Flavours of Fiji has been in operation for three years, owned by "two white ladies", with four staff that were there with us. We had a Fijian cook, an Indian cook, and a helper who would whisk our dirty dishes away. (I wish I could cook like that at home!)
The start of the lesson was a demostration of how to crack a coconut (find one of the three seams) then how to scrape the insides (women sit side-saddle on the wood handle of a metal disk-shaped scraper).
Once we tried it, it was time to go to the stations. Everyone had two burners, and a collection of pots and dishes underneath their station. The burners were gas with a high and a "low" that was still pretty nuclear. Things cooked fast!
Our first dish was our Fijian dessert - plantains stuffed with coconut in coconut milk. We made it first so it would have a chance to cool before we started eating. The plantains were already cut and the middles scooped out, so it was stuffing then cutting then covering with the milk to simmer.
Before most dishes, we would walk over to the "market" table to grab the fresh food we'd be cooking with. Our next dish was stewed taro leaves - we got to use a mortar and pestle to crush up our garlic. Now I want one so I can pound it all the time! That was mixed with tomato, onion, some chilies, and some salt as the spinach-like greens boiled. While we waited, our lead cook told us about how if you under cook the taro leaves, they make your throat itchy, and then some long story about her sister-in-law feeding itchy greens to her nieces and nephews.
The last Fijian dish was by far my favorite - fresh-water mussels. We chopped up the pre-cooked mussels, stuffed them into shells, then covered them with a similar garlic-tomato-onion-chili mixture before pouring hot coconut cream over them.
It was time to take a break and eat our first culture's food. It was served with some fruit juice (could never quite figure out the name, but it was white-ish, and delicious) and taro to go with the mussels and cassava to go with the taro leaves. The greens were good, the plantain wasn't carmelized like I was expecting, but the mussels were amazing.
After the break, it was time for four more recipes - chicken-potato curry, okra curry, roti, and coconut with cardamom as dessert.
Everything was pre-measured, and the chicken was even pre-cut, so it was dumping the "three seed" combo or the "three powders" into the pot at the right time. We definitely used mustard seed and curry leaves (and curry and chili powder), but not sure what all the other ingredients were. We'll be getting an email with all of them eventually.
We got lots of help with toasting our coconut, but my favorite part was learning how to make roti. It is really easy, especially when our Indian cook demonstrated. Just flour, a little oil, some water, and knead until it becomes a dough.
We rolled it out, put it on the hot roti pan (though they said you could use a electric frying pan - I've got a skillet at home!) and flipped it when it started to bubble. Brush on some oil, and you have your Indian pancake, nice and fresh to eat your curries with.
The Indian food was in general more to my taste, but those mussels are what I'll dream about. We got fruit to go with our toasted coconut, more of the yummy juice, and sat and chatted with the family from Australia and the travelers from Hong Kong and Canada.
There was a certificate presentation (I'm now a "master cook"!) and then we dawdled for a bit to check out their Fijian products.
We walked back, just full enough and just barely getting dripped on once or twice. It was a nice enough day, but not super sunny - which was fine, since we were inside for much of it.
It was five hours until Joss came to take Mom, Dad, and Valerie to the airport, so we whiled away with board games, chatting, and a few final walks on the beach.
We went down to say goodbye and Deanne and Maria and Chris asked Joss to drive them to the airport in the morning. I'll be headed out diving while they are headed to the airport at 8:30 and 11:30 in the morning.
We finished up the evening with some pineapple fried rice (thanks Maria for making it and Deanne and Chris for cleaning). As the rice was finishing but hadn't gotten stir fried yet, we trotted down to the beach for the most gorgeous sunset yet - oranges and violets shadowing the sky. It looked like a desktop background.
After coming inside, we juryrigged Chris' laptop with my hard drive to watch "The Usual Suspects."
Well, watch is a strong word for me. I made it ten minutes in before passing out in my chair. I woke up as the lights turned on, shocked that the movie was over. I was barely awake while eating my chocolate ice cream, but we had decided to beckon in the new year with a dip in the Pacific, so I mustered enough energy to change into my suit and go down to the beach with Maria and Deanne.
It was extra exciting as the fireworks started going off and some were kind of pointed in our direction! We found a break in the
No comments:
Post a Comment