Shelina spills the butter beans on Mauritius

Shelina Permalloo delighted us with another visit so soon after her last, and her appearance on the latest MasterChef series. She was back with us to highlight Mauritius as a destination for exotic fusion flavours. 

She showed a lucky selection of guests how to create some traditional dishes at home before they get tempted to the sun soaked sandy beaches of Mauritius to taste the real deal for themselves!

Guests were welcomed into our transformed lounge where a glass of bubbly served on a glossy banana leaf set the scene.

Shelina then set about creating a feast of flavours with her butter bean curry, satchini pomme d’amour chutney, roti bread - so quick she did a version without needing to rest it! - and finished with demonstrating mango and lime syllabub.

 The party then joined in mixing colourful spices to create their own Mauritian spice grind and getting messy with mangoes with their own simple syllabubs.

Lunch was served, gossip on MasterChef dished out, desserts demolished and the happy travellers trooped home with a cookbook and cute jar of spices to recreate the curry at home.

Here’s the recipe for the butter bean curry, which was gone in minutes!

Shelina's Butter Bean Curry

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp veg oil
  • 1 large white onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, grates
  • 2.5cm piece of fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
  • 5 curry leaves
  • 3 tbsp Mauritian curry powder (recipe in her book)
  • 2 red bird’s eye chillies, roughly chopped
  • 2 medium tomatoes, quartered
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 400ml hot water
  • 1 x 400g tin butter beans, including the water from the tin
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • freshly chopped coriander, to garnish

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and fry the onion until translucent. Add the garlic, ginger and curry leaves and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the curry powder, chillies, tomatoes and tomato puree and cook for 5 minutes until thickened.
  2. Add the hot water and butter beans along with the water from the tine and cook for 15 minutes, or until the sauce starts to thicken again. Season with salt.
  3. Garnish with coriander and serve with Roti and Satchini Pomme d’Amour.

All recipes can be found in Shelina’s cookbook Sunshine on a Plate. Here she is with both her books including her latest The Sunshine Diet.