Pumpkin Curry

How To Make Mauritian Pumpkin Curry

Serves 4 as a main, 6 as a side dish.

Ingredients

  • 1kg of diced pumpkin
  • 3 tbs vegetable oil
  • 1 onion
  • 2 garlic cloves, grated
  • 3cm of fresh ginger, grated
  • 2 green finger chillies, sliced lengthways
  • 200 ml water
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 12 fresh curry leaves
  • Dash of sugar
  • 1 tsp salt flakes, less if using salt granules

Method

In a large lidded pan, heat the oil over a medium temperature, fry the onion until blonde, tip in the garlic, ginger and chillies until they sizzle a little, browning at the edges. Add the pumpkin chunks, season with salt, touch of sugar and add the water. Cover and cook for 15 minutes until the pumpkin flesh has yielded. Remove the lid and sprinkle in the ground coriander, curry leaves and thyme sprigs, cooking uncovered for another 10 minutes reducing the pumpkin stew a little.

Eat with rice or a flatbread such as faratha or chapatti.

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CURRY
MEMOIRS

Giraumon Fricasser

“Meet me by the old Cinema Rex, I’ll see you at eight.”

We cut across the Island of Mauritius to me Elzie Polydor the Commis Chef from our hotel, to taste some Mauritian home cooking with her family and bag some recipes. We hopped out of the cab and stood under a fickle street lamp still deciding whether or not to illuminate the street. Peeling posters slapped across the front of the now disused Cinema Rex told a story of bygone popularity. Lads listened to dancehall sega bleating from a shop’s distracted speakers. A flustered silhouette emerged across the streets, dogs performed their neighbourhood watch duties barking at any form of passing movement, mosquitoes raided the air above our ears, Elzie’s profile sharpened and she broke into a series of apologies.

“I’m so sorry I’m late but I got held up at Flacq market...” I could think of worse detentions.

In the confines of her humble tiled kitchen, pots rattled and floured surfaces threw up puffs of work in progress. Amidst the bubbling stirring and smiling we glimpsed one of the treats in store. The sweet flesh of diced and spiced pumpkin and delayed gratification stoked our appetite even further. Her boys now slightly fading with hunger made light work of the butter bean stew, chicken kalian and now turned their attention to the Mauritian pumpkin curry or giraumon fricasser. Scooping the pumpkin curry with layers of the faratha flatbread, my weakness was demonstrated by a third serving of the tender ginger and thyme spiked pumpkin...don’t judge just wait until you’ve tasted it.

Pumpkin it’s too good to waste on Halloween.





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How To Make Mauritian Pumpkin Curry

Serves 4 as a main, 6 as a side dish.

Ingredients

  • 1kg of diced pumpkin
  • 3 tbs vegetable oil
  • 1 onion
  • 2 garlic cloves, grated
  • 3cm of fresh ginger, grated
  • 2 green finger chillies, sliced lengthways
  • 200 ml water
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 12 fresh curry leaves
  • Dash of sugar
  • 1 tsp salt flakes, less if using salt granules

Method

In a large lidded pan, heat the oil over a medium temperature, fry the onion until blonde, tip in the garlic, ginger and chillies until they sizzle a little, browning at the edges. Add the pumpkin chunks, season with salt, touch of sugar and add the water. Cover and cook for 15 minutes until the pumpkin flesh has yielded. Remove the lid and sprinkle in the ground coriander, curry leaves and thyme sprigs, cooking uncovered for another 10 minutes reducing the pumpkin stew a little.

Eat with rice or a flatbread such as faratha or chapatti.

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