Creole Food Recipe Seychelles

[Walda Caesar]

CoconutChicken Curry is a delicious, slightly spicy curry recipe. Creamy curry with the exotic flavors of the Seychelles Islands. A gluten-free dinner that comes together quickly and easily.

Seychelles-Style Coconut Chicken Curry recipe was actually thanks to a French class project of my high school daughter and a classmate. She has taken six years of French and her current teacher (who is French) prompted the students to pick a food from a French-speaking country, make it while creating a video (in French) of them cooking it including facts about the country, and then they would all share the foods they make in class.

My daughter chose the Seychelles, which turned out to be both fascinating and a challenge to nail down a recipe with ingredients we could find locally. I should back up and share that the Seychelles are a series of 115 islands of the east coast of Africa; north of Madagascar, directly east of Tanzania and Kenya and is a beachy, tropical location. The cuisine is influenced by England, China, India, France and Africa with flavors of ginger, tamarind and coriander being prominent in their recipes. Locals tend to eat from the indigenous bounty of fresh fruits, fish (which includes shark), and even bats (though apparently not endangered bat species; love turning a school project into a blog post).

We changed a few things to make a version of this coconut chicken curry recipe stay on the course of an authentic Seychelles-style curry, but to be able to be made with more available ingredients. Cinnamon leaves are often used and we added cinnamon to the curry and used a bay leaf which is a close substitute. For curry leaves we used a Kaffir lime leaf. They can be found at most Asian grocery stores and have a distinct lime-life flavor often found in Thai food. If that is not available to you, the zest of half a lime may be substituted as well. Lastly we broke down the individual spices found in quatres spices, a staple in many French kitchens; white pepper, nutmeg, ground ginger and ground cloves.

I am lucky enough to be part Seychellois, and have spent a significant part of my life on these wonderful islands. My granny and aunt both made some pretty spectacular traditional Creole dishes, and it was always a pleasure to dine in their kitchen.

Salted fish, or Pwason Sale, as the locals call it, is less common today than it used to be, but it is still available if you know where to look. Again, the lack of refrigeration until well into the late 20th century meant that food preservation was a challenge, so to keep produce edible all sorts of preservation techniques were used, including pickling and salting.

There are a variety of ways that salted fish can be served, but the absolute classic has to be the Rougay. This is basically just a tomato and onion base with plenty of garlic, ginger and chilli, fried up, then served with rice. Another excellent option, which cuts through some of the salt, is to have it as a coconut curry.

When my Mum moved out to the Seychelles way back in the seventies, she started out her culinary adventures by asking my Dad how they cooked things. She relates that she soon gave up asking the question because the default answer was invariably curry.

The ingredients vary, back in the day bat and goat were key ingredients, although you may struggle to find those today. Instead, chicken and fish curries are likely to be on your plate, with Octopus Curry a local Seychelles speciality you should definitely try at least once.

An often overlooked dish, but a critical side component of a traditional Seychelles curry feast is the humble lentil. In Seychelles, red lentils are a popular staple, served as a side dish with many dishes. These are often cooked for a long time with garlic, onion and ginger, with the result being a fairly yellow paste.

In my opinion though, by far the best way to eat breadfruit is to just put it whole (they are fairly large), with the tough skin on, into the embers of your fire, surrounded by coconut husks, leave it for around 45 minutes, and when the skin is charred, crack it open to reveal the steaming creamy white flesh within.

As you would imagine, the Seychelles has a lot of fish! One popular and traditional way of preserving fish, particularly before the advent of refrigeration, was to smoke it. Smoked fish has a wonderful flavour, and it works particularly well in a cold salad.

Satini can also be made with fish, most commonly shark, and it will usually be yellowed with turmeric spices and look like finely ground meat. Ground coconut is another popular ingredient. In the image above, you can see papaya satini at the top of the shot, and lentils at the bottom.

Speaking of snacking, if you find yourself getting hungry, there are a number of traditional Seychelles snack foods that you should try. These can be bought at most corner stores or supermarkets quite easily and cheaply.

Your next best option for a good Creole meal is to go to a restaurant that specialises in Creole food. Whilst there are many places to eat out in the Seychelles, you want to go somewhere that has made a name for itself as a good place to eat.

There are a number of restaurants that fit this bill. On Mahe, the most popular and longest established is Marie Antoinette. Found in the capital city of Victoria and situated in an old Creole house, this restaurant has been serving up traditional Creole meals for many years.

Hello, I am a Seychelloise who grew up cooking and enjoying our creole cuisine. My grandmother taught us to cook some older dishes so I have multigenerational knowledge of the cuisine.

Most of what you have written is correct and interesting however there are a couple of inaccuracies.

Smoked fish is a relatively new dish in Seychelles. It has only been around for the last 30 years or so and did not come about through lack of refrigeration. It is plausible that a few people might have smoked fish a hundred or so years ago before the availability of refrigeration but it was certainly never a part of the wider cuisine then.

You also talk of bat and goat curries. I am aware that some people eat bat in Seychelles and again this has never been a widespread part of the cuisine. Same for goat. Goats are not animals that are commonly kept or eaten in Seychelles.

Thank you very much.

I had the same feeling about Indian descent because of the flavours and as you say, sold in all the Indian owned stores.

Loads of recipes come up now so I am going to be very popular in our house.

Many thanks for your help with this.

Kind regards

Richard

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The Seychelles have no indigenous population. They were first populated by a group of French and later British settlers, who brought in slaves from western Africa and merchants from the East. Over time these people made Seychelles their home.

Some aspects of the cuisine are slowly fading as people orient more toward fast foods. However, the older generations still teach their young the delicacies that came from the vye marmit (a black heavy metal pot), where some of the best foods of creole cuisine comes from.

The first thing to note is that most of these dishes (except for the desserts) are usually accompanied by rice. This became a substitute for the traditional boiled cassava, which was used as a staple for carb intake.

This is a staple chutney, added to most dishes in creole cuisine. It is made from unripe papaya, which is grated, soaked and drained (the sap is not good for the stomach), and stir-fried with onions and chili.

This is a pretty simple dish. The fish is spiced with salt, pepper, some other spices, and, most importantly, chili. Traditionally this is wrapped and grilled in banana leaves over a wooden DIY grill.

This delicacy is a chutney made by boiling, draining, and mashing salted fish into small flakes (like canned tuna) and stir frying it with onions and chopped chili. It is served with lentils, rice/boiled cassava, and papaya chutney.

This dish is a curry made out of moringa leaves (small round leaves), which give it a unique and specific taste. The salted fish is prepared the same way as for salted fish chutney, but instead of being stir-fried, it is cooked with moringa leaves and coconut milk.

Smoke fish salad can consist of mangoes, onions, lettuce, watercress, tomato, cucumber, and some lemon juice with salt and pepper. This can be eaten as a dish on its own or as a side to a main dish. This is one of the less traditional dishes of creole cuisine.

Tektek are not usually prepared straight after being harvested; they would still have sand in them. They are placed in a bowl of salt water for a few hours to get rid of the sand and other impurities.

This could be the most unoriginal Seychellois creole food. It is like a conventional chicken curry but cooked a little bit differently as it is made with locally made masala (curry) powder and kari pile.

This is an acquired taste for some but to most Seychellois people, it is a much-sought after delicacy. However, it is something you only have once in a while, as it takes a really long time to collect enough limpets, or bernik, to make up a decent sized curry.

Limpets act a bit like barnacles, clamped themselves tightly to rocks, usually found in the intertidal zones all around the Seychelles islands. They are cooked in coconut milk, local masala (curry) powder, and eggplant.

This is a seasonal dish for when octopi are harvested. It is prepared by boiling the octopus, cleaning it of any ink and impurities, and cutting it in little chunks. Eggplant, onions, garlic, kari pile, masala (curry) powder, and coconut milk are then added to it, and it is left to cook on a low heat. It is usually served with papaya chutney and rice.

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