Receta Sunshine on a Plate - Book Review
With summer coming to an end, you can prolong it a little longer with a great book from last year's MasterChef winner, Shelina Permalloo. Sunshine on a Plate
is a colourful and vibrant showcase of Mauritian cooking, which is
fusion cooking at its best, incorporating French, Indian, African,
British and Chinese influences. Think chillies! This book is hot and spicy, but you can easily tone the heat down to suit your own tastes.
Sunshine
on a Plate has over 100 easy recipes, most of which are accompanied
with gorgeous, full page, colour photos. There is a brilliant section on
the essential ingredients, spices and techniques needed for this
cuisine, and most of the ingredients can be bought from the supermarket,
or from Asian supermarkets. I like that alternatives for hard-to-find
ingredients are given too.
Inside view of the book, showing Sea Bass with Coriander & Chilli
Some
of the recipes I have bookmarked to make include Bread Croquettes
(spicy croquettes served with a tomato chutney), Moolkoo (little fried
snacks), Potato & Kidney Bean Daube (Mauritian stew), Dal Puri
(classic Mauritian street food) and Mango, Rum & Lime Syllabub.
There are chapters on Gajaks (Mauritian sharing dishes), fish,
meat, vegetables, rice, noodles, bread and pasta, and also a desserts
chapter which show Shelina's love of mangoes - she was nicknamed the
'Mango Queen' on MasterChef after using the fruit in most of her dishes!
There
is a lovely introduction where we read about Shelina's background and a
little about Mauritius. One paragraph had me scratching my head though,
as Shelina describes trying to cook a dish and it not working out,
apparently her mother hadn't given her the 'complete' recipe. She then
goes on to say that she would do the same if she had children! Why would
you do that - wouldn't you want your kids to gain confidence with
cooking and not spend months and money on a dish that doesn't work?
This book is perfect if you are looking for something different to serve
up, the recipes are easy and achievable to recreate at home. Although
most of the recipes do have full page photos, I would have liked every
recipe to have a photo (a small one would do), mainly because it's an
unfamiliar cuisine and it's important to me to see how the finished
dishes look.
I made a dish called Squash
& Mustard Fricassee, which is traditionally eaten at weddings and
celebrations. Made with a small ambercup squash, the recipe uses garlic,
ginger, chilli, mustard seeds and curry leaves to give it a fiery kick!
I also tried a beautiful cocktail from the drinks
chapter because Shelina says, 'no Mauritian meal is complete without an
accompanying drink or cocktail'. Mango Fever is perfect served over ice
and you can almost hear the waves breaking and feel the warm breeze
while sipping it!
Mango Fever
Adapted from Sunshine on a Plate by Shelina Permalloo.
Serves 2
- 100g fresh mango, (or 100ml mango juice)
- Juice of 1 lime (or more to taste, original recipe uses 2)
- 100ml sanguinello blood orange juice (find in the chilled juice section in supermarket)
- 100ml Pineapple juice
- 6-8 ice cubes
- Mint and lime slices to garnish
Place all the ingredients in a blender and whizz until thoroughly combined.
Serve in tumblers, garnish with the mint and lime slices.
The book can be bought from the Random House Group, Amazon, and all good bookshops.
Sunshine on a Plate
by Shelina Permalloo
£20.00 / Hardback, 226 pages
Publisher: Ebury Press
June 2013
ISBN: 9780091950811
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of the cookbook from Ebury Press, but all views expressed above are my own.
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