Hathmalu

Today’s guest blogger is renowned independent film-maker Asoka Handagama. His movies have garnered much critical acclaim and have been screened at numerous major international film festivals (Toronto, Edinburgh, Tokyo etc.) around the world. His most recent movie ‘Ini, Avan’ had its world premiere at the ACID programme in the Cannes festival in 2012. Asoka is currently working on his newest film project which he plans to partially fund through crowd-funding. If you would like to participate in Sri Lanka’s first partially crowd-funded movie production, do check out the film’s Crimso page.

Today, Asoka shares his favourite dish, Hathmalu – a specialty dish made during the Sri Lankan New Year/ Avurudhu/ Puthaandu.

Hath Malu ( A curry made of Seven vegetable/ingredients )

This traditional curry dish is prepared for an auspicious AVURUDU meal; popular in Sabaragamuva province in Sri Lanka. Uniqueness in this dish is that it is not prepared for any other occasion than AVURUDU. It is so yummy that you can swallow a whole load of milk-rice in a few seconds!

Hathmalu Recipe

Ingredients

Cashew Nuts (raw un roasted)

And any six (or seven) of the following:

Egg plant/ aubergines
Jackfruit Seeds
Snake beans
Sweet potato
Sweet potato baby leaves or pumpkin leaves
Desha-ala (indigenous potato)
Desha-ala leaf stems
‘Ambul’ banana (unripe bananas)

For the curry:

Turmeric
Chili powder (un roasted)
‘Thuna paha’ local spice mix such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves (un roasted)
Salt
Red onions
Green chili
Curry leaves
Coconut milk: thick cream (first squeeze) and diluted (second squeeze)

Method:
Chop aubergines and other vegetables and potatoes into 1cm x 1cm x 1cm cubes. Add the seven main ingredients along with salt, spice mix, curry leaves, chili powder, red onions, green chili, turmeric and diluted coconut milk to a (preferably) clay pot. Place on stove and allow to cook slowly on low heat until all ingredients have cooked and softened (15-20 minutes). Then add thick coconut milk and (on medium heat) allow to simmer until the curry thickens and take it off the heat.

Serve curry with milk rice.

Recipe source: Asoka Handagama.

Happy Sri Lankan New Year!

இனிய புத்தாண்டு நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்! සුභඅලුත්අවුරුදක්‌ වේවා! Wishing you a prosperous and happy Sri Lankan New year!

(or, more precisely as people these days tend to clarify – a Sri Lankan Buddhist and Hindu New Year)

A key dish made today is either Kiribath or Pongal. Other snacks made at my home are Paruthithurai vadai, Murukku and Seeni ariyatharam.

Paruthithurai Vadai

Murukku

Seeni Ariyatharam

I have requested several friends to share the recipe of a dish that they have made for today in their homes and will be able to hopefully share them (particularly that of kavum, kokis etc) soon here.

In the meantime, I invite you to my short story collection “Waves” book promotion on the Amazon Kindle store. The book can be freely downloaded during the ongoing promotion till 15th noon (Sri Lankan time).

Rasavalli Kilangu Kool

Today is a very special day at my home. It is my mother’s birthday.

After quite some time away from the kitchen, I decided to bake something today and as my mother is a snacker, made a vegan date and walnut loaf and some granola bars.

The recipe I am sharing today is a special treat from Jaffna that my mother made earlier this week. This dish is a special breakfast or dessert dish from north Sri Lanka and made from rasavalli kilangu or purple yam (dioscorea alata).

purple yam

Rasavalli Kilangu Kool/ Purple Yam Porridge

Time taken: 20 mins

Serves 3

Ingredients:

Rasavalli kilanku/ purple yam – 1 small
Thin coconut milk – 1 cup
Sugar – 2 or 3 tbsp
Salt, a pinch

Method:

Clean and peel the yam and then chop it up roughly.
Cook the yam with 3 cups of water. Once the water dries up, lightly mash the boiled yam.
Add 1 cup of thin coconut milk.
Add 2-3 tbsp of sugar and a pinch of salt to the porridge.
Let the porridge simmer till the liquid thickens.
Serve warm.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Vengayapoo Varai

Today’s recipe is one of my mother’s quick and easy to prepare, delicious stir-fried dishes made with onion stalks and flowers/ vengaya poo.

Vengaya Poo Varai

Time taken: 25 mins

Serves 2

Ingredients:

Spring onion stalk and flower/ Vengaya poo – 1 cup, chopped
Carrot – ½ cup, chopped
Onion – 1 tbsp, chopped
Green chilli – 1, chopped
Fennel – ½ tsp
Crushed red chillies – 1 tsp
Gingelly/ Sesame oil – 2 tbsp

Method:

Clean the onion stalks and carrot and chop them into small pieces. Add some salt and keep aside.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan. Add the fennel seeds, chopped onion and green chilli. Fry for 2 mins.
Add the chopped and salted onion stalks + flowers and carrots to the pan. Add 1 tsp crushed chilli and mix well.
Cook for around 10 mins over low heat.
Remove from heat and serve warm.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Prawn, Avocado and Egg salad

Today’s guest blogger is Rushda (lìng yīgè tóngxué). She told me she prefers salads when it came to cooking. So, I asked her to share one of her successful salad recipes.

Prawn, Avocado and Egg salad

I like experimenting with cooking and love to take up the challenge in making a dish out of whatever ingredients are available in my fridge when I decide to cook. I would also rather that someone else does the cooking and feeds me than do the cooking myself.

Time taken: 20 to 30 mins

Serves 2 or 3

Ingredients:

Boiled eggs – 2 or 3, sliced
Avocado – 1, cubed
Prawns or baby shrimps – handful
Tomatoes – 2 or 3
Bell peppers – 1 or 2 (different colours are better)
Lime juice – 1 or 2 tbsp
Mixed herbs – oregano and rosemary – ½ tsp (optional)
Black pepper – ½ to 1 tsp, crushed
Garlic – 2 or 3 cloves, crushed
Salt, to taste
Sugar, pinch
Vinegar – 1 tsp
Olive oil, as required

Method:

Make the salad dressing by mixing olive oil, vinegar, pinch of sugar, mixed herbs and finely crushed garlic. Keep aside.
Heat the cleaned and de-shelled prawns in a non-stick pan on low heat till it is cooked enough. Just sprinkle a bit of lime juice over it while cooking – don’t add water or oil while cooking. After the prawns are cooked and cooled, drizzle a bit of olive oil over it and sprinkle some pepper and salt over them. If salt is used here, it is not required to be used again in the recipe.
Toast the roughly cut tomatoes in a wok or pan over low heat.
Meanwhile, slice the boiled eggs, bell peppers and cube the avocado.
Assemble the ingredients on the salad plate, in an eye-catching way.
Drizzle the salad dressing over the salad.

Recipe source: Rushda.

Seeni Sambol

Since I started this blog, I have developed this tendency of asking fellow Sri Lankans I meet to contribute one of their favourite recipes to the blog. One such instance was when I invited my Mandarin language classmates to contribute to the blog and starting today, over the next few weeks, the guest posts will feature a few recipes shared by my class.

Today’s guest blogger is Hasini Wanninayake. She is currently an international studies undergraduate at Kelaniya university and plans to join the foreign service after her graduation.

Seeni Sambol

This is a side dish that my mother often makes at home. It can be eaten with hoppers, kiribath or in a sandwich.

Time taken: 30 mins

Serves 5 to 6

Ingredients:

Onions – 5, large
Maldive fish – ¼ cup (optional)
Ginger – 1”, crushed
Garlic – 2 or 3 cloves
Cinnamon – 1 piece
Cloves – 3 or 4
Curry leaves – 1 or 2 sprigs
Rampe – 1 or 2” piece
Sera/ Lemongrass – ½ “ pieces
Tamarind paste – 1 tsp
Vegetable oil – 4 to 6 tbsp
Sugar – 2 tsp
Salt, to taste

Method:

Peel and finely chop the onions.
Mix the first nine ingredients (onions to lemon grass) in a bowl with a pinch of salt.
Heat the oil in a shallow pan.
When the oil starts to sizzle, add the mixed ingredients to the pan and keep stirring for 10 to 15 mins.
When the onions are well fried and dry, add the tamarind paste to the pan.
Continue stirring until the ingredients are well mixed.
Fry a few minutes longer until the mixture turns dark brown.
Add the sugar and keep stirring for a little while longer. Adjust salt, if required, before removing from heat.

Recipe source: Hasini Wanninayake.

Kimbula Buns

I think every bakery in Sri Lanka makes Kimbula buns. I first tried it out at my hostel canteen during my Peradeniya years and it became my regular breakfast along with a cup of coffee for the three years that I was there.

Kimbula buns – Kimbula means crocodile in Sinhala, is a crunchy sugar bun roughly sprinkled with sugar and has an elongated shape which earned it the name of one of the largest and common reptile in the country.

Since I enjoy baking the most when it comes to cooking, I decided to try making some kimbula buns. I found a couple of recipes on the web and a couple of weeks ago, I tried out this recipe. While Lani and her daughter Lorena love the milky taste of it, it was not what I was used to or expecting and it simply had too much milk powder.

So, today, I decided I would try my own vegan version of the bun, based on Kitchen Cici’s bread recipe that I had tried out and enjoyed, and see if it could come anywhere close to the taste that I was used to. The resulting buns were still not what you would find in the bakery but they turned out good and as close as I got to the actual.

Here’s my amalgamated recipe of the recipes mentioned above, with my twist of vegan substitutions:

Kimbula Buns

Preparation time: 1 hour + dough resting time (1 hour + overnight in refrigerator)

Baking time: 30 mins

Makes 10 buns

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour – 4 ½ cups
Almonds – a handful, ground
Flax seeds – 1 tbsp
Margarine – 4 tbsp
Brown sugar – ¼ cup
Salt – ½ tbsp
Instant yeast – 2 tsp
Warm water – 1 cup + 3 tbsp

Method:

Add the sugar and yeast to a cup of warm water and let it rest for 10 mins in the mixing bowl.
Roughly process the flax seeds with 3 tbsp water in a blender and transfer the mixture to the bowl. I didn’t process it to a fine powder.
Add the margarine and ground almonds to the bowl. Mix well.
Then, stir in gradually the flour ½ cup at a time, so that there are no lumps, until a smooth dough is formed. I was planning on using only 3 cups but ended up adding another 1 ½ cups so you may reduce or add more flour, as required, to make sure that the dough is not watery or too sticky.
Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and let it rise for an hour.
Punch down the dough that has doubled in size and transfer to a floured surface.
Roll out the dough in parts, using a rolling-pin, so that it is easier to manage and cut out triangles.
Take each triangle and roll it by hand, starting from the broader end of the triangle and finishing with the tip.
Arrange them on the baking tray and place them in the refrigerator overnight so that you can bake them in the morning.
Preheat oven at 170⁰C/ 338⁰F for a couple of mins.
Brush the buns with melted margarine and sprinkle brown sugar over them.
Bake for about 30 mins.
Serve the buns fresh with a hot cup of coffee for breakfast.

Recipe source: Ahila Thillainathan.

Mini Halapa

The first time I had halapa was during a train ride from Peradeniya to Colombo. An elderly woman with a basket got onto the train at one of the stations and I noticed that a lot of people were buying her food. I was curious and decided to try out the snack she had made as I did not recognize it. It turned out to be halapa and I was intrigued. It became quite a ritual during my undergraduate years to buy this particular woman’s halapa during my travel home.

I didn’t come across halapa again till many years later when I visited some remote villages in Hambantota district and was served halapa that people had made in their homes. Hence, the reason why I have placed this snack as a specialty of Hambantota besides the fact that kurakkan is primarily grown in Hambantota district and the northern province.

I decided to try my hand at making this snack today and after searching the web, found a recipe for it on srilankanmenu.blogspot.com that I have slightly adapted here according to my taste. While I have used banana leaves, I would recommend using kanda leaves, if you can get hold of it because it adds a unique flavour and texture to the halapa.

Mini Halapa

Preparation time – ½ hour

Cooking time – 15 mins

Makes 12 mini halapa

Ingredients:

Kurakkan flour – 1 cup
Coconut – ½ cup, freshly scraped
Coconut treacle or kithul pani/ treacle – 4 tbsp
Salt, to taste
Banana or Kanda leaves

Method:

Lightly heat the freshly scraped coconut in a saucepan and add the coconut treacle. Stir, while the mixture thickens. Remove from stove and allow it to cool.
Add a pinch or two of salt to the kurakkan flour. Stir in the warm water and make the dough.
Cut the banana leaf into 12 smaller pieces or use the kanda leaves.
Taking a ball of the dough, spread it on a piece of banana leaf. Take a pinch of the coconut mixture and place it in the center and spread it lightly over the dough. Fold the leaf in half and ensure the edges are folded.
Steam the halapa for 15 mins.
Serve warm with tea.

Papaya Curry

Today’s recipe is that of a papaya curry recipe. While papaya is used in pickles or acharu here, a curry is not so common but my mother likes experimenting with her curries and this turned out delicious. This is also the dish I am sharing for Angie’s Fiesta Friday #2.

Papaya Curry

Time taken: 20 mins

Serves 3

Ingredients:

Papaya, half-ripe – 1 cup, chopped
Onion – ½
Capsicum/ Malu miris – 1
Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
Cloves and Cinnamon – 1 tsp, crushed powder
Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
Lime – 1 ½
Sugar – 1 tbsp
Low fat oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and lightly fry the chopped onion, malu miris and fennel seeds for 2 minutes.
Then, add the chopped papaya, crushed chillies and the crushed cloves and cinnamon powder to the pan, together with ¼ cup of water. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
Squeeze and add the juice from 1 ½ limes and the sugar to the pan. Mix well and cook for another 5 minutes. Add a little water if the liquid dries up before that.
Serve with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Cassava Thuvaiyal

Today’s guest post is by Krishanthy Kamalraj, who has previously shared her recipe for murukku on this blog. We have another of her lovely snack recipes, with a short intro about the dish from her, today.

Cassava Thuvaiyal

This is somewhat different from Cassava curry. Those days, people in Jaffna usually had cassava plants in their home garden for their own consumption. My grandmother used to make this dish, when we wanted a spicy and filling snack. She dug out immature cassava yam from the garden and made very delicious cassava thuvaiyal for us.

Ingredients