Tuna Caldine

- Merrill

Last week, my husband and I returned to snowy Brooklyn from a two-week adventure in East Africa. Our belated honeymoon had been a truly magical trip -- full of animal sightings, expansive landscapes, gorgeous sunsets, and for the most part, great food. We ate well throughout, but it wasn’t until we got to our last stop, the Kenyan beachfront paradise, Kiwayu Safari Village, that we were truly wowed by the food. 

Every morning, a couple of the hotel workers would steer a little outboard into open water to pluck fresh seafood from the Indian Ocean, which was then cooked up for our lunch and dinner. In the five days that we were there, we had fresh crab, lobster, calamari, octopus, grouper, snapper, tuna, seaweed, dorade and oysters. And I'm probably forgetting a few other things.

Although food52 -- and home -- were more than 7000 miles away, I somehow had the presence of mind to ask the chef for a few of my favorite recipes. He gave me three, and I will publish them here, one at a time, over the next few weeks. While most of us don’t have the luxury of fish pulled from the ocean the very same day we're going to eat it, believe me when I say it is crucial to buy really fresh seafood for these recipes. It makes all the difference.

The first recipe is an Indian dish, a traditional Goan curry called a caldine. At the beach in Kenya, we had it with tuna, but it is often made with shrimp, which you can easily substitute here. All you need is some rice and a big salad, and you’ve got a great meal.

Tuna Caldine

Adapted from Kiwayu Safari Village

Serves 6