Nate and Kara visit the Eureka mansion, a 109-door house built in 1836, where local guide Minta teaches them to cook traditional Mauritian dishes like curried potato with peas and coconut chutney. They taste samosas, fish and beef curries, lentils, pumpkin, and vanilla ice cream with fried coconut.
1836
109 doors
Curried potato with peas; coconut chutney
Coconut, garlic, mint leaves, tamarind, salt, and optional chili
Thank you very much.
So if you followed our vlog for any amount of time, you know that eating is one of our favorite activities. And even though I had a little case of food poisoning yesterday, I'm really excited about today.
We just arrived at the Eureka mansion, so since we've been here, we've had the opportunity to try a lot of local street foods, but we haven't had a chance to try any of, like, the fancy local dishes. And that's what we're here to do today. And we might get to help prepare some of the food. We're not exactly clear on that yet, but that could be fun.
Hello. Yes, please.
We're starting with some local merchant juice.
She's taking us on tour of the house.
So welcome again. We are Binta. So, Yurika House. Here's the back of the house, and those little houses were servants quarters long ago. So the house has been built in 1836 by an Englishman called Mr. Carr.
How many doors did you say there were?
109 doors. So they use a veranda as outside corridor because for the ventilation for the aeration.
The kitchen was outside the house because they use wood and charcoal because of fire and the smell. And we do here typical Mauritian food, as we do at home.
We're learning how to make curried potato with peas.
So what you must have. You have the potato, you have the peas. So we must add the masala. You have the masala paste or the masala powder. Ginger, garlic, curry leaves, and you have the onion and tomatoes.
Can I smell this?
You can smell it.
It looks like it smells very good. Oh, y.
It's smelling delicious. While it's cooking, we're gonna go learn to make coconut chutney.
So we have the coconut, garlic, mint limbs, and tamarind and salt. You want to add a chili in it? If you wish, I can put a chili for you.
Yeah, we put the chili.
Okay, so we add the chili. So what we do like this. Grate it.
Like a good way to grate the end of your fingers off.
I must be careful. You want to do.
Sure, sure.
Yeah. Okay.
I've never done this before. I'm going to attempt not to shave my fingers off.
Oh, gosh. It's going well.
She made it look a lot easier. That's the face of determination.
So what we do, we put some. The garlic.
With the tamarind. Tamarind. We already put some water. So what we do is just we crush it like this. It's very hard work. Imagine we've 17 children and the parents.
Yeah. For real.
So the coconut chutney's about. You must do it for four times or five times. Some people do it five, six times. So you want to try more?
Yeah, I'll try.
So good.
Ah, it's good.
That's hard.
How do you do it?
No, it's not. I just show you. You just see me.
Okay.
You just put it here like this. Huh? You just hold it like this.
Okay.
Hold it and then you crush it.
And then push it.
You crush it like this. You see? So you're not actually rolling under the rough.
Yes. Yeah. I was doing it very wrong.
Very good.
All right.
I think I'm going to let her handle it from here. If we're gonna eat anytime soon, then I think you need to do it. I'm gonna give it a little test.
Oh, that's good. I'm pumped about this.
Oh, that is smelling good.
Could you bring the tomatoes, please, Kara?
Doing some more hard work.
Oh, yes. I can handle that.
So let it cook. I finish with the coconut chutney. Afterwards, we'll add the peas.
The salt like that.
I get to test our potato grade.
Smells good.
It tastes even better.
Wow. I think you could be a professional taste tester.
I think I would like that, John.
It's really good.
We love eating. Is one of our favorite things to do in the country.
Oh, yes.
Those are the chili bites.
Samosas.
All right.
Yum.
Kara's finishing off the potato curry with some coriander. Coriander.
Our favorite topping.
So here you are. That's your chutney.
After being smushed four times. That's what it looks like.
Yes. Four times. It's dependent on your energy and your strength.
Beautiful.
We're trying our first chili bite in.
Mauritius at Eureka House.
It's almost like a hush puppy, but like a hundred times better. It is so good.
Yes.
What's a hush puppy?
I don't even know.
Excellent job.
The hard work is finished, or at least the hard work that Minta did. And now we get to eat.
So we have coconut chutney, peanut chutney, pumpkin, some kind of fruit stuff, and lentils.
We're gonna start with the potato curry that we made kinda sort of.
Mmm. I love it.
You did a good job.
Yes.
Watching.
Yes. Scraping the tomatoes on top. It's seriously so good.
All right. And we each got a different type of curry. This is the fish curry and the beef curry. See what looks like some raisins, some fried onions.
And some croutons.
Yum.
I'm so full and it was all delicious.
You did good on your first meal back.
Yeah, I think my stomach shrank a little bit. I'm stretching it back out.
Last but not least, vanilla ice cream with fried coconut.
I love dessert.
Super refreshing after all that spicy curry.
You know that feeling after you've had a really good meal where you're like, so full but you want to keep eating? Like you just want to be hungry and keep eating because it was that good. That's how I feel right now. But I was so full.
Do other people feel like that or is this just a Cara thing?
Am I the only one?
This ends our day at the Eureka mansion. But I'm glad, before leaving Mauritius tomorrow, that we got to experience a very nice, typical Mauritian meal in a beautiful place with a lot of history.
Great day. Coconut chutney was the best.
Always gotta get the last word in.
Lean over towards it.
That I didn't have to do at all.
Yes, but you try.
We'd still be waiting.
I would still be on my first try.
Oh, yes.
