- [Sara] "Sara's Weeknight Meals" is made possible by... - [Announcer] Aboard Oceania Cruises, we share a journey of culinary discovery, from shore excursions dedicated to local food traditions, to our hands-on cooking school at sea, our master chefs take inspiration from vibrant markets and flavors as they create the international dishes served to guests each evening.

That's the Oceania Cruises epicurean experience.

(upbeat music) - [Sara] And by USA Rice.

(gentle music) Today on "Sara's Weeknight Meals," It's a South Asian smackdown, food you can get on the table fast from the tiniest island in the Indian Ocean.

- We█re going to make the magic bowl.

- [Sara] Okay, and that's like a rice bowl with vegetables.

- [Potiah] Exactly, and you will see the magic at the end.

- That is a thing of beauty.

On Ask Sara... - Which kind of thickeners you will use for a sauce or soup.

- Well, there's so much to say Then Indian food expert, Maya Kaimal, joins me.

She's got a super fast meal strategy.

Tell us, do share.

- [Maya] We're making turkey keema with sweet potatoes.

This is a ground meat curry.

It's one of the most comforting dishes in India.

- On night two, it fills stuffed peppers.

Another meal.

So we are geniuses to cook once, eat twice.

- Hmm.

- South Asian food fast.

No matter which one gets on the table first, you're the winner with these dishes on "Sara's Weeknight Meals."

(gentle music) Until I met Vaarahluxmee Potiah, I had barely heard of Mauritius, let alone tasted its food.

It's an island east of Madagascar, which is itself east of Africa.

Potiah grew up there, eating exotically spiced Creole dishes, influenced by the island's Indian, French, Chinese, and African immigrants, including her grandmother who taught her this easy weeknight meal.

(gentle flute music) And here I am with Potiah.

I'm very excited for what's coming next, tell me.

- We're going to make the magic bowl.

- Okay, and that's like a rice bowl with vegetables?

- Exactly, with chicken, you can add some proteins.

- Okay.

- And you will see the magic at the end.

- All right, you're still not gonna tell me, huh?

- No.

- Big secret.

- Big secret.

- All right, I'm on the edge of my seat.

- Now we're going to marinate the chicken, so we're going to add all of the fresh garlic.

All the fresh garlic goes in.

And then we are going to add one teaspoon of oyster sauce into the chicken.

We're going to add one teaspoon of dark soy sauce.

- [Sara] Dark soy sauce.

And if you can't find the dark, could you use regular soy sauce?

- Yes, you can use regular soy sauce.

And then we're going to add one teaspoon of rice vinegar.

- [Sara] Okay, for a little acid.

- Yes, can you pass me the pepper, please?

- [Sara] Yes.

Do you want me to do that?

- [Potiah] Yes, please.

- [Sara] You say when.

- When.

- Okay, there we go.

- Okay, and then we're going to mix it and let it rest.

- [Sara] Okay, so it just marinates while we prep everything else.

- Yes.

- Oyster sauce, you can find it in the supermarket often.

- Anywhere, yes.

- So that's good.

- Any Asian market.

- [Sara] Okay, so now we're gonna have some mushrooms in here.

- Yes.

- And these are shiitakes.

Tell me about them.

- Any mushrooms.

- So this is much more flavorful mushrooms.

We're going to take one and you're going to squeeze it and keep the water.

- Keep the water.

- Yes.

This is the magic of the dish.

- This liquid.

- The liquid.

- This is very French.

Like with porcini mushrooms, a lot of times you'll soak 'em and then the liquid is almost more important than the mushroom.

- More important, yes.

- Okay, so squeeze these guys.

- Squeeze these guys.

- And then cut 'em into- - And then you can slice.

- We resuscitated these four mushrooms.

We put in a bowl and put hot water.

- And we put hot water on this one.

- And how long does it take for them to get- - About 45 minutes until it's cooled down.

- You're chopping two bok choy and separating the white part from the green tops.

- So this is a very traditional dish in Mauritius.

You have lots of vegetables.

However, we do have shiitake mushroom from France, and we do have also oyster sauce and dark soy sauce from China, and then we do have the rice from India, which is a multiculture in Mauritius.

- And multiculti, everybody- - Multiculture, there we go.

Multicultured.

- All right.

We're gonna keep the green separate from the bottoms, just like we did with the scallions.

- Yes, because we're going to use the white part first.

- Okay, yeah, 'cause this takes longer to cook.

Makes sense.

- Now we're going to add about a tablespoon of olive oil.

- [Sara] I love the way you always in a circle.

- So we're going to add chicken.

- Add the rest chicken.

Oh yeah, that's definitely good.

I'll take that bowl for ya.

(pan sizzling) (bowl clunking) And we're cooking the chicken how long?

- [Potiah] Until it's golden.

- This is a classic example, for the folks at home, that you do all your prep ahead of time.

The word we use is mise en place 'cause sometimes I say to heck with all of that, don't worry about it, but the exception is with this kind of cooking, Asian cooking where everything has to be ready to go in because it doesn't spell that long in the pan.

- That long in the pan.

Oh, this looks good now.

- [Sara] Okay, so we're gonna take it out of the pan?

- Yes.

- Before we add everything else.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Smells so good already.

- [Potiah] We're going to use the same pan with the vegetable.

Now we're going to add one tablespoon of olive oil.

- [Sara] In that beautiful swirl that you do.

Love that.

- [Potiah] And then we're going to add the carrots.

- Okay.

And about how much carrot is that?

- It's around one cup.

One cup of carrot.

- Let's talk about this is Chinese sausage.

It's cured, it's dried, but has a very unique flavor to it.

So if you can't find this, what would you use?

- You can use any smoked sausage or you can use kielbasa.

- Kielbasa.

- Yes.

- I love kielbasa.

- [Potiah] Now we're going to add the garlic.

- [Sara] That's a lot of garlic.

How many cloves was that?

- It's five cloves of garlic.

- Okay.

- And then we're going to add the sausage.

- [Sara] Do you want me to dump it in?

- [Potiah] Yes.

- [Sara] Oh, I love the stuff, I really do.

- [Potiah] And the mushrooms.

- [Sara] Okay, here comes the mushrooms.

- [Potiah] Okay.

And you can put the red pepper.

- One red bell pepper chopped.

This is so healthy.

Look at all these vegetables.

So having never been to Mauritius, tell me what it's like.

- I mean, we have only two climates in Mauritius.

We have the winter and the summer, but the winter is not too cold, like it never snow in Mauritius.

- So it's tropical, sort of like Hawaii.

- Like Hawaii, yeah, it's like Hawaii.

- So now we're adding the white bok choy and the white part of the scallion.

- [Potiah] Yeah, add the white bok now.

- And this.

- And the scallions.

(gentle music) While this is cooking, we're going to make the sauce.

- Make the sauce.

Okay, so the mushroom soaking liquid is the base of the sauce.

- Yes.

We're going to put two teaspoon of cornstarch.

This is one, and this is two.

Two teaspoon of- - Two more teaspoons.

- Yes.

- Of oyster.

- Of oyster sauce.

And one teaspoon of dark soy sauce.

- [Sara] And one teaspoon of dark soy sauce.

- [Potiah] And the rest of the rice vinegar.

- Okay.

- Just one second.

This will be the magic.

- Part of the magic.

- Part of the magic.

- [Sara] I know there's more magic coming.

- [Potiah] Now we're going to add the chicken.

(spoon tapping) - So we cook it until the sauce is thickened?

- [Potiah] Yes, and let it cook with the vegetables.

- What are some other common dishes that you might make?

- So it's very popular, biryani in Mauritius.

- Yes.

- The biryani.

- That's a rice dish.

- Yes, and we have noodles, fried noodles.

- Oh.

- It's very popular in Mauritius, along with the roti and the magic bowl.

Yes, whenever you're ready.

- Okay, I'm pouring, and here we go.

I'm gonna do a circle just like you.

There we go, okay.

- [Potiah] And we let it cook for like one minute.

- And finally, the bok choy greens and some of the scallion greens.

Do you want me to put this over here?

- Now we can switch it off.

And then we add- - We have to finish it.

- Sesame oil, yes.

- And that is sesame oil.

- Sesame oil.

- Oh, nice.

- Yes.

- Okay, so I'm gonna put this right here.

- You can put a little bit of scallion on top of it.

- [Sara] Yes.

Wow, there's everything in here.

So it's egg time.

- Egg time.

- [Sara] And what are we frying it in, olive oil?

I'm gonna do it like you, ready?

- Okay.

- I'm going do a fair amount so it's easier.

- [Potiah] And you put some more pepper?

And a little bit of salt.

- [Sara] I love me a fried egg.

I have to say it's my favorite thing.

It's smart to break the egg in a small bowl first so that it doesn't break going into the pan.

Now we're just making one bowl, but it's one egg per person.

- Per person.

- Everybody gets their own personal fried egg.

- It depends on how cook you want the egg.

- [Sara] And this is the basmati and we're gonna build a bowl there.

- Now we're going to put a little bit of cilantro and scallion.

- [Sara] All right, pressure's on.

- And then we're going to add our egg.

Put the yolk on top.

- Oh.

- Now we're going to build our magic bowl.

We put the sauce.

A little bit of vegetable.

- Do you want me to put the rice in?

- Yes.

- Okay, you'll tell me how much.

One more?

- One more.

One more.

- And press it down?

- And press it down.

- All right.

That is lovely.

All right, drum roll.

I'm not good at drum rolls.

- Okay, are you ready to see the magic?

- I'm ready.

- [Potiah] Yes.

- Ta-da.

(clapping) That is a thing of beauty.

- Yes.

- Okay, but now we have to eat it.

You go on that side, I'll go on this side.

(utensils clinking) I like this.

I like this.

So thank you so much for making these dishes for me.

I feel like I've got a little bit of knowledge now about the food of Mauritius, now I have to go.

- Oh yes, it was fun.

- Yes.

- Thank you.

- Yes.

(gentle acoustic guitar music) I love doing this segment called Ask Sara because in order to be prepared for my guests and their questions, I have to do a ton of research, so I learn something too.

Today we have a special guest, Elizabeth Gears, calling from Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

How can we help you today?

- I wanted to know if you have a process, kind of decide which kind of thickeners you will use for a sauce or soup.

- Well, there's so much to say.

So let's get started with the obvious, which is flour, and I'm gonna show you a slurry.

I've got a cup of chicken stock in here and I've got three tablespoons of cold water and I'm gonna add two tablespoons of the instantize flour and this will produce a medium thickened sauce.

- Is it always cold?

- Always cold.

It should be cold.

You should never add your starch straight in.

Dry starch to hot liquid is a disaster.

You need to dissolve it first in a cold liquid.

Very good question.

And here goes, steady stream, whisking.

(whisk scratching) So, after flour, we have cornstarch.

It's great to thicken a cheese sauce or a cream sauce of some kind.

The downside is that if you whisk it too much, it breaks down.

It's like you never thickened it.

And also you cannot freeze cornstarch.

Okay, moving on next to arrowroot.

Have you ever heard of it before, Elizabeth?

- Yeah, I've heard of arrowroot.

It's not so readily available, so I'm really, really interested to hear this.

- Arrowroot produces a quite clear sauce.

It's tasteless, so that's a real plus.

It's very good with acidic items, acidic sauces, or this is a jam here, you can use it for jams.

The downside is that it's not good with dairy or cream sauces, and that if you heat it for too long, it will break down.

Okay, and last but not least, we have potato starch.

Now, potato starch we all associate with gluten-free cooking, baking mainly, and it wouldn't be my first choice as a thickener, but it works perfectly well, so if it's your only option, use it.

It's got the most potency of all of them.

You don't need as much potato starch as the others to thicken one cup of liquid.

The downside is that it gets sort of gummy after it's sat around.

It also will break down if you heat it too high.

But there's another option, which is vegetables.

I've got here a vegetable soup and you can see that the liquid is quite thin.

Take this very lethal tool.

Do you have one of these?

- Yes, a hand mixer, yes.

- So this is an immersion blender.

I don't wanna puree the whole soup, I just wanna puree a little bit and we're just gonna whiz some of this.

(blender whirring) Now you can see we've got a much thicker texture.

It's just- - Oh, right, more hearty.

- Exactly, hearty.

Okay, well, listen.

- I'm good to try that.

- Good, thank you so much.

I love that question.

It's one of my favorites and it's been a pleasure talking to you.

- Thank you, you too, Sara.

- And you too can join me like Elizabeth if you send in a question to the website for Ask Sara.

Please do it.

(gentle music) Maya Kaimal grew up in a home steeped in Indian flavors, the daughter of a New Englander and a food-loving physicist from South India.

As an adult, she traveled there to learn about the food from aunties and cousins.

Eventually she quit her job at "Saveur" magazine to create a line of spices and sauces to help busy moms like herself.

(gentle music continues) And Maya has a new cookbook out called "Indian Flavor Every Day," which is so perfect for weeknight meals.

I'm so excited to cook from it.

So thank you, Maya, for coming.

- Oh, thanks for having me.

- And we're gonna be cooking from this book and we're gonna make one dish and then we're gonna repurpose it several days later into a second dish.

- Yes.

- So tell me, what are we making?

- We're making turkey keema with sweet potatoes.

This is a ground meat curry.

It's one of the most comforting dishes in India.

It's something my father used to make as I was growing up and it is extremely versatile, and we are gonna start by sauteing our onions.

These are gonna take a while so we're gonna start with some oil.

And we have just a nice neutral oil.

Put in there, yeah.

- Oh yeah, and this is I think roughly four cups of onions, chopped, medium chopped.

- Medium chopped, we're gonna turn the heat to medium high and let those get a little bit brown.

You want the color on them 'cause that's gonna add some nice color to the dish.

- And we're making a double batch of the recipe that's in the book because we're gonna to turn it into something else afterwards.

- Exactly, yes.

- So you want me to start working on the garlic?

- I do, can you do two cloves of garlic, minced up, and I'll do the ginger.

You might notice I'm not actually going to peel my ginger.

- What?

What?

- Shocking.

- Oh my goodness.

- I know.

Just going to slice it really thin.

But because this ginger is fresh, yeah, fresh, it's got that smooth skin on it, so I just chop it right up.

A lot of Indians do, don't really notice in the end because there's so much going on in the dish.

- See, it's probably fiber.

Let's think of it that way.

- There you go, yeah.

- [Sara] So ginger and garlic are used in a lot of dishes?

- [Maya] They're used as a foundation to most Indian curries.

- [Sara] So would you call this the mirepoix?

- You could do that, but it's gonna really give that nice deep notes to the curry, combined with your onion.

- Okay.

- All right, these look great.

- Thank you.

- So I think we're ready to add our aromatics, wanna add your garlic.

- [Sara] Those were huge cloves, but I don't care.

- Thank you.

- Do this, so there's- - Ginger.

- Ginger.

- [Maya] And green chili.

- [Sara] So you just wanna cook that briefly.

- [Maya] Just about a minute to get the kind of aroma.

- I'm smelling it, I'm smelling it.

- [Maya] Now we're ready to add our ground turkey.

- [Sara] Okay.

- [Maya] So we're using turkey obviously, but you could use lamb or beef.

You could also use a plant-based meat substitute as well.

- So now we're gonna put- - Ground this a little bit.

- And we're gonna brown that until... - [Maya] So we don't have the pink color anymore, so it's gonna just take a couple of minutes.

- [Sara] And we've got about two pounds of ground turkey in there.

- That's right.

- Okay, so let's talk about these spices, tell me what we've got.

- Okay, so these are the masala of the dish.

- Masala means... - Means ground spices or mixed spices.

We are using coriander, that's the dominant one here.

Then we have cumin, which is sort of the support.

These are the sort of base notes of the dish.

Then we have cayenne.

- [Sara] Wow, that's a lot of cayenne.

- Fear not, it will all be in balance.

- Okay.

- And then your black pepper.

We have turmeric, cinnamon, and clove.

- Okay.

- So, I think we're just about ready to add our ground spices.

- Do I dare?

- Go for it.

- Okay.

- Unceremoniously.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Boink.

Okay.

- All right, beautiful.

- Now talk to us a little bit about turmeric 'cause I know it's a big- - Sure.

- It spice.

- So yeah, it's kind of the breakout star of Indian spices.

- It's got its TikTok moment right now.

- Because it does have amazing properties to it.

It's an anti-inflammatory, antibacterial.

- Do we add salt to this?

- Now we need a teaspoon of salt.

- We'll do two of these.

- It doesn't have a really lovely flavor on its own.

It's a little acrid, it's a little bitter.

It's one of the supporting flavors.

- Okay, so what's next?

- We're gonna put in our sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

So we have some beautifully diced up sweet potatoes, about four cups here, and about two cups of diced tomatoes.

- Supposing you're a sweet potato hater.

- Regular potatoes, Yukon gold does work fine.

This was actually, this is not traditional.

I added the sweet potatoes 'cause I like them.

- Well, so there.

- So.

- Yeah.

- Now let's add some water.

- [Sara] Okay, you'll tell me when.

- [Maya] Maybe start with about half of that.

- And you're not adding like chicken broth or anything, just water.

- No, you know, Indian food doesn't need stock, like stock actually kinda muddies the flavor, I find.

This looks great.

I think we're ready to let it simmer about 25 minutes.

- Okay.

Well, there's other things we can do, right, while it's cooking.

- Yeah, let's make our raita.

- Raita.

So what do we need here?

- Okay, we need our yogurt and our cucumbers.

We're gonna need some mint.

- Okay, and now what have you done to the cucumbers already?

- So we've grated it coarsely and we didn't salt it.

We just let it drain.

- I'm interested that you didn't salt it.

How come?

- So I don't wanna lose all the water.

I want some of the moisture because I like the raita to have a little looseness to it.

- That's about the right texture?

- That it, great.

- And I know you need some other- - We need a couple spices.

We need a quarter teaspoon of cumin, and then a pinch of cayenne, please.

Half teaspoon of salt.

- Okay, great.

- [Maya] So we need about a quarter cup of chopped up mint.

- Okay.

- Save a little to garnish.

- So part of the reason that you serve raita, although you did put cayenne in there.

- Again, it's like that hot sour salt thing, right?

- Got it.

- You're gonna find the right balances there.

- [Sara] But we can point out that dairy does a really good job of taming heat.

- It's true.

Yes, it will.

- So that's why you often have this yogurt dish with something that's very spicy.

- It'll calm your palate right down.

- Oh, I love the mint in there.

That is so good.

- [Maya] Okay, I think it should be done.

Looks great.

- How can you tell?

It just looks it.

- Yeah, it just did the smell, the look.

The sauce is rich with the color.

- So is that it or is there more?

- We're gotta add some peas, some formerly frozen peas.

- You know what I've always loved about a good recipe, but I love different flavors, different textures, different colors, and that's what you're doing here.

- Yeah, you're getting a lot.

Indian food has that layered flavor experience, right?

- [Sara] Now, how many peas were those?

- [Maya] It was about two cups of peas.

The last finishing touch is, we're gonna put in a little lemon, so about a teaspoon should do it.

Or actually, wait, this is a double recipe.

Two teaspoons and some chopped cilantro.

- And if somebody hates it?

- Yeah, skip it.

- Just skip it.

- Just skip it.

- It's not their fault they've got the anti-cilantro gene.

They were born with it.

So that's exciting, I think we need to taste it.

And we've got some rice.

I love the smell of this.

Here, if you hand me the plate, I'll do it.

I just love this honey.

- I know, right?

It just has such an amazing aroma.

For the raita.

Pull it in.

- The whole nine yards.

Okay, so here we go.

Here's your fork, okay.

I love it, so you get a little bit of everything - Yeah, a little bit of everything.

That's how the Indians like to do it, a lot of flavors.

- [Sara] It's interesting how the spices keep happening.

- [Maya] Sort of builds.

- Okay, that's one down, one to go.

- One more.

- Okay.

(gentle music) Okay, pretend it's three days later.

I'm still here.

Well, let's say we haven't seen each other in three days with Maya Kaimal, and we are gonna do dinner two with our wonderful keema.

What are we gonna turn our leftovers into?

- Yes, we are making stuffed peppers with a keema and rice filling.

- Okay, so I put, this is half of the recipe, the other half we already consumed (pan sizzling) and we're heating it up with about a cup of leftover basmati.

- Yeah, you could use any rice, but basmati's really nice.

- Okay, now I'm curious.

We're heating it up before we put it in the peppers and why is that?

- Yeah, it will cook faster in the oven.

We can just shorten our oven time so that the cheese melts and the whole thing warms up in the same amount of time.

- Okay, since we're gonna get this all set up, I'm gonna pour us a little rose.

Don't you think that would be nice?

- Lovely.

I love rose.

- [Sara] You know, it's got a little bit of fruit and it's always nice when you have something spicy to have a tiny hint of fruit to counterbalance.

- [Maya] Let's do this.

- [Sara] All right, so now we're gonna pile it.

- [Maya] Yeah, sure.

Otherwise we're gonna have more left over.

(chuckling) - [Sara] You know, this would also be good with eggs.

- That'd be good.

- Throw this into scrambled eggs or a frittata.

A keema frittata.

(Maya laughing) - [Maya] We're topping it with some mozzarella cheese.

- [Sara] But you could use any cheese, right?

- [Maya] Any cheese, yeah.

Mozzarella, cheddar.

We pre-baked these for about 10 minutes.

- Okay.

- The peppers at 400 because you want them softened a little bit, otherwise, they'll be a little firm.

- That looks delicious.

- [Maya] This bakes for 20 minutes.

(pan clunking) - Okay, well let me get our vino and let's go take a little walk.

- Yeah.

- So, what do you make for dinner?

- Well, I usually default to something international.

It could be Indian with a simmer sauce, Mexican food sometimes 'cause it can go vegan or not.

It could be Thai food using a curry paste.

You know, we have pasta a lot of times too.

- You know, I think we should go have a little check.

- All right.

- So what do you think of my garden, huh?

- No, it's so beautiful.

- Yeah, I particularly love the lavender.

It's very aromatic.

- [Maya] Really nice.

- Wow.

- That looks so good.

- Just gorgeous.

- Wow, yeah.

Start with one and we can always have another.

- Yeah, we can, so I'm just gonna do a little bit of lettuce.

- Yeah.

- Let's have a little cilantro on our- - Sure.

Why not?

- All right, so let's go dine alfresco.

That's the thing.

- [Maya] Sounds great.

- You grab one, I grab one.

- Okay.

- So we are geniuses.

Here's dinner number one with our keema, our rice and our raita.

And then we repositioned it into dinner number two, which we must taste.

I'm so excited.

- Dive in.

- [Sara] Oh, and the pepper is perfectly cooked.

- How about that?

We nailed it.

- [Sara] That precooked worked out well, yeah.

(gentle music) The cheese.

Love it.

- The cheese makes it.

- It's so many different textures.

- [Maya] Yeah, oh, these peppers are really juicy.

- Well, I think we need to have a toast.

- Yeah.

- To cook once, eat twice, and Maya Kaimal.

- Toast to that.

Thank you.

- Yes.

For recipes, videos and more, go to our website, SaraMoulton.com.

"Sara's Weeknight Meals" is made possible by... - [Announcer] A journey aboard Oceana Cruises is designed to cultivate curiosity.

Guests can explore local treasures and epicurean traditions.

Staff and crew are dedicated to guest interests, relaxation and entertainment.

Evenings offer craft spirits, international wines, and dishes prepared by our master chefs.

That's the Oceania Cruises small ship experience.

(gentle upbeat music) - [Sara] And by USA Rice.

(gentle music) (bright music) (gentle music)