One of the great things about "fusion" cooking is how seamless it can actually be.
Canned tuna is not exactly the most exotic of ingredients. It's quite boring and bourgeois and very middle-American. We're just going to use Sri Lankan magic to amp it up a few notches.
There's nothing new about Sri Lankan spices either. They're all there in India but it's the combinations that are new and as the CC has pointed out endlessly, this is just a combinatorial game.
You're most likely to encounter this stuff as "fish cutlets" — the mixture is deep-fried. However, a little dig underneath the surface and you see it also as "fish patties" and "fish rolls" and "fish balls".
There's also the ubiquitous malu paan which is the same fish filling inside a bread that is baked.
For the record, the paan is from the Portuguese pão and is the same as the Japanese パン (pan), the Filipino pandesal (bread with salt), and the Indian paav (a much more accurate transcription of pão.) The Portuguese spread the cult of yeasty bread baking all along South-East Asia.
What matters, of course, is the filling at the center of these concepts.
All the CC has done is to take the patties and stick them in a burger bun (which is vastly simpler) and achieves the same purpose.
Dinner is served.
Ingredients
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp black pepper
1 sprig curry leaves
1 piece of fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp ground turmeric)
1" ginger
4-5 green chilis
2 large potatoes
1 can tuna
1 medium-sized onion (diced finely)
cilantro (finely chopped)
1 lime
salt (to taste)
Note 1: The combination of cumin, coriander, and fennel in the ratio 2:2:1 along with ground turmeric is often used in Sri Lankan cooking particularly in dishes involving fish. It gives it that characteristic "Sri Lankan" taste.
Note 2: While this mixture is freely available in Sri Lanka pre-made, the CC assumes that the majority of the audience will not have access to this. Also, if you're going to add black pepper to the final mix, you might as well grind it all together.
Note 3: Fresh turmeric adds a complexity that ground turmeric simply doesn't. The CC vastly prefers the former but feel free to use the later.
Recipe
Grind the spices to a fine powder.
Grind the ginger, green chilis, and turmeric to a paste. (If you grind the spices in a mortar and pestle, you can do this in the same step.)
Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Peel and mash gently.
Heat some oil in a pan. Add the diced onions and curry leaves and fry for a bit until the onions have softened. Add the spices and ground paste and fry till the raw smell has dissipated. Roughly 2 minutes.
Add the tuna from the can and break it up. Let it cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the boiled potatoes and mix it all well together.
(If you are going to deep-fry into "fish balls", make it drier than normal. Otherwise it should be wet enough to form into patties.)
Dump the whole stuff into a bowl. Let it cool for a bit. Pick out the curry leaves and discard. (They don't do this in Sri Lanka but then the leaves there are more tender than the ones found here.)
Add the chopped cilantro and the juice of one lime and crush gently using a potato masher. Mix and check for salt.
To make the patties, you can just either pan-fry them with some oil (which is the way the CC prefers) or for a fancier richer taste, do the same after an egg-wash and coated with breadcrumbs.
Showing posts with label sri lankan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sri lankan. Show all posts
Monday, October 30, 2017
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
That 70's Show
The CC is absolutely obsessed with collecting recipe books that date back to the late-60's and early-to-mid 70's.
Why the 70's?
It's the first transformation of many of these societies into the modern consumer world and it set off a wave of rather "naïve" cookbook writers almost all women who were documenting the recipes of an earlier age.
The naïveté shouldn't be taken as a pejorative. It's actually a compliment. They were literally writing down what they knew without any filter. These are really amazing documents.
These cookbooks have been updated but they have never been bettered. They are actually the source of inspiration to most modern cookbook writers who all down to a fault refuse to acknowledge the immense amount of ideas that they have nakedly stolen from these earlier writers.
The CC is always collecting these things as he travels. (They tend to be rather cheap.)
There are a few commonalities which are just extraordinary.
One is that they all tend to be obsessed with a level of precision. It is very important to them that the reader make the dish perfectly. The instructions tend to be rather precise and detailed. (This, of course, just warms the cockles of the CC's cold analytical heart.)
The other is how they were marketed. Not through the traditional channels. Often via "nail salons" or "beauty parlors" which was the domain of women. It was word-of-mouth and viral marketing at its earliest and finest.
The third is the primitiveness of the publishing industry at the time. They are frequently published in indifferent editions. Pictures are rare. The print is not glossy. The binding is falling apart. Spelling mistakes abound. However, the passion just jumps off the page!
The fourth is a level of awareness of nutrition. It's not the modern gluten-free fat-free version but they are rather interested in the fact that in an era where budgets are tight that the food not only be delicious but also nutritious.
Last but not least is the obsession with the pineapple. No, the CC is not joking. Hawaii only became a US state on Aug 21st, 1959. There was a massive global marketing campaign to sell pineapple across the world. You can see the obsession everywhere from Life Magazine to newspapers and magazines in all the corners of the world. Think "Mad Men". These women were not exempt from the pull of the siren song. Rest assured that there will be a recipe or three for pineapple in these books!
The CC has had plenty of books go in and out of his kitchen but you will take these books out of his cold dead hands!
Here's an extraordinarily incomplete list — roughly going westwards:
Middle-East
Arto der Haroutunian (Middle-East at large)
Afghanistan
Helen Saberi
India
Tarla Dalal (Gujarati vegetarian)
Ummi Abdulla (Kerala Muslim)
Joyce Fernandes (Goan)
Kamalabai Ogale (Maharashtrian)
S. Meenakshi Ammal (Tamil vegetarian)
Katy Dalal (Parsi)
Minakshie Das Gupta (Bengali)
Sri Lanka
Chandra Dissanayake
Taiwan
Fu Mei-Pei
Philippines
Enriqueta David-Perez
Caribbean
Babette de Rozières
Why the 70's?
It's the first transformation of many of these societies into the modern consumer world and it set off a wave of rather "naïve" cookbook writers almost all women who were documenting the recipes of an earlier age.
The naïveté shouldn't be taken as a pejorative. It's actually a compliment. They were literally writing down what they knew without any filter. These are really amazing documents.
These cookbooks have been updated but they have never been bettered. They are actually the source of inspiration to most modern cookbook writers who all down to a fault refuse to acknowledge the immense amount of ideas that they have nakedly stolen from these earlier writers.
The CC is always collecting these things as he travels. (They tend to be rather cheap.)
There are a few commonalities which are just extraordinary.
One is that they all tend to be obsessed with a level of precision. It is very important to them that the reader make the dish perfectly. The instructions tend to be rather precise and detailed. (This, of course, just warms the cockles of the CC's cold analytical heart.)
The other is how they were marketed. Not through the traditional channels. Often via "nail salons" or "beauty parlors" which was the domain of women. It was word-of-mouth and viral marketing at its earliest and finest.
The third is the primitiveness of the publishing industry at the time. They are frequently published in indifferent editions. Pictures are rare. The print is not glossy. The binding is falling apart. Spelling mistakes abound. However, the passion just jumps off the page!
The fourth is a level of awareness of nutrition. It's not the modern gluten-free fat-free version but they are rather interested in the fact that in an era where budgets are tight that the food not only be delicious but also nutritious.
Last but not least is the obsession with the pineapple. No, the CC is not joking. Hawaii only became a US state on Aug 21st, 1959. There was a massive global marketing campaign to sell pineapple across the world. You can see the obsession everywhere from Life Magazine to newspapers and magazines in all the corners of the world. Think "Mad Men". These women were not exempt from the pull of the siren song. Rest assured that there will be a recipe or three for pineapple in these books!
The CC has had plenty of books go in and out of his kitchen but you will take these books out of his cold dead hands!
Here's an extraordinarily incomplete list — roughly going westwards:
Middle-East
Arto der Haroutunian (Middle-East at large)
Afghanistan
Helen Saberi
India
Tarla Dalal (Gujarati vegetarian)
Ummi Abdulla (Kerala Muslim)
Joyce Fernandes (Goan)
Kamalabai Ogale (Maharashtrian)
S. Meenakshi Ammal (Tamil vegetarian)
Katy Dalal (Parsi)
Minakshie Das Gupta (Bengali)
Sri Lanka
Chandra Dissanayake
Taiwan
Fu Mei-Pei
Philippines
Enriqueta David-Perez
Caribbean
Babette de Rozières
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
The Fickleness of Chili Peppers
Ever wonder why you have trouble reproducing that amazing dish featuring chili peppers that you had elsewhere? Ever wonder why there is such a proliferation of different kinds of peppers both spicy and sweet and everything in between?
The answer is actually quite complex.
Peppers which definitely came from South America are rather complex objects. They are incredibly sensitive to what the French might call terroir.
The soil matters; the amount of sunlight matters; the temperature of the warm day versus the cool night matters a lot. In short, they are rather fickle little things.
Take the same strain and plant it in two different places — warm Louisana as opposed to cooler Oregon, just to take two places at random and you will get diametrically opposing results from the same plant. Even the same strain in the same location will differ from year to year because the weather is variable.
That's just one of the problems.
They've also had a solid five centuries to spread all over the world. The different sub-species were pushed not only by natural selection but also cultural selection into the hundreds of varieties all over the globe. (Contrast with oranges which are completely ancient but there aren't that many sub-species of oranges out there even with all the human-controlled cross-pollination.)
This is the reason that some of the magnificent dishes of Sri Lanka really cannot be reproduced elsewhere. Even if you got the seeds, you don't have the weather.
It's the same reason that Hungary keeps a really tight lid on one of its products — Hungarian paprika. You will get arrested if you try to steal the seeds and smuggle them out. They did smuggle them successfully and tried to reproduce them in Oregon. All the efforts failed. The climates might be "similar" but they are not similar enough. The soil certainly isn't.
The same goes for the different varieties of Spanish paprika.
The story of Tabasco which is a product of Louisiana follows the same pattern. They've had a limited amount of success reproducing it in Mexico but it wasn't easy. (The story of Tabasco is rather fascinating since it has all the elements of a financial thriller — competitors, corruption, patent laws, politicians, bankruptcy, questionable tactics, possible illegality, etc.)
All to protect a brand that, truth be said, the CC is kinda fond of.
It's actually rather hard to get the truly great peppers of Peru. Even in New York. Only the dozen or two of so most-commonly used peppers actually proliferate. The most common ones are probably more "robust" than the other strains.
What it does mean though that if you want to eat truly great peppers, you'll just have to go to the source.
It's good to reminded from time to time that travel matters and that "variety truly is the spice of life."
The answer is actually quite complex.
Peppers which definitely came from South America are rather complex objects. They are incredibly sensitive to what the French might call terroir.
The soil matters; the amount of sunlight matters; the temperature of the warm day versus the cool night matters a lot. In short, they are rather fickle little things.
Take the same strain and plant it in two different places — warm Louisana as opposed to cooler Oregon, just to take two places at random and you will get diametrically opposing results from the same plant. Even the same strain in the same location will differ from year to year because the weather is variable.
That's just one of the problems.
They've also had a solid five centuries to spread all over the world. The different sub-species were pushed not only by natural selection but also cultural selection into the hundreds of varieties all over the globe. (Contrast with oranges which are completely ancient but there aren't that many sub-species of oranges out there even with all the human-controlled cross-pollination.)
This is the reason that some of the magnificent dishes of Sri Lanka really cannot be reproduced elsewhere. Even if you got the seeds, you don't have the weather.
It's the same reason that Hungary keeps a really tight lid on one of its products — Hungarian paprika. You will get arrested if you try to steal the seeds and smuggle them out. They did smuggle them successfully and tried to reproduce them in Oregon. All the efforts failed. The climates might be "similar" but they are not similar enough. The soil certainly isn't.
The same goes for the different varieties of Spanish paprika.
The story of Tabasco which is a product of Louisiana follows the same pattern. They've had a limited amount of success reproducing it in Mexico but it wasn't easy. (The story of Tabasco is rather fascinating since it has all the elements of a financial thriller — competitors, corruption, patent laws, politicians, bankruptcy, questionable tactics, possible illegality, etc.)
All to protect a brand that, truth be said, the CC is kinda fond of.
It's actually rather hard to get the truly great peppers of Peru. Even in New York. Only the dozen or two of so most-commonly used peppers actually proliferate. The most common ones are probably more "robust" than the other strains.
What it does mean though that if you want to eat truly great peppers, you'll just have to go to the source.
It's good to reminded from time to time that travel matters and that "variety truly is the spice of life."
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Watalappam
This dessert (also frequently transliterated as watalappan) is probably one of the CC's favorites even though the CC is not much of a dessert person to start with!
It's related functionally to the very Spanish flan which is another one of the CC's favorites.
The massive difference between the two is that the Sri Lankan dessert substitutes coconut milk for the cream and milk in the original. This changes the chemistry in a significant way. It also adds a ton of "sweet" spices that flourish on the island. The sugar is substituted by a very specific palm jaggery which adds a smoky flavor and brown color to the product.
Flan is notoriously hard to make. It's very finicky about the percentage of fat in the cream and the milk and the water content. Flubs are common and the act of making it requires real skill.
Almodóvar films an entire flan recipe in his movie Volver. It's both a love ode to the wonderful dessert and a character study in the great tradition of silent films. By eavesdropping on a character who's clearly very talented at making it, and watching her do the thing she loves, we learn more about her than could be inferred from mere dialog.
The chemistry of coconut milk is much simpler than that of cream plus milk. Some genius made the substitution historically and it's a knockout since the proportions in coconut milk are exactly right to get the correct consistency and hence, flubbing is kept to at a minimum.
The jaggery that needs to be used is a palm jaggery called kithul jaggery. It's a little hard to find but it has a characteristic flavor that's hard to reproduce. Regular jaggery simply doesn't have the smoky flavor and it's not sweet enough.
The CC found it in London of all places which led someone to remark, "What does the CC do in London? He buys Sri Lankan jaggery and hauls it back to New York." This has irony written all over it since the CC was in Sri Lanka earlier in the year and didn't haul it back then. However, the bottom line is "Globalization, baby!"
The dessert is traditionally steamed but you can easily make it in an oven with a water bath as long as you have large pans. It also scales effortlessly. Best of all, it needs to be made ahead of time and cooled so you will be able to impress your guests without much effort.
It's just pure magic.
Ingredients
(serves 4)
100 gram kithul jaggery
200 ml coconut milk
2 cloves
1 large stick cinnamon
1 vanilla pod
3 cardamom pods
nutmeg
5 large eggs (read notes!)
Note 1: The jaggery is conveniently sold in 100 gram units wrapped in the dried palm leaves.
Note 2: The amount of milk in a standard can of coconut milk is close to 200 ml. Good enough. This recipe is quite forgiving. Shake it well before opening.
Note 3: The CC has seen pandanus leaves (called rampe in Sinhalese) added to the coconut milk. Great taste if you have some. Can be found frozen and work like a charm.
Note 4: The jaggery is quite hard and tradition calls for shaving it. The CC smashed it with a hammer and used the pieces. It made no difference since it dissolves completely and you will filter the product anyway. Tradition frequently wastes time without asking the obvious questions.
Note 5: If you use regular jaggery, you will need 4-8 tbsp of brown sugar to get the right sweetness.
Note 6: There is no way to predict how many eggs will be needed. Firstly, the coconut milks have different amounts of liquid. Secondly, the eggs are of different sizes even within the same grade. Lastly, the yolks are of different sizes. The CC started with four and then was forced to add one more to get it right. Chances are you might need an extra egg or one less. Start with four and go from there.
Recipe
Remove the cardamom seeds from the pod. Crush the cloves and cardamom in a mortar and pestle.
In a saucepan, heat up the ground cardamom and cloves, vanilla pod, cinnamon and ground nutmeg with the coconut milk and the jaggery. Bring it to a boil and turn down the heat to very low. Stir until everything dissolves and the spices steep into the liquid. Roughly 12-15 minutes. This also has the advantage of removing some of the moisture from the coconut milk.
Taste it. It should be cloyingly sweet and the spices should be prominent. (Don't worry. The final product will be nowhere near as sweet. We still have the eggs, remember?)
Strain the liquid into a bowl and let it cool down to room temperature. (Stick it in a freezer if you're in a hurry.) Discard any spices or solids left behind. Make sure that the mixture is cold otherwise the eggs will scramble when you incorporate them.
Beat the eggs but not too much. Don't incorporate too much air into them.
Strain the egg mixture using a fine sieve into the cold coconut milk liquid above. You will need to use a whisk to get the egg mixture through the sieve.
This step is CRUCIAL. The final product will simply not work without it.
Mix the batter gently to incorporate it completely. It should be slightly dense and thick but still liquid.
Split the mixture evenly into four oven-proof bowls. Cover each of them tightly with aluminum foil.
Now, you have two choices.
Steaming: Steam the four bowls in a steamer for 40 minutes. Check at that mark. They should be jiggly. If not, steam for an extra 5 minutes.
Baking: You're not really baking. You will need a deep pan that can hold the bowls. Preheat the oven to 350°F for 10 minutes. Heat some water in a kettle. Place the bowls in the pan. When the oven is heated, and the water is boiling, pour it in the pan around the bowls. Cover the pan itself with a separate piece of aluminum foil and put it in the oven. Steam for 40 minutes. Check. If not jiggly enough, steam for an additional 5 minutes.
The trick with the water is that all the energy is going into vaporizing the water so that the egg mixture itself never goes above the boiling point of water. Very clever and this clearly scales effortlessly.
Let them cool down to room temperature. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. They are frequently topped with more cashews and raisins but this is a bit of gilding the lily.
It's related functionally to the very Spanish flan which is another one of the CC's favorites.
The massive difference between the two is that the Sri Lankan dessert substitutes coconut milk for the cream and milk in the original. This changes the chemistry in a significant way. It also adds a ton of "sweet" spices that flourish on the island. The sugar is substituted by a very specific palm jaggery which adds a smoky flavor and brown color to the product.
Flan is notoriously hard to make. It's very finicky about the percentage of fat in the cream and the milk and the water content. Flubs are common and the act of making it requires real skill.
Almodóvar films an entire flan recipe in his movie Volver. It's both a love ode to the wonderful dessert and a character study in the great tradition of silent films. By eavesdropping on a character who's clearly very talented at making it, and watching her do the thing she loves, we learn more about her than could be inferred from mere dialog.
The chemistry of coconut milk is much simpler than that of cream plus milk. Some genius made the substitution historically and it's a knockout since the proportions in coconut milk are exactly right to get the correct consistency and hence, flubbing is kept to at a minimum.
The jaggery that needs to be used is a palm jaggery called kithul jaggery. It's a little hard to find but it has a characteristic flavor that's hard to reproduce. Regular jaggery simply doesn't have the smoky flavor and it's not sweet enough.
The CC found it in London of all places which led someone to remark, "What does the CC do in London? He buys Sri Lankan jaggery and hauls it back to New York." This has irony written all over it since the CC was in Sri Lanka earlier in the year and didn't haul it back then. However, the bottom line is "Globalization, baby!"
The dessert is traditionally steamed but you can easily make it in an oven with a water bath as long as you have large pans. It also scales effortlessly. Best of all, it needs to be made ahead of time and cooled so you will be able to impress your guests without much effort.
It's just pure magic.
Ingredients
(serves 4)
100 gram kithul jaggery
200 ml coconut milk
2 cloves
1 large stick cinnamon
1 vanilla pod
3 cardamom pods
nutmeg
5 large eggs (read notes!)
Note 1: The jaggery is conveniently sold in 100 gram units wrapped in the dried palm leaves.
Note 2: The amount of milk in a standard can of coconut milk is close to 200 ml. Good enough. This recipe is quite forgiving. Shake it well before opening.
Note 3: The CC has seen pandanus leaves (called rampe in Sinhalese) added to the coconut milk. Great taste if you have some. Can be found frozen and work like a charm.
Note 4: The jaggery is quite hard and tradition calls for shaving it. The CC smashed it with a hammer and used the pieces. It made no difference since it dissolves completely and you will filter the product anyway. Tradition frequently wastes time without asking the obvious questions.
Note 5: If you use regular jaggery, you will need 4-8 tbsp of brown sugar to get the right sweetness.
Note 6: There is no way to predict how many eggs will be needed. Firstly, the coconut milks have different amounts of liquid. Secondly, the eggs are of different sizes even within the same grade. Lastly, the yolks are of different sizes. The CC started with four and then was forced to add one more to get it right. Chances are you might need an extra egg or one less. Start with four and go from there.
Recipe
Remove the cardamom seeds from the pod. Crush the cloves and cardamom in a mortar and pestle.
In a saucepan, heat up the ground cardamom and cloves, vanilla pod, cinnamon and ground nutmeg with the coconut milk and the jaggery. Bring it to a boil and turn down the heat to very low. Stir until everything dissolves and the spices steep into the liquid. Roughly 12-15 minutes. This also has the advantage of removing some of the moisture from the coconut milk.
Taste it. It should be cloyingly sweet and the spices should be prominent. (Don't worry. The final product will be nowhere near as sweet. We still have the eggs, remember?)
Strain the liquid into a bowl and let it cool down to room temperature. (Stick it in a freezer if you're in a hurry.) Discard any spices or solids left behind. Make sure that the mixture is cold otherwise the eggs will scramble when you incorporate them.
Beat the eggs but not too much. Don't incorporate too much air into them.
Strain the egg mixture using a fine sieve into the cold coconut milk liquid above. You will need to use a whisk to get the egg mixture through the sieve.
This step is CRUCIAL. The final product will simply not work without it.
Mix the batter gently to incorporate it completely. It should be slightly dense and thick but still liquid.
Split the mixture evenly into four oven-proof bowls. Cover each of them tightly with aluminum foil.
Now, you have two choices.
Steaming: Steam the four bowls in a steamer for 40 minutes. Check at that mark. They should be jiggly. If not, steam for an extra 5 minutes.
Baking: You're not really baking. You will need a deep pan that can hold the bowls. Preheat the oven to 350°F for 10 minutes. Heat some water in a kettle. Place the bowls in the pan. When the oven is heated, and the water is boiling, pour it in the pan around the bowls. Cover the pan itself with a separate piece of aluminum foil and put it in the oven. Steam for 40 minutes. Check. If not jiggly enough, steam for an additional 5 minutes.
The trick with the water is that all the energy is going into vaporizing the water so that the egg mixture itself never goes above the boiling point of water. Very clever and this clearly scales effortlessly.
Let them cool down to room temperature. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. They are frequently topped with more cashews and raisins but this is a bit of gilding the lily.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Cashew Curry
This recipe really really rocks!
(Source: S. H. Fernando with some help from Peter Kuruvita.)
Cashew Curry
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups raw cashews
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 onion (diced fine)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
2" piece ginger (minced)
2" stalk lemongrass
3-5 green chillies
1 sprig curry leaves
1 tbsp Maldive fish flakes
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup cilantro (diced fine)
salt to taste
Recipe
Soak the cashews in water overnight. Yes, this is important.
Boil the cashews along with the turmeric until tender roughly 10-12 minutes. The CC used fresh turmeric but feel free to use the powdered stuff. Drain and set aside.
In a pan, heat some oil. When shimmering, add the curry leaves. Be careful since they tend to splatter. Add the onions, green chillies, garlic, lemongrass, ginger and fish flakes and fry for a bit till the onions are soft but not so much that they caramelize.
Add the cashews and the coconut milk, and bring to a boil on low heat. Add the coriander powder and let cook for about 6-7 minutes at a very low heat.
Sprinkle the cilantro just before serving.
Rice
Ingredients
1 cup basmati rice
6 pods cardamom
1 leaf pandanus (optional)
1 3/4 cups water.
Recipe
Fry the whole cardamoms in some oil until fragrant. Add the rice and the pandanus leaf and fry till well coated. Add the water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and let cook covered until done (roughly 10 minutes.)
(Source: S. H. Fernando with some help from Peter Kuruvita.)
Cashew Curry
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups raw cashews
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 onion (diced fine)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
2" piece ginger (minced)
2" stalk lemongrass
3-5 green chillies
1 sprig curry leaves
1 tbsp Maldive fish flakes
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup cilantro (diced fine)
salt to taste
Recipe
Soak the cashews in water overnight. Yes, this is important.
Boil the cashews along with the turmeric until tender roughly 10-12 minutes. The CC used fresh turmeric but feel free to use the powdered stuff. Drain and set aside.
In a pan, heat some oil. When shimmering, add the curry leaves. Be careful since they tend to splatter. Add the onions, green chillies, garlic, lemongrass, ginger and fish flakes and fry for a bit till the onions are soft but not so much that they caramelize.
Add the cashews and the coconut milk, and bring to a boil on low heat. Add the coriander powder and let cook for about 6-7 minutes at a very low heat.
Sprinkle the cilantro just before serving.
Rice
Ingredients
1 cup basmati rice
6 pods cardamom
1 leaf pandanus (optional)
1 3/4 cups water.
Recipe
Fry the whole cardamoms in some oil until fragrant. Add the rice and the pandanus leaf and fry till well coated. Add the water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and let cook covered until done (roughly 10 minutes.)
Friday, May 11, 2012
Maldive Fish Flakes
They are fish flakes that are made from skipjack tuna which is the same fish that the Japanese use to make katsuobushi.
The difference is that while the Japanese process involves smoked drying followed by a precise fermentation and sun-drying, the Sri Lankan process involves just sun-drying the lean parts of the fish.
They "dissolve" in the dish and lend it a deep umami flavor, and it's absolutely indispensible to Sri Lankan food.
The difference is that while the Japanese process involves smoked drying followed by a precise fermentation and sun-drying, the Sri Lankan process involves just sun-drying the lean parts of the fish.
They "dissolve" in the dish and lend it a deep umami flavor, and it's absolutely indispensible to Sri Lankan food.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Birthday Bash
The CC got what he wanted - a fun food-filled evening!
First, a Sri Lankan place where we gorged on fish rolls followed by chicken lamprais and a sri lankan crab curry, succulent and heavily redolent with black pepper both washed down with a peppery grüner veltliner.
Then, a frisky hazelnut gelato at GROM.
First, a Sri Lankan place where we gorged on fish rolls followed by chicken lamprais and a sri lankan crab curry, succulent and heavily redolent with black pepper both washed down with a peppery grüner veltliner.
Then, a frisky hazelnut gelato at GROM.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
