Mauritian Boulettes: Fish Ball Recipe and the Sino-Mauritian Broth
Mauritian boulettes: fish, chouchou or beef fillings, steamed, served in clear broth or dry with chilli paste.
Boulettes are small Sino-Mauritian dumplings made from fish, meat, shrimp or grated chayote, steamed and sold by the piece. You eat them in a clear broth, as a side to boiled noodles, or dry with chilli paste. The only recipe with quantities we found is for fish boulettes: 300 g of white fish to 20 g of cornflour, cooked for 5 to 10 minutes.
What are Mauritian boulettes?
The name is French, from boule (ball), but the dish came with the island’s Chinese community. A travel page describes hand-shaped dumplings of fish, meat, shrimp or grated vegetable, sold two, five or ten at a time. The most typical kind, according to that page, is niouk yen, made with grated chayote, which Mauritians call chouchou. Cantonese and then Hakka settlers built two Chinatowns in Port Louis, and the same page says both sell the same boulettes.
Names differ from one list to the next. A list of Sino-Mauritian dishes separates fish boulettes (van yen), fish boulette broth, boulette la viande, which it calls a Hakka-style beef ball, and boulette chouchou (nioukyen), a Hakka dish of chayote mixed with pork or chicken.
Do not mix them up with catless, another dish sometimes called a Mauritian meatball: flat patties of minced beef and potato, breaded and fried. This article is not about catless.
What goes into a boulette?
The sources agree on the idea, not on the filling.
- Chouchou: grated chayote bound with tapioca starch, with dried shrimp and sometimes a little minced meat, according to the travel page. Another page mentions pork, chicken, fish or dried shrimp alongside the chayote, and the list of Sino-Mauritian dishes says pork or chicken.
- Meat: beef with ginger and dark soy sauce, bound with starch.
- Fish: a paste of white fish bound with cornflour, set out below.
No page gives quantities for the chayote or beef versions, and we have not made any up. If you want to cook them, expect to test the texture a few times.
A recipe for fish boulettes
This comes from a contributor to an expat forum and is the only page we opened that gives weights. Treat it as a home recipe, not a reference one.
Ingredients
- 300 g of white fish fillets, such as cateau or sacrechien according to the author, who advises against firm-fleshed fish like tuna or marlin
- 20 g of cornflour
- court-bouillon (the forum does not say how to make it)
- salt
- one egg white, optional
Method
- Chill the fillets in the fridge or freezer to firm up the flesh, then skin them.
- Cut the fish into pieces and blend it into a firm paste that is not too finely minced.
- Mix the cornflour with a little court-bouillon, then add it to the paste with the salt and, if you use it, the egg white.
- Knead by hand until the paste is firm, slapping it against the bowl to push out the air.
- Shape balls the size of a large walnut, dipping a spoon in water now and then so the paste does not stick.
- Drop them into simmering court-bouillon, where they swell, or steam them for 5 to 10 minutes.
The author serves them with soy or sweet-and-sour sauce, or in their broth with watercress and spring onion.
Steamed, in broth or dry: how they are served
The travel page describes three ways, all seen at a street vendor’s stall.
- A few boulettes added to a bowl of mine bouille.
- A bigger portion in clear chicken broth, ladled from the pot next to the vendor, which makes a sit-down meal. Another page adds vegetables and noodles to the broth.
- Dry, with chilli paste, garlic, soy sauce and chopped spring onion, in a box to eat on the move.
The chilli that goes with boulettes is piment crazer, a paste of crushed red chillies. For the broth, our bredes broth recipe gives a base of green leaves, though it is not a boulette broth, which the sources describe as a clear chicken broth.
Where the sources differ
| Point | Travel page | Expat forum |
|---|---|---|
| Filling | grated chouchou, tapioca starch, dried shrimp | blended white fish, cornflour |
| Cooking | steamed, about 20 minutes | simmered in court-bouillon or steamed, 5 to 10 minutes |
| Serving | clear chicken broth, or dry with chilli, garlic and soy | soy or sweet-and-sour sauce, or broth with watercress and spring onion |
The times do not compare directly: one is for a vegetable boulette, the other for a fish one. The travel page also contradicts itself on frying: it says no pan is used, yet notes that a quarter of the boulettes in the pot it visited were fried golden brown.
Prices and where to eat them
Boulettes are sold outside small eateries from steam pots on the pavement, across Mauritius according to the travel page. Its author cites a pot outside an eatery in Flic en Flac, where a large dry portion with sauces cost 250 Rs, about 5 euros. That is one visit, so treat it as an indicative price. For the village itself, see Living in Flic en Flac.
Réunion has a cousin, the bouchon, made with a wheat and cassava dough and a pork filling. For more dishes that came with the Chinese community, read our mine frit and bol renversé recipes, then our page on Mauritian cuisine specialities.
Sources and checks
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