A simple but flavorful sauce evokes an island like no other
BRAINTREE -- Josiane Domenici, a native of Mauritius, the tiny island nation off the coast of Madagascar, doesn't know anyone in the Boston area from her homeland. So she's accustomed to explaining what her country is like.
"It's like Aruba," she begins, but her daughter Danielle, 26, who's just returned from a four-year sojourn in Mauritius, begs to differ. "It has a tropical flavor, but it's not like any other island," says Danielle.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, as her son Tony, 24, Danielle, and her Mauritian fiance, Nad Sivaramen, join her in the kitchen of her tidy Braintree cape, Josiane Domenici is preparing a Creole dish served in every home and restaurant on the island. Rougaille is a simple tomato sauce flavored with ginger, garlic, and thyme, and on the island it's used on fish, poultry, greens, and omelets, but it's most typically served with beef. It's quick, simple fare that Danielle and Tony say they probably ate once a week or so growing up, and, says Josiane, "Being married to an Italian, he appreciates my red sauce."
The island's flavors are a blend of African, European, and Asian influences. "I remember my grandmother made crepes Suzette," recalls Josiane Domenici. Tony speaks of memorable culinary experiences in Mauritius, where he could buy pickled pineapple from street vendors. He remembers enjoying banana leaf with "sept curries" (seven curries) at an Indian wedding. Mauritius boasts an unusual melange of languages; most residents are fluent in English, French, and Creole.
Domenici enjoys preparing the dishes of her homeland, but it wasn't a skill she acquired there. Her father founded a newspaper on the island and, after the country gained independence in 1968, he became Mauritius's first ambassador to the United States. Domenici was 14 when the family moved to Washington. The adolescent girl went from a tiny island paradise, where she lived in a house on a hill overlooking the harbor, to the cosmopolitan and tumultuous Washington of the '60s. "All teens are the same," she says. "I couldn't wait to fit in." Still, she says, "I missed the ocean, my friends, my grandmother . . . And the tropical fruits: lychee, papaya, mango. In Mauritius, we had a mango tree in our yard."
She has lived in the United States ever since, though she's visited Mauritius many times. She learned to cook when she got married, picking up recipes from her mother and from a well-thumbed volume on Mauritian cuisine.
Rougaille, which she's making today, contains no exotic ingredients, but Domenici, like most good cooks, is particular about quality. The dried thyme she adds to the dish comes from Penzeys, the well-known spice purveyor. In the summer, when her husband's carefully tended garden overflows with herbs and vegetables, she uses ripe tomatoes and fresh thyme in the sauce. Rougaille beef is always accompanied by beans and rice.
The bean dish, which Domenici calls a "fricassee," is also seasoned with garlic and ginger, and made with dried beans, never canned. "On the island, we use a pressure cooker; everyone has one to cook beans, because this is our 'meat.' " A salad of shredded cucumber and carrots completes the meal. Mauritian food can be spicy; a hot pepper is sometimes added to rougaille, but Domenici usually omits it because her husband, Larry, doesn't care for it. That doesn't stop her kids. As Domenici sets out the meal, Danielle chops a handful of tiny green chilis -- "ti piment," as they're called on the island -- to serve beside her own portion.
The meal comes together quickly, and Domenici sets it out with a modest smile. "There it is -- the world-famous rougaille," she announces. For all its simplicity, the sauce has plenty of flavor, with distinct notes of aromatic thyme and ginger, and when served with the beans, rice, and salad, it makes a satisfying meal. It may not exactly be world famous, but in its tiny corner of the globe, rougaille deserves its renown. 