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…
Today’s guest blogger is Refinceyaa Patterson. She mentions that this dish is a creation of her aunt who runs a pre-school in Trincomalee and enjoys cooking. This dish is generally cooked at her home on Sundays or special occasions as it is a favourite of their family.
Courtesy of Refinceyaa Patterson
In the continuing South Indian movie song theme, today’s featured singer is Sujatha Mohan. She started playback singing while still at school in the 1970s. After a hiatus in her singing for most of the 80s, she became popular again when A.R.Rahman had her sing in several of his songs in the 90s. She won state awards for some of these songs composed by A.R.Rahman.
The first song clip is from the 2007 movie Mozhi (translation: Language).
The second song clip is another live performance, this time of Sujatha and Mano, of the song from Bharathiraja’s movie Kizhakku Cheemaiyile (1993). With music composed by A.R.Rahman, this was the song that made me notice Sujatha as a singer. I guess I am partial to folk tunes.
The last clip is not a song by Sujatha but that of her daughter Shweta Mohan, who started her playback singing career in 2006. In this clip, Shweta was invited for a surprise appearance on the set of a music contest where her mother is one of the judges. She sings a few lines of a poem by Bharathiyar, my mother’s favourite poet.
Hope you enjoyed the voice of Sujatha Mohan and do let me know how this recipe turned out for you!
During a recent visit of my father to Jaffna, he brought back some mangoes from my mother’s childhood home. My mother said that the particular mango tree had been planted by her father. As the mangoes were half-ripe, cooking mangoes, my mother decided to make some chutney out of them. This is a simple, quick to prepare chutney. I have shared earlier a mango chutney recipe that my mother makes when she wants to store the chutney for a few days. I am sharing this instant mango chutney recipe with the Fiesta Friday group as well.
Continuing with the theme of featuring south Indian singers whose voice I have enjoyed and appreciated along with the recipes this month and next, today’s featured musician is another of my mother’s favourite singers – renowned south Indian singer K.J.Yesudas. A classical trained musician, he began his movie playback singing career in the early 1960s. Yesudas is said to have sung and recorded over 50,000 songs over his five decade career in most Indian languages as well as foreign languages such as Arabic and Russian. I do not know how he managed the volume because it roughly translates to about 1000 songs a year. He was awarded the Padma Shri (1975) and the Padma Bhushan (2002) by the Indian government.
While selecting Yesudas song clips to share here, I decided to share first an excerpt from one of his older classical concert clips as he is foremost a classical Carnatic musician and I like his Carnatic music repertoire better than his songs for movies.
The second song is from the 1968 Malayalam movie Bharymar Sookshikkuka. This clip is a live performance of K.J. Yesudas with Chitra and Sujatha.
Wrapping up today’s music selection, the last clip is from a very famous popular Tamil song of Yesudas from the 1992 movie Mannan.
Hope you enjoyed the voice of K.J. Yesudas and do try out this chutney!
Today’s recipe is a slightly different variation of bitter gourd/ pavatkai curry that my mother makes. The recipe for the more common way that my mother makes this dish is given in this earlier post.
Continuing with my sharing of Indian movie songs, today I would like to feature one of my mother’s favourite singers – S.Janaki and a few of the songs I like of hers. Janaki was born in 1938, started her musical training at the age of 3 and her movie musical career in the latter part of 1950s. According to my wikipedia source, she has sung around 20,000 songs in various Indian languages and won state and national awards for some of them. She made headlines last year when she refused to accept the Indian government’s prestigious award – the Padma Bhushan.
The first song here is from K.Balachander’s movie Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu (translation: The colour of poverty is red, 1980) starring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi. The music composition is by M.S. Viswanathan (MSV), who was more popular between the 50s to 70s. The singers are SPB and S. Janaki.
I couldn’t resist sharing another song from one of my favourite movies, Salangai Oli/ Sagara Sangamam (1983) whose music was composed by Ilayarajaa. This time it is a solo song by S.Janaki and the two actors/ dancers, Kamal Haasan and Manju Bhargavi, in the song are trained classical dancers.
The last song is a relatively more recent song from the movie Sangamam (literal translation: Confluence, 1999) and the music was composed by A.R.Rahman. The singers are Janaki (lead vocalist), Unnikrishnan and Madhumita.
Hope you enjoyed the movie clips and do try out this bitter gourd recipe!
Today’s recipe is another way my mother cooks mulai keerai (amaranth greens, I think the scientific name is amaranthus blitum). I have posted earlier the traditional way it has been cooked in my home across generations.
Since selecting the movie clips that I shared yesterday, I have been listening to lots of 80s and early 90s Indian movie music and remembering the stories behind the songs. I felt like sharing some over the next several posts. If you are not interested in reading about or listening to some south Indian movie songs, please skip directly to the recipe given below.
As today is S.P.Balasubrahmanyam(SPB)’s 68th birthday, I will share a couple of his popular songs. While not having had formal musical training, SPB’s natural inclination towards music made him drop out of his engineering studies and pursue a musical career in the 60s. SPB is most known as a playback singer, having recorded more than 40,000 songs in several Indian languages according to my Wikipedia source. In addition to winning several Indian state and national awards for his songs, he has also composed music for several movies, acted in some and given voice overs for popular actors due to his multilingual skill. The Indian government awarded him the high civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan (2011) and Padmashri (2001) awards, for his distinguished service.
The first is an upbeat song from K.Balachander’s Tamil movie Punnagai Mannan (translation: King of Smiles, 1986). This is the first song that SPB and Chitra sang together and features Kamal Haasan and Revathi. The soundtrack of the movie was composed by Ilayarajaa with A.R.Rahman, then a part of Ilayarajaa’s music team, at the keyboard.
The second clip is from a concert where SPB sings a song of his from the 1979 movie Pagalil Oru Iravu (translation: A night in the day), soundtrack composed by Ilayarajaa.
Hope you enjoyed SPB’s songs from the 80s as much as I enjoyed listening to several and selecting these two.
May this special day of Wesak, which celebrates the day of birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha, bring you peace!
Blue water-lily – the national flower of Sri Lanka
I am sharing this post on Angie’s challenge for this month with my recipe for turmeric coriander bread filled with seeni sambol. Ever since I started baking last year, I have found that I enjoy baking different types of bread. One of my favourite and successful breads is rosemary olive oil bread (recipe source: Jessie@A Hint of Honey). Using her recipe as a base, I have sometimes played around with herbs to make different versions of the bread and today, I would like to share my Sri Lankan twist to this bread.
Stir in 1 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp yeast in 1 cup of warm water in a mixing bowl and let it sit for about 10 mins till it becomes frothy.
Sift the flour and set aside.
Add a cup of flour to the yeast mixture and add the salt, turmeric, pepper, chopped coriander or powder to the mixing bowl.
Mix well before adding the sesame oil and add the remaining flour ¼ cup at a time till the dough is formed. Knead for a few minutes till it is smooth.
Lightly dab the mixing bowl with a little oil and cover, leaving the dough to rise for about an hour.
Transfer the dough to a floured surface and roll out the dough.
Spread the seeni sambol mixture over the surface. Starting from one end, roll the dough into a log.
You could leave the dough as a log or connect the ends to make a round bread or cut into 8 equal pieces. If you cut into 8 pieces, make each piece into a ball ensuring that the ends are closed and that the filling is not seeping out of the dough.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased baking tray. Cover and refrigerate till about 30 minutes before you plan to bake.
Leave the tray out in the kitchen for about 30 minutes before brushing the bread with either a little melted margarine or dissolved sugar.
Bake the bread at 175⁰C/340⁰F for 20 mins. Check at intervals as the baking time differs depending on the oven.
I wish to wrap up the rice series by re-posting a delicious fried rice recipe from the first month of this blog.
To go with this post, I chose to feature two musicians who were born in Sri Lanka and started their music careers here. They have expanded their musical repertoire since moving/ migrating to the west in the 80s and have made some impressive music.
The first musician to be featured today is Carnatic musician Manickam Yogeswaran. While primarily a classical musician, he has worked with several music groups including fusion group Dissidenten on the Instinctive Traveller album and Jocelyn Pook Ensemble on the sound track of ‘Eyes wide shut‘ and ‘Brick Lane.’
This song is a recording of a bhajan at the sacred music and dance festival held in Berlin last year.
I also wanted to share a song from his 2005 album ‘Peace for Paradise.’
Finishing this post with an upbeat song – Herb Alpert and Lani Hall Quintet’s version of Puttin’ on the Ritz from their grammy award-winning album Steppin’ Out. The second musician I am featuring today is Hussain Jiffry, the bassist in this quintet. He has worked with several musicians including Sérgio Mendes and Yanni.
It is nice to have something sweet to welcome the weekend. So, today’s recipe is sweet yoghurt rice, a very easy and yummy dish to make. It has been a long time since I participated in one of Angie’s Fiesta Fridays so I am sharing this post in Fiesta Friday #15.
Today’s featured music is of a special percussion group called Elephant Foot.
The first piece that I am sharing here, Rainforest, is what caught my attention some years ago. Since then, I have kept my ears open for more of their music. So far, they have released three albums.
The second is from their most recent album – Elephant Foot.
Enjoy the drum beats of Elephant Foot/ Hikkaduwa drummers as you tuck into this delicious treat!
Sweet Yoghurt Rice
Time taken: 25 mins
Serves 3
Ingredients:
White raw rice or Basmathi rice – 1 cup
Yoghurt – ½ cup
Raisins – 2 tsp
Nuts (any) – 2 tsp
Banana – ½ or 1, sliced
Honey or coconut treacle, as required
Method:
Boil the rice and let it cool.
Whisk the yoghurt well to make it creamy. Fold in the raisins and chopped nuts.
Little by little, add the rice to the creamy mix.
Chill for at least 5 mins.
Serve with banana slices and drizzled with honey or coconut treacle.
The rice dish for today is lime rice.
The featured musician today is Ravibandhu Vidyapathi, who is one of Sri Lanka’s leading percussionists as well as a classical Kandyan dancer and choreographer. He founded the dance school ‘Ravibandhu-Samanthi Narthanayanathaya’ with his wife.
I like his drum ensemble and have selected a clip from his album ‘Bahu Ranga‘ to share here.
Lime Rice
Time taken: 20 mins
Serves 2 – 3
Ingredients:
Rice – 1 cup
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Lime or lemon juice – 1 or 2 tbsp
Onion – ½, chopped
Dried red chillies – 1 or 2, as per taste
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
Green peas – 2 tbsp, boiled
Salt, to taste
Sesame/ Gingelly oil – 1 tbsp
Method:
Boil the rice after adding turmeric and salt.
Once the rice is boiled and slightly cooled, add the lime juice and mix well. Keep aside to let the rice absorb the lime juice.
Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil in a pan and lightly fry the chopped onion, chillies and fenugreek seeds.
Add the lime marinated rice to the pan and stir fry for 5 mins. Add boiled green peas, if required.
As sambhar refers to a mixed vegetable stew like dish, I thought of mimicking the dish in my featured music groups today.
Starting with Thriloka, a fusion band formed in 2005 blending traditional Sri Lankan folk music and progressive rock.
The second clip features Paranoid Earthling, whose music is a blend of experimental and psychedelic rock. The song shared here was first performed by them on the international peace day in 2008.
The last clip features Chitral Somapala and Civilization One, a power metal band, which is not a Sri Lankan band but I decided to feature them by extending the definition to include the Sri Lankan who launched the band.
Enjoy the Sri Lankan rock music scene as you try out the recipe!
Sambhar Rice
Time taken: 45 mins
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Par-boiled red rice – 1 cup
Carrots – ½ cup, chopped
Beans – ½ cup, chopped
Brinjal – ½ cup, chopped
Mysore dhal – ¼ cup
Onion – ½, chopped
Chilli – 1, chopped
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Tamarind juice – ½ cup
Curry powder – 1 tsp
Pepper – ½ tsp
Garlic cloves – 4 or 5, crushed
Salt, to taste
Method:
Boil the rice and keep aside.
Separately, cook the vegetables (carrots, beans and brinjal) and dhal together with the chopped onion, chilli and curry leaves in a cup of water.
When the water dries up, add the tamarind juice add the curry powder, pepper powder, crushed garlic cloves and salt to the vegetables.
Once the sambhar starts to thicken, add the rice, mix well and let it simmer for 5 to 10 mins.
A Taste of Sri Lankan cuisine 