The TnT House was established around the beginnings of 2007. From the start, food played a key role in life at the House. After about six months, the cooking member of the Team realised there was way more to love of the eating member of the Team. Not to worry; there’s nothing better than having friends over. Best thing is to spend the first hour of an evening with friends cooking and chatting.
As we started moving the House from place to place, we discovered food is a brilliant way to get to know a place and its people. Telling people in a new place you’re keen to discover their local foods and recipes tends to result in an invite to dinner or out to a favourite restaurant.
When we first land, we seek out street food. Portland, Oregon, Mumbai, India, Port Louis, Mauritius – it doesn’t matter where. Often the food is cooked in front of you and you can ask questions. When given choices, we ask the chef to make it they way they think it should be made. The only thing that goes wrong with that in some places is they see our western appearance and figure they need to hold back on the hot stuff. It takes us a while of talking with local friends and enjoying dinners with them to figure out how the locals like to spice things up. That’s okay – in Mauritius it took about a year to acclimate our taste buds to the local heat level. This was a new discovery for one T; the assumption was always that you had to grow up eating spicy food in order to enjoy it. Reality is, you just need to take it easy yet persevere.
Four years in Mauritius have resulted in a total evolution of the TnT House cuisine. We start by trying to recreate dishes exactly as the locals do. Then the food artist in the House starts to get creative and we end up with a fusion of food experiences from all over the world.
So while we wait for governments to figure out travelling rules, we will share our favourite experiences we will be taking home with us.
Biryani!
with tamarin sauce. Recipe below!
When local work colleagues discovered our desire to learn about local foods, Biryani was one of the first introductions they made, and it was one of the very first Mauritian foods we tried and really loved. To be fair, biryani wasn’t invented in Mauritius. It is made in a lot of different countries and regions of the world. The versions from different places are very different.
After talking to locals about biryani variations, it was revealed the best biryani is beef biryani, and typically you will only experience that at a Muslim wedding. At the local snack shacks you will generally find chicken biryani and lamb biryani.
One Pot will feed about 250
people. Yes, this was a big
wedding! Two pots not shown!
Not to worry. If you are working in Mauritius for more than six months, there is a high probability of being invited to a wedding. Our first wedding in Mauritius turned out to be a couple who became very dear friends, and that day when we left their wedding (after feeding us to bursting) they sent us home with about four containers of leftover beef biryani. We agreed the intel was correct – beef biryani is the best. But we can’t just wait around for weddings! The work began to learn the secrets of making wedding biryani without the wedding.
Our best kitchen equipment discovery was the biryani pot. As we were walking in China Town in Port Louis, we discovered a large kitchen store with supplies for home and commercial cooking. They had biryani pots made in Mauritius that ranged from a size to feed 10 to 250. We now have two birani pots – one of a size to feed 10-15 and one of a size to feed 25-30. This pot can be used for so much. It’s perfect for long, slow cooking.
Our TnT biryani recipe took about two years to perfect. It’s not exactly Mauritian, but it was strongly influenced by Mauritius. Remember that wedding where we discovered beef biryani? The groom was at the House a couple years later and tasted the TnT biryani. “You made this?” Yes indeed. (He had experienced some of the failures, so his surprise was understandable.) “It’s not Mauritius, but it’s good!” That completed the biryani journey.
The TnT House 