When I sat and thought about it - I could remember drinking lots of cocktails and Fiji, and going to lots of restaurants which served multi-country food. For example, a restaurant that served both Italian and Chinese food. I can also remember quite a bit of fish. When we went out on tours we were normally served a buffet of salads, curries and BBQ'ed meat - fish, sausages and steak. The morning buffets were what you would normally get at any resort - but I think the highlight for the girls was the fresh tropical fruit..... with some varieties of fruit they hadn't tried before - eg. custard apples.
I don't have any cookbooks with Fijian food in them, so I went to the very handy "Google" and searched on "Fijian Recipes" - only to turn up a handful of the similar curry recipes. I must admit I was fairly uninspired, and I didn't think the girls would eat fish and curry all week.
Not to be deterred the next week I attempted another search - this time doing a broader search on "Fijian Food". This turned up some information web-sites on what typical Fijians eat, and how their food is influenced predominantly by the Indian and Asian cultures. That's when I came across a link to Lance Seeto's Facebook page - "Fijian Food Safari" and his web page. This was all the inspiration I needed. Lance is an Australian Chef who is now an award winning international food and travel writer. He is also the presenter of a television cooking show called "Taste of Paradise" which is set on Castaway Island in Fiji. This year he will be bringing out a cookbook called "Coconut Bliss", so I'll have to find a copy when it is finally released.
Most of this week's recipes have been obtained from his facebook page, and by watching an episode of his Taste of Paradise Show.
This was the menu for the week (starting on Tuesday on account that we had Greek leftovers on Monday!):
Tuesday
Grilled Fish with Curried Beans and Tomato
From the show "Taste of Paradise"Wednesday
Pumpkin, Citrus and Cardamom Soup
with Indian Dipping Bread
From the Facebook page - Fijian Food Safari
Thursday
Stir-fry Chicken with Hoisin Sauce, Pineapple and Coconut
From the show "Taste of Paradise"
Friday
Di's Lunch : Kokoda
From taste.com.au
Pizza Night
Saturday
Dinner at Friend's Place
Pineapple, Apple and Ginger Crumble
From the Facebook page - Fijian Food Safari
Monday
Fijian Chicken Curry
From the Food web-site
http://www.food.com/recipe/fijian-curried-chicken-24938
Some observations from this week:
- There are not a lot of cookbooks with Fijian recipes in them, so you have to use the web!
- I bought 4 cans of Coconut Milk and Cream.
- Spices such as Coriander, Cinnamon, Chili, Cardamom, Cumin and Tumeric featured in many of the recipes.
- Lots of citrus juice - orange, lime and lemon
- I loved the colour of the food this week.
Tuesday
Grilled Fish with Curried Beans and Tomatoes. I used some Pink Ling fillets for this recipe, the curried sauce was very tasty.
Wednesday
Swimming night - so we needed a quick meal that we could have after we got home late. This is the Pumpkin, Citrus and Cardamom Soup. Extremely nice - and I think I might make this in future, as opposed to a plain pumpkin soup - very tasty. I served it with Indian dipping breads, as they would use similar breads in Fiji.
Thursday
A Chicken Stir-fry using Soy and Hoisin Sauces (should have been oyster sauce - but I forgot to check whether I had some before embarking on making it). The interesting thing about this stir-fry which makes it more Fijian than Asian, is the addition of pineapple and shredded coconut.
Friday
I was pretty keen on making some traditional Fijian Kokoda. In essence, this is raw fish which has been cooked overnight in the fridge using lemon juice. Once marinated, you add finely chopped onion, capsicum, tomato and chilli, and add some coconut milk to the mix. I used snapper for this one. Delicious - although if I make it again I will only put a little bit of onion in - the onion was just a little too much against the subtle flavours of the fish and coconut milk. I used a recipe from taste.com.au.
Saturday
I made Pineapple, Apple and Ginger Crumble to take to a friend's place for dinner. I forgot to take a picture - so here is the picture from Lance Seeto's facebook page:
Monday
The last Fijian dish for the week was this Fijian Chicken Curry. It was very similar in taste to a dish Jasmin loved on the breakfast buffet in Phuket. I will have to keep this recipe to cook again. Everyone loved it and I especially loved the vibrant yellow colour (from the Tumeric). The recipe can be found here.
For this week, Dave pulled "Cyprus" out of the container. Similar to Greek food with some differences. Dave is going to love the Haloumi cheese which is used in a lot of savoury dishes. I was also surprised by the amount of coriander found in Cypriot food.
Di :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment