and blend to a coarse paste. Return the paste back to the pan over a medium heat, pour in the coconut milk, holding back one tablespoon for drizzling at the end, and pop in the cinnamon stick and ½ teaspoon salt.
Bring to a simmer and gently add the fish pieces to the sauce. They will cook fairly quickly. After 5 minutes, the fish should be tender, opaque and cooked throughout and the curry will be ready to serve. Drizzle over the extra coconut milk, scatter with the coriander and serve with a heap of rice.