Aunty Laila’s Fish and Aubergine Curry

My mother’s brother (my Uncle Hassan) owns a food cart, which he sets up at the Rose-Hill bus station on weekdays and sells freshly fried poori (a tortilla-like flatbread) with vegetable curry. His wife (my Aunty Laila) gets up at the crack of dawn and cooks up the curries that are ladled into the poori. They make a good team, in a yin-and-yang kind of way. If they were in New York I’d enter them into the Vendy Awards.

Aunty Laila is a dab hand in the kitchen. Getting her and my mother together is a bit like an episode of Iron Chef. While I was in Mauritius Laila came over to my mum’s and cooked a feast of fish curry with aubergines and roti. Here’s a picture of her rolling out roti.

Before whipping up dinner, Aunty Laila prepared a Mauritian specialty for tea time: boiled bread fruit with a tomato and cilantro salsa-like chutney. The breadfruit tasted quite like cassava and it was pure starchy deliciousness.

For the curry she used a local fish called capitan, a rather meaty white fish, which she had fried before getting to our place. The meal was fantastic. Here is her recipe.

2Ibs of firm fish fillets such as tuna or swordfish
Canola Oil
6 Japanese aubergines (cut into lengthways into two)
1 tablespoon of curry powder
3-4 chopped cloves garlic
1 tsp of chopped ginger
Fenugreek powder
4-5 small plum tomatoes, chopped or ¼ can of chopped tomatoes
Fresh coriander (cilantro)

Fry fish in canola oil. Remove with a slotted spoon and put aside. Make a paste with curry powder, garlic, ginger and fenugreek powder by adding a bit of water. In a saucepan add curry paste to aubergines. Let it simmer away on a low heat for about five minutes. Add tomatoes and continue cooking for 2-3 mins until you have a thick gravy. Add about ½ to ¾ cup of water. Salt. Add fish and let simmer together for about ten minutes. Throw in a handful of chopped fresh coriander (cilantro) towards the end.

Serve with white rice or roti and watercress salad.