Mauritius

🇲🇺Mauritius

Mine Bouilli

The boiled counterpart of mine frite: noodles served in a light broth with boulettes, greens and a spoon of chilli garlic.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Mine Frite

Wheat noodles stir-fried hard with soy, spring onion, chicken or prawn and shredded vegetables in a Sino-Mauritian wok.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Napolitaine

Two crumbling shortbread rounds sandwiched with strawberry or guava jam and covered in a thick pink sugar icing.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Niouk Yen

Sino-Mauritian dumplings of grated chayote squeezed dry and bound with minced pork and cornflour, steamed until translucent.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Octopus Curry

Cari ourite

Octopus tenderised and stewed with tomato, garlic, curry leaves and thyme until the tentacles are soft enough to cut with a spoon.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Panacon

A tamarind, lemon, sugar and cardamom drink made in quantity for Hindu religious ceremonies and handed out to everyone present.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Phoenix Beer

Phoenix

A pale lager brewed at Phoenix since 1963 and the default beer of the island, sold in stubby green bottles.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Poutou

Rice flour steamed in small cups with grated coconut and sugar until it sets into a soft white cake.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Rougaille

A tomato base cooked down with onion, garlic, ginger, thyme and chilli, then simmered with sausage, salted fish, prawns or eggs and eaten with rice.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Salted Fish Rougaille

Rougaille poisson salé

Dried salted fish soaked, flaked and cooked into a tomato rougaille heavy with onion and chilli.

🇬🇵Guadeloupe

Samosa

समोसा

A crisp South Asian pastry is folded around spiced potato, peas, onion, or meat, then fried and served with chutney

🇨🇳Guangdong, China

Sesame Balls

煎堆

Hollow glutinous rice dough balls rolled in sesame seeds and deep-fried until they puff, filled with sweet lotus or red bean paste.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Seven Curries

Sept cari

A banana-leaf meal of rice ringed by seven vegetable preparations — pumpkin, calabash, black gram, potato, aubergine, beans and a chutney — eaten by hand at Hindu weddings and prayers.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Shaved Ice

Glaçon râpé

Ice shaved by hand crank into a cup and drenched in coloured syrups — almond, vanilla, grenadine — sometimes over a spoon of condensed milk.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Smoked Blue Marlin

Marlin fumé

Blue marlin caught off the west coast, cold-smoked and sliced thin, served as a starter with lime or folded through palm heart salad.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Smothered Greens

Touffé brède

Leafy greens — chayote vine, watercress, mustard leaf or pumpkin shoot — wilted with garlic, onion and a little water until they collapse into their own liquor.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Sweet Potato Cakes

Gato patate

Crescent turnovers of mashed sweet potato pastry filled with sweetened grated coconut and fried.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Tamarind Balls

Boulette tamarin

Tamarind pulp worked with sugar, salt and chilli into sticky balls rolled in more sugar.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Taro Fritters

Gato arouille

Grated taro root mixed with chilli, garlic and herbs and fried into dense little cakes.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Taro Leaves

Brède songe

The young leaves of the taro plant, sold in tied bundles and cooked down as the most common of the island's brèdes.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Teosa

A flaky Sino-Mauritian pastry spiral filled with sweet bean or lotus paste, baked for Chinese New Year and sold year-round in Chinatown.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Tomato Satini

Satini pomme d'amour

Raw tomato crushed with onion, coriander, chilli and lime into a loose relish that goes beside almost every Creole plate.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Victoria Pineapple

Ananas Victoria

A small, deep-yellow pineapple variety grown in Mauritius and Réunion, sweeter and less acidic than the export types.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Vindaye

Fish or octopus fried, then steeped in a cold mixture of ground mustard seed, turmeric, vinegar, garlic and chilli until it turns sharp and yellow.

🇲🇺Mauritius

Watercress Bouillon

Bouillon cresson

A clear broth of watercress with garlic, ginger and often a few prawns or salted fish, drunk alongside rice rather than before it.