Zanzibar Fish Curry & Coriander Yoghurt

  
Last week we decided to counteract the impending darkness of November by heading for the spice isle.

Not that spice aisle, though it’s rather popular in our house, but the Gauguin-green, beguiling beauty that is Zanzibar, the one one-time hub of the spice trade – and a great deal less palatably, the slave-trade between Africa and the world.
And Freddie Mercury was born there.

She, let’s call her she, has had more outside influences than I have had hot dinners (and that’s a lot); Oman, Portugal, the list goes on. The old part of the capital, Stone Town, witnessed the shortest war in the world at the end of the 19th century: the Anglo-Zanzibar war, which lasted all of between 38 and 45 minutes depending on who you ask. This amazing piece of trivia has not only been banked by the BSG amongst his treasury of random facts, but is greatly bumped up his favourites chart due to the fact that it was begun at about 9am… once the British had finished their breakfast.

Our breakfasts each day were altogether more peaceful affairs, consisting of some of the greatest tasting fruit I have ever encountered. Every bright orange mango was a good one, the bananas were short and sweet and the custard apples were a revelation. Considering that pineapples were brought over by the Portuguese - so aren’t strictly native to Zanzibar - it’s hard to imagine them tasting better grown anywhere else.
  

Of course, some food tourism was inevitable, and between bouts of competitive reading and swimming sessions we took a spice tour, to see the origins of the spices we know so well in their orange-topped jars; I have a new-found respect for each and every one. Fresh  nutmeg looked like a formidable armoured beetle, black in its in its danger-red mace casing. The turmeric and ginger roots were fiery when scratched out of their earthy bed and the cardamom and cloves unrecognisable in their pungent greenness*. Huge almond trees provided cool shade underneath dark, waxy leaves. Like all good tourists, we spent a small fortune in Tanzania Shillings on a few bags of the stuff, still drunk on raw nutmeg, ginger and turmeric. One of the bags contains a rust-hued curry powder, the same colour as Zanzibar’s fertile ground. We used it this week to make a fish curry; the closest to kissing the spice isle a fond farewell, until the next time. Asante sana!

* pics from left to right: cardamom, nutmeg, cloves

The mix looks like a lot, but chances are you have nearly everything in your cupboard already. Make up a big batch and keep it to use again and again - I guarantee you’ll want to. Equally it will make a great meat or veg curry too. It takes no time at all to put together.

For the curry:
1 onion, chopped
Zanzibar spice mix (ground turmeric, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, chilli powder, coriander and garlic)
500g skin and boneless firm white fish (or a mix including squid and shellfish) in bitesized pieces
1 carrot and 1 courgette, chopped into short batons
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tin of coconut milk
Salt and pepper

For the yoghurt:
3 tablespoons Greek yoghurt
Handful of chopped fresh coriander
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
Salt and pepper

Soften and lightly colour the onion over a gentle heat. Add the mix of powdered spices and cook for 2 minutes. Add chopped tomatoes and carrot pieces, turn up the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add coconut milk and turn down the heat. Cook for 5 minutes, before adding the courgette and fish. Place a lid on the pan and cook for 5 minutes, until the fish is cooked through.

Serve with the coriander yoghurt, some warm chapati (or rice) and cauliflower cooked in ginger, turmeric, cumin and cinnamon.

A cauliflower ‘ere.

They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but amidst all the column miles stretching around the dawn of the new decade, devoted to detox, retox, pretox, botox and all things raw and vegetal, what could I do but reach for Nigel Slater’s squeaky new book Tender in an effort to look interested. This book was a just-because present for the BSG late last year - well, more of a boomerang pressie actually - and he’s I’m enjoying it very much. Before the Christmas festivities really kicked in, I admit that I hadn’t been screaming out for roots and leaves, but now that flurries of January guilt are upon us, well, this ode to vegetables makes so much sense, albeit still freezing outside. Once you are inside and past the leafy cover, even the font employed evokes the tendrils and shoots of spring.

And so it is, and straight to the cauliflower chapter: a pale and beguiling creature that seemed an appropriate focus in an arctic week that promises yet more of the white stuff. On New Year’s Day after a hedonistic banquet, bonfire and bash on the Cornish coast in a house plucked from an Agatha Christie novel, a motley crew of revolutionaries staggered along the cliff path on what can loosely be termed as a walk.

The goal was a cosy pub.

                                            The cosy pub was shut.

    Desperation and hysteria ensued.

    Some tea.

                                         Not to mention the impromptu fireworks.

 

In the latter throes of the stagger we’d found ourselves blinking in the midst of a frosty cauliflower field – there they stood, proud and tall, like ceremonial maces. This experience was a first for me, though rather disappointing: they smelt like old cabbages. Apparently (thanks, Nige,) these cranial lobes of white don’t do well with any weather extremes: these had rotted helplessly in the cold and were now gilded brown. There was to be no cauliflower cheese for us that night, but the seed was sown and when I got back home to Tender I had to investigate.

Mr. Slater, my food-prose pin-up, does indeed have a few beautiful words to say about these veggie brains, his recipes stretching beyond their lauded affinity with cheese. That said, I might just venture to the back of the fridge where the last heel of the stilton is languishing. Perhaps a salsa verde and some mild spices, he suggests, and I am reminded how deliciously this vegetable marries with a fragrant anchoiade – very much in keeping with that piece I read on the merits of oily fish...anchovies must count, surely? We also have a pot of Ras-el-Hanout in the cupboard that has been a success with everything we’ve tried sprinkling it on so far. Could we? I am sure we could, with some yoghurt…

Inspired by our fun-packed days in Cornwall, last night’s supper had to be fish. Moreover, it being that fearful first Monday back, supper had to be easy and cosy; a reward for getting through the day. Mackerel fillets, no-fuss and straight from the tin stirred through warm Puy lentils with peppers, tomatoes, parsley, olive oil and lemon hit the spot, and for our raw effort, a chicory, gem lettuce and avocado salad.

Angelic - apart from that last Christmas truffle. Or two.

Also worthy of a mention was our delicious lunch at the weekend at the Gurnard’s Head near St Ives, after a four-mile yomp between the south and north coasts of Cornwall (rather a satisfying result, as walks go, not to mention the views from the top.) A starter of crab linguine - I must remember to add tomatoes to my version - followed by a yielding, sticky roast belly of pork filled all the gaps necessary. This place and its staff are deserving of the highest praise – they fed the forty of us extremely well. Well worth the hike.