Coconut is served at almost every meal in the Maldives, Selina Periampillai says in her cookbook, The Island Kitchen. In this dish, known as ‘Dhon Riha’ in the Indian Ocean archipelago, the tuna is enhanced with Southern Indian spices like cardamom, curry leaves and turmeric.
Unlike lots of curries though, this can be prepped in 15 minutes and cooked in a further 15, proving authentic Maldivian cuisine can be easier to whip up mid-week than you might have thought.
Tuna curry
Equipment
- Large saucepan
- Food processor
Ingredients
- 500 g tuna steak cut into 2.5cm pieces
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 4 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 2 cardamom pods seeds only, crushed
- 2.5 cm piece of fresh root ginger peeled and finely chopped
- 10 curry leaves finely chopped
- 1 green chilli finely sliced
- 1 onion finely sliced
- 1/2 tsp ground fennel seeds
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 1 cinnamon stick
- sea salt to taste
- coriander to garnish
Method
- Lightly salt the fish and set aside.
- In a large saucepan, warm the coconut oil over a medium heat until simmering. Add in the garlic, cardamom, ginger, curry leaves and chilli. Let this sauté until fragrant – usually around 30 seconds. Add the onion slices and cook until softened, around five to seven minutes. Add the rest of the spices: The fennel, cumin, turmeric and black pepper. After around a minute they will mingle together and become aromatic.
- At this point, transfer everything into a food processor and blend to a coarse paste.
- Return the paste back to the pan over a medium heat, pour in the coconut milk, holding back one tablespoon for drizzling at the end, and pop in the cinnamon stick and half a teaspoon of salt.
- Bring to a simmer and gently add the fish pieces to the sauce. They will cook fairly quickly. After five minutes, the fish should be tender, opaque and cooked throughout and the curry will be ready to serve. Drizzle over the extra coconut milk, scatter with the coriander and serve with a heap of rice.
Nutrition
The Island Kitchen: Recipes From Mauritius And The Indian Ocean by Selina Periampillai is published by Bloomsbury.
How to make Selina Periampillai’s sunny-side-up egg, chicken and pak choi rice bowl
Wise Living Magazine may receive a small commission to help support the running of this site from purchases made from links on this page. Affiliate links do not influence our editorial or articles published by Wise Living.