On my recent trip to Stone Town, Zanzibar, I was busy eating. Despite swimming for 30mins every morning, walking very much and drinking very little alcohol, I managed to gain much weight.
Close by the Old Fort of Zanzibar is a nice restaurant, Archipelago, which is owned by a local Arab (i.e. one of those who centuries ago moved from Oman). The setting is quite lovely: an open-air restaurant that looks out to the sea. No alcohol is served but they do allow BYOB. Prices are ridiculously cheap (main courses are about 4-6€).
I ate the traditional dish of Swordfish in coconut sauce samaki ya kupaka, which the restaurant prepared to perfection and served it with pilau with a side of spicy spinach.
Here is a recipe that a local acquaintance gave. There are so many variants to this dish that this is just to give an idea of what the dish is like:
1kg white fish; couple garlic; 2 green chillies chopped; juice of one lemon; 1 onion chopped; 1 tomato chopped; 0,5dl coconut milk; 2tbs oil; coriander.
Mix garlic, salt, pepper and lemon juice and marinate the fish for 2 hours+. Oil the baking dish and bake the fish lightly. Mix the onions, chillies, tomatoes and coriander in a blender and fry the mixture in 2 tbs of oil for a couple minutes. Add coconut milk and stir until sauce thickens. Pour over fish and bake in the oven for 10-15 mins at medium heat. Serve with coconut rice.
I liked the restaurant so much that I went on a couple other occasions also. I heartily recommend trying the Whole Changu which is prepared steamed with a sauce of lemon, chillies and herbs. Changu is a delicious fish and is very popular with the locals. The only problem is that it is a very bony fish, but I thought the flesh so lovely and juicy that I didn’t mind that too much.
There is a fancy new hotel called Chavda which is very pricey. The restaurant on the rooftop, with a lovely view of Stone Town, is however priced just as nicely for a student budget as the rest of the restaurants in town. I went to eat another traditional Swahili dish, Masala kingfish samaki wa salo.
1kg fish fillets; 1 lemon’s juice; 1 onion chopped; a couple garlic; 1 tbs ginger beaten to a pulp; 1 green chilli chopped; 1 tbs garam masala; 1 tomato chopped; some oil for frying; coriander; mace.
Marinade the fish in salt, pepper and lemon juice for a couple hours. Fry the onions. Add all the spices until well blended. Drain the marinade from the fish and fry it in the oil until brown. Put the dried fish on a baking tray and pour the cooked sauce over it. Bake for 10 mins at moderate heat. Garnish with mace and coriander. Usually eaten with spiced potatoes.
Some days I went to the fish market at 6am to buy some fresh fish to make for myself. For Christmas eve, I found some nice looking tuna which I prepared in two different ways. First of all I did the masala recipe I noted above and then a simple recipe from Sicily. I took fillets of tuna, poured a bottle of white wine over them, added two tomatoes, salt, pepper, juice and skin of one lemon, coriander and capers into the marinade and let it sit for 8 hours. I then fried the pieces of fish in olive oil, and reduced the marinade to make a sauce for it.
Zanzibar is not a place to go for wines. All I managed to find were a handful of South Africans. With this Christmas dinner we had a bottle of Buitenverwachtig Buiten Blanc 2006 which was a full bodied, but rather nicely acidic wine. The nose did show a bit of oak, and it wasn’t particularly light on its feet, but was fresh tasting anyway. It was too heavy with the Sicilian dish, and the Swahili dish was too spicy for wine anyway. Not good matches.
It wasn’t only a food related holiday. I also did some perfectly touristy things like went to Kizimkazi to swim with dolphins and went several times on Dhow rides. Another interesting trip was to see the Slave caves where the infamous slave trader Tippu Tip hid the slaves he would sell to the Near East. The entrance to the cave is very well hidden underneath copious vegetation and could not be seen until we were standing just above it! The cave itself is two kilometres deep and could hide tens of thousands of slaves at one time! The cave used to exit at a secluded bay where the slaves would be put on Dhows heading north. It was a very interesting trip to see about a cruel period in history. Slavery was “abolished” in the mid 19th Century, but slavers like Tippu Tip continued using such caves to hide their “merchandise” until the early decades of the 20th Century.
Perhaps more interesting from a food perspective was my trip to the inner parts of the island to look at what made these islands (Zanzibar and Pemba) famous: spice! Clove especially is what made the islands famous in the days of yore. Even today, the two islands produce approximately a tenth of all the cloves sold in the world. But cardamom (detail of the pods), muscot and mace and vanilla are also important for the economy and the recipes I did!
It was also lovely to eat fruit that actually tastes of something more than generic blandness: it happened to be the season for passion fruit and pineapple and I naturally gorged myself on them. A most satisfying dessert is a fresh piece of fruit. Though the legendary café Zanzibar Coffee House makes some equally legendary cakes which would make Nicos drool, I still found fresh fruit the best of all.
There are a few other interesting restaurants in Stone Town. Pagoda is a very fair Chinese restaurant that make excellent Peking duck. But perhaps more aligned with my tastes is the Indian restaurant Maharaja. The Amritsari fish in Maharaja is divine and very, very hot! Despite my lactose intolerance, I risked a sleepless night and ordered the Amritsari fish
Fish fillets that are good for frying; 200g flour; 1tbs garlic paste; 1tbs ginger paste; 1ts ajwain; 1tbs chilli powder; juice of half a lemon; 1 egg; 100g joghurt; oil; salt.
Cut fish into bite sized cubes. Put on the lime, ginger, garlic and chilli. Keep the pieces in this mixture for half an hour. Meanwhile make a batter from the flour, yoghurt, egg, ajwain, salt and water. Keep the already ½hour marinated fish pieces in this batter for a further 15-20 mins. Heat some oil in a wok-like pan, and fry the fish pieces until crispy brown.
Could someone explain why I could not eat such a dish in Finland as I would puke my guts out because of the yoghurt, but once I leave northern Europe, I am able to eat limited amounts of milk products? I have heard it has to do with the way milk products here are processed, but how would this affect my lactose intolerance?
Plaza is a cosy restaurant owned by a Belgian who reputedly makes the best lobsters in Zanzibar. I’ll admit I was pretty pleased with the one I had for new year. It cried out for a white Burgundy, but AFAIK none were available on the island so we made do with a frankly very lovable white from South Africa. Klein Constantia Riesling 2005 had a very petrolly nose with lots of ripe, tropical fruit (passion fruit). The palate was very full bodied and had nice acidity and even a touch of minerals, but again the sheer exuberance of pure Rieslingfruit was the most memorable aspect. It was perhaps a touch inelegant for Riesling, but with the food in question this sort of more full bodied wine was just right.
On another occasion I went to Plaza to eat another legendary food: Crab in coconut pili pili sauce. It is a very rich dish with coconut milk bringing a lovely creamy texture which is balanced by the acidity from the tomatoes and lemons and spices. Plaza did this dish to perfection.
For the Pili pili: ½ts garlic paste; ½tea spoon turmeric; ½ts chilli powder; 1ts ground cumin (jeera); 1ts ground coriander; 2tbs tomato puree; 2tbs oil; lemon juice; pinch of sugar and salt; coriander to garnish.
For the crabs: ½dl coconut milk; garlic; as many medium sized crabs as you can afford.
Wash the crabs and boil them for 10-15 mins until tender. Let them cool and then remove the meat. Sautée the onion and tomato. Add coconut milk and the crab meat (and salt and pepper) and cook for a further 5-10 mins. Put the warm pilipili sauce on top. Usually served with rice (yum) or ugali (mmmmm, no thanks!).
On my last evening I went to a very atmospheric restaurant, Monsoon. I ate King prawns marinated in lemon and spices with spiced rice, mango pickled in chilli. The restaurant was ok, and as a building it was just lovely. One of the shrimp was just perfection; the others were a little too dry – hence me saying it was only an ok experience. The chilli mangoes were great though, and I would love to find a recipe for them.
