Today’s drink has been sent in by Trevor Martil. Apologies for the lack of a photo of the drink. I am sharing this at the Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck.
Today’s music features two relatively new composers who are making a niche for themselves in south Indian cinema. The music for the first song clip has been composed by G.V Prakash Kumar, the nephew of A.R.Rahman. Having sung his first song in one of his uncle’s movies, G.V Prakash Kumar started his movie soundtrack composing career at the age of 16. This is a lovely song from his first movie that was released – Veyil (translation: hot sun, 2006) with playback singers Jassie Gift, Kailash Kher, Tippu and Prasanna.
The next song is from Balakrishnan’s debut movie Rummy (2014) with music composed by D.Imman who started his music career in 2002. The playback singers are Prasanna and Vandana Srinivasan, a psychologist and an alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Chicken Curry is one dish that I never get tired of trying out new recipes for! Chicken is in fact a very safe thing to experiment on – since you can never go wrong with chicken! Any which way you cook it, it always turns out delicious! And those of you who think that ‘a curry is a curry is a curry…’, sorry but I beg to differ! The different blend of spices as well as the proportion of those spices that goes in a curry is very important and gives the curry its own unique flavor. And hence Kamala aunty’s chicken curry is so delicious but yet different from grandma’s chicken curry! That is the reason I am always asking folks for their chicken curry recipes! – Hey there is no shame in asking! 🙂
And I thought that there could be so many variations of chicken curry only all across…
The recipe for today has been sent in by Trevor Martil and I am sharing it at Fiesta Friday. I shared his mother’s savoury rice dish recipe last week.
I also felt like sharing some lovely Hindi movie music today from movies released within this decade but set in decades past. The first clip is from V.V.Chopra’s movie Parineeta (translation: The married woman, 2005), an adaptation of a 1914 Bengali novella starring Vidya Balan and Saif Ali Khan. The music was composed by Shantanu Moitra and the playback singers of this song are Sonu Nigam and Shreyal Ghoshal.
The second clip is from Anurag Basu’s movie Barfi! (2012), starring Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz. Set in the 70s, the music was composed by Pritam and this particular song has been sung by Shafqat Amanat Ali.
The last clip is from V.Motwane’s movie Lootera (translation: Robber, 2013), set in the 50s and based on O.Henry’s 1907 short story ‘The last leaf,’ starring Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha. The music for this song has been composed and sung by Amit Trivedi.
Hope you enjoyed the lovely songs and do let me know if you try out this recipe!
I had tried to get hold of some of the Sri Lankan Burgher cuisine recipes for some time now. While some of the dishes such as lamprais, frikkadels and some kinds of specialty cakes around Christmas time are very popular and are recreated by cafes and bakeries around the country, I was more interested in the home-cooking of Burgher families. Besides Refinceyaa who shared her aunt’s recipe for capsicum with eggs on this blog, I had also asked Trevor Martil who is another of my former colleagues. He recently sent me some of his mother’s favourite recipes. Today’s recipe is one such dish, which Trevor’s mother calls ‘savoury rice with a difference.’ This rice recipe (providing both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options) is what I am sharing at Fiesta Friday together with some special music clips.
The special song clip for today is a rendition, by Amitabh Bachchan, of renowned poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s beautiful Bengali poem Ekla Cholo Re written in 1905. This song is from Sujoy Ghosh’s acclaimed Hindi movie Kahaani (translation: Story, 2012) starring Vidya Balan. Translation of the lyrics can be found on Wikipedia.
The next song clip is from Aamir Khan’s talk show Satyamev Jayate (translation: Truth alone prevails). Composed by Ram Sampath for the lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Meenal Jain sings the beautiful Hindi song ‘Sakhi’ at the end of the episode on domestic violence. I think I must have watched all the episodes of the first season in 2012.
Hope you enjoyed the songs and do let me know if you tried out the recipe today!
Ever since I baked my first batch of muffins last month, I have been in a muffin phase. Some of the favourites at home so far has been Joanne’s strawberry buttermilk (I used buttermilk instead of yoghurt) and Rhonda’s apricot almond muffins. It is rambuttan and mangosteen season here in Sri Lanka now and there were a few of the fruits leftover at home when I decided to try baking some muffins with them. As I had used up the entire pack of muffin cups and did not want to wait till I bought a fresh set, I simply decided to use a regular pan and make a muffin loaf. So, today, I am sharing at the Fiesta Friday my adaptation of Rhonda’s strawberry oatmeal muffins with some exotic (at least where muffins are concerned) ingredients. I am also taking this over to Saucy Saturdays #51, hosted by The Flavor Bender, La Petit Chef, Mid-Life Croissant, Take Two Tapas.
Today’s featured musician is Shankar Mahadevan. A musician that I admire, Shankar Mahadevan was midway in his software engineering career before deciding to change careers and focus on his passion for music. Trained in Carnatic and Hindustani music, he released his first solo album Breathless (1998). The album includes a song called Breathless, sung without a break in the lyrics from start to finish, which was very popular on Sri Lankan television. The hugely popular album opened up many opportunities for Shankar Mahadevan. Eventually, he started the online Indian classical music academy – Shankar Mahadevan Academy in 2010.
Shankar Mahadevan is the vocalist of ‘Remember Shakti.’ For those who haven’t heard of this group, they are a five member lovely fusion group initially started as ‘Shakti’ by John McLaughlin and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain in the 70s. The group was revived in the late 90s with some new members – U.Srinivas (one of my favourite musicians), V.Selvaganesh (son of Grammy award-winning musician V.Vinayakram – one of the original members of Shakti) and Shankar Mahadevan, replacing three of the original members. My first clip for today is therefore an excerpt from a Remember Shakti concert: a beautiful fusion performance of the classical piece ‘Giriraja Sudha,’ composed by 18th century musician – Tyagarajar – considered one of the most influential Carnatic composers.
Shankar Mahadevan is also part of the successful trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, who became popular in the Hindi movie music composing field in the late 90s. The second music clip for today is from Aamir Khan’s beautiful directorial debut movie Taare Zameen Par (translation: Like stars on earth, 2007) with music composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and sung by Shankar Mahadevan. This touching song won Shankar Mahadevan a national award.
He was introduced to the Tamil cinema playback singing platform by A.R.Rahman in 1997. The last clip is a lovely, upbeat folk tune composed by A.R.Rahman for the movie Mudhalvan (1999), starring Arjun and Manisha Koirala, and sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Kavita Krishnamurthy.
Hope you enjoyed Shankar Mahadevan’s music as much as I did! Happy July 4th to all my American blogging friends!
Rambuttan – 4, chopped (can add more, I just used what I had in hand)
Mangosteen – 1 or 2, chopped (can add more)
Cashew nuts – a handful, chopped
Raisins – a little for sprinkling
Kesari powder – pinch (optional)
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 190⁰C.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the instant oats and sugar to the flour bowl and keep aside.
Chop up the rambuttan and mangosteen. Add a pinch of kesari powder to the fruits in a separate bowl. Add the chopped cashewnuts and raisins to the fruit bowl.
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil and vanilla essence.
Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix it just enough to ensure that none of the flour mix is left dry. Almost all the muffin recipes that I have seen stress the point that one should be swift over this mixing and not be concerned over lumps in the batter.
Fold in the fruit and nut mixture.
Transfer the muffin batter to the muffin tray or a normal baking pan. Bake for around 20 mins – the time will vary depending on your oven.
Thank you, Linda, for nominating me for the readership award. I have always enjoyed your blog and am delighted to be nominated by you once again. This award is meant to be passed on to 14 blogs whom one has enjoyed reading during a particular week. As such, I would like to nominate the following lovely bloggers with their posts that I enjoyed during the last week.
Next, I would like to thank Nimmi for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger award. I am honoured to accept it and am happy to have come across your lovely blog through Angie’s Fiesta Friday event.
I understand that part of the nomination acceptance includes sharing 7 things about oneself and nominating 15 other bloggers. I decided the thing I would share today would be books so here are the names of 7 of my all-time favourite books, in reverse alphabetical order.
To wrap up this post, I would like to share this beautiful debut song of Harini, from the movie Indira (1995), with music composed by A.R.Rahman and lyrics written by Vairamuthu. Trained in Carnatic music from a young age, Harini was noticed by A.R.Rahman in a school contest and was introduced to the movie playback singing world through Suhasini Maniratnam’s movie ‘Indira’.
Re-blogging Aruna of Aharam‘s april post where she shared her lovely version of Sri Lankan/Australian chef Peter Kuruvita’s pumpkin curry recipe. Thank you, Aruna, for sharing it 🙂
I decided to share my first recipe post on this blog again, particularly for the Fiesta Friday group. Curry powder blend is usually made at homes in Sri Lanka and therefore differs from house to house in the spices used and the blend ratio. The blend also differs for the type of curry it is used for. Today, I will share my mother’s special blend for vegetarian curries. Interested non-vegetarians can check out these earlier posts for the blend for fish dishes and meat dishes.
The south Indian musician that I am featuring today is P.Unnikrishnan. Trained in Carnatic music, Unnikrishnan has released several Carnatic music and devotional song albums. He was introduced to the playback singing world of South Indian movies by A.R.Rahman in 1994 and his debut song in the movie ‘Kadhalan’ won him a national award. He also has started dabbling in experimental music.
The first clip is an excerpt from an A.R.Rahman concert where Unnikrishnan sings his award-winning debut song.
The second clip is his lovely rendition of a famous poem by renowned 19th century Tamil poet Bharathiyar.
The last clip is of Unnikrishnan’s daughter, Uthara, who sings a short excerpt of one of her father’s famous movie songs. Uthara recently made her debut in the movie playback singing world at the age of 9 with the release of her first song ‘Azhagu.’
Hope you enjoyed Unnikrishnan’s voice! Do try out my mother’s recipe for her curry powder blend!
Re-blogging Susan from Watch Hatch Fly‘s lovely version of the spicy curd dish… Thank you, Susan, for trying out the recipe and sharing! Warm greetings from sunny Colombo!
I always pack food for the trip, because the lake is located in the twilight zone of Pennsylvania. It’s difficult to describe the area, certainly beautiful, very rural and NO grocery stores. There are a few little stores that will do in a pinch. They tend to carry only essentials (such as ammo or bait. It’s big hunting territory.)
Vegans don’t require ammo or bait, and the blackberries aren’t ripe yet. So, we pack!
I decided to bring Spicy Curd Rice from Ahila@A Taste of Sri Lankan Cuisine. Ahila kindly followed me shortly after I began blogging in October. She generously comments and visits regularly. She always says something about the dogs. Louie would like to say something back:
I had leftover chick peas, so I threw them into the rice. I used a dried Thai pepper that I bought…
First, my apologies to Sanjana of Feeding the Sonis as I meant to pay forward her blog award a few months back but somehow missed it. Better late than never. So, here goes… Thank you, Sanjana. I am honoured to be considered part of your WordPress blog family. Thank you for sending me feedback on my food posts regularly. I enjoy your posts as well and hope to try out a couple of the Fijian food on your blog sometime. For now, I would like to nominate the following lovely bloggers for this special award.
Next, I would like to thank Charanya of Yes! I’m Vegan and Malar of Malar’s Kitchen for nominating me for the Liebster blog award. I enjoy checking out the vegan recipe posts of Charanya and the kitchen experiment posts of Malar.
Responding to Charanya’s 11 questions:
What’s your favorite cuisine? My mother’s home-cooking.
What would be the last meal you will love to eat? I’d prefer to drink some fresh, cool and clean water. I’d rather not go to my afterlife with a parched throat 😉
What is your favorite vege? Paithangai/ Yardlong beans
Do you watch Game of Thrones? No.
If you are vegan, why? If not, do you think you could be one for few days? I am not vegan but the food in my home leans mostly towards vegan.
Is there anything your life wont be the same without? my mother.
What’s your favorite movie? Salangai Oli (1983).
Is there any color you loved as a kid? Blue. I still love the colour.
Is there anything you would change in your life if life had a rewind button? I would go back to those moments when I have judged situations viewed through very rigid lens and respond differently.
Do you own an iphone or an android? An android.
3 words that could describe you: Life long learner.
Responding to Malar’s 5 questions:
Your Favorite tourist spot? Weligama bay area in south Sri Lanka
Weekends what do you do? Mostly read.
Have you done anything crazy? Definition of crazy is relative, I guess. For someone who has never danced since my childhood, a group of friends and I once danced to north African music playing from our truck in an otherwise empty car park at the base of Mauna Kea in Hawai’i. What can I say? It was a full moon night 🙂
Who is your favorite Actor/Actress ? I generally have favourite movies rather than favourite actors but after considering the fact that Kamal Haasan seems to have acted in most of the Tamil movies that I have really enjoyed, I guess my favourite actor is Kamal Haasan. I do consider him South Asia’s best actor.
Something which you love to do other than cooking: Travelling.
My nominations for the Liebster blog award are following lovely bloggers:
Instead of the questions, I only have one request to those accepting the above nominations. Please do share one of your favourite music clips on your acceptance/ nomination post.
To wrap up this post, I’d like to share a colourful folksy song from the movie Azhagiya Tamil Magan (2007) starring Vijay Chandrasekhar and Shriya Saran. Credits: music composed by A.R.Rahman, playback singers are Benny Dayal, Archith and Dharshana.
Thank you to all the readers of this blog! Have a lovely week!
A Taste of Sri Lankan cuisine 
