When you have some ripe mangoes at hand and you don’t feel like eating them just sliced as you usually do, then you could try out this quick to make, dessert for one.
Willard Mangoes
Mango pudding
Time taken: 10 mins
Serves 1
Ingredients:
Mango – ½ cup, ground
Sugar – 2 tbsp
Vanilla essence – ¼ tsp
Orange juice – 1 tbsp (optional)
Yellow colour – drop or two
Corn flour – 3 tbsp
Raisins – ½ tsp
Cashewnuts – ½ tsp, crushed
Vegetable oil margarine – 1 tsp
Method
Blend the mango without water.
In a saucepan, heat the ground mango with 2 tbsp sugar, ¼ tsp vanilla essence and 1 tbsp of water, stirring continuously for a minute or two. If you like a little citrus flavour to your pudding, add a tbsp of orange juice.
Add the corn flour, stirring in a tbsp at a time. Continue stirring for 3-4 mins. If making for more than one person, consider using corn starch dissolved in water instead of corn flour.
Add the raisins and crushed cashewnuts and stir for a min.
Add the margarine and mix well. Remove the saucepan from stove and transfer the pudding to a mold.
Roti with sambal has always been one of my comfort foods. Today’s recipe is one of my mother’s new versions of vegetable roti – this time, with beetroot.
Beetroot Roti
Time taken: 40 mins
Makes 4
Ingredients:
Beetroot – ½ cup, grated
All-purpose flour -1 cup
Onion – ½ , chopped
Green chillies – 1 or 2, chopped
Coconut – 1 tbsp, scraped
Salt – as required
Low fat oil – 2 tbsp
Method:
Heat the grated beetroot with ¼ cup of water and a pinch of salt in a saucepan. Cook the beetroot till the water dries up.
After the cooked beetroot has cooled, add the flour, chopped onion, chillies, scraped coconut, salt and oil to the grated beetroot.
Mix well and stir in water to make the roti dough. Divide the roti dough into 4 balls.
Let the balls of dough rest for about 15 mins before rolling out the dough balls to make a flattened roti disk.
Cook each of the roti on a griddle, with 3-4 mins on each side.
During my online search for blogs with a focus on Sri Lankan recipes, I came across Rice and Curry. I invited the author to share one of his recipes on this blog and he kindly agreed. So today’s guest blogger is Skiz Fernando and he will be sharing one of his favourite vegan recipes.
As a second-generation Sri Lankan-American, one of my main connections to the Motherland has been food. My mother used to make us rice & curry a couple of times a week, and we also used to get it at the various dinner parties thrown by the small community of Sri Lankans living in Baltimore, Maryland, where I grew up. Aside from cutlets and patties, which are any Sri Lankan kids’ favorites, I also developed a special affinity for brinjal curry. Since these dinner parties were usually ‘pot-luck,’ with everyone contributing a dish, I came to discover that the same lady was always responsible for bringing the brinjals, and that lady was none other than Aunty Manel.
Eggplant curry
All the Sri Lankan ladies living in Baltimore were great cooks, so it just goes to show how special Aunty Manel’s brinjal curry was by the fact that it returned by popular demand to table after table, and dinner party after dinner party. I was not even really into vegetables at the time, but these brinjals were too sublime and tasty to be vegetables. It probably helped that they were deep-fried–as anything deep-fried tastes good–but it wasn’t obvious to me at the time. Only years later when I bugged Aunty Manel for the recipe, did I realize how labor-intensive this dish actually was, as you had to deep fry the eggplant before sautéing it with spices and coconut milk. Today, even though I have the recipe, the dish is challenging, but still worth the time and effort. Speaking as one who never liked eggplant, I always tell people that this is going to be their favorite way to eat the vegetable from now on.
Pan Asian: Aunty Manel’s Special Eggplant Curry
1 lb. (500 g) eggplant
1/4 tsp. turmeric
oil for deep-frying
2 tbsp. oil
1 onion, sliced
2-3 green chilies, sliced
1 sprig curry leaves
2 inch (5 cm) stick cinnamon
3 cloves
1 tbsp. raw curry powder
1-2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. brown mustard seeds, ground
1/2 cup (125 ml) coconut milk
salt to taste
3 cloves garlic (A)
2 inch (5 cm) piece ginger (A)
1 tsp. sugar (A)
1 tsp. salt (A)
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (A)
1/2 cup (125 ml) water (A)
1.) Wash and cut eggplant into 2 in (5 cm) strips. Rub with salt and a dash of turmeric.
2.) Deep fry eggplant until golden brown. Drain on newspaper.
3.) Blend (A) list ingredients in a food processor.
4.) Heat oil in pan. Sauté onions, green chilies, and curry leaves until onions are translucent. Add cinnamon, cloves, and dry spices.
5.) Add (A) and bring to a boil.
6.) Reduce heat and add eggplant, coconut milk and salt. Toss well and simmer for 3-5 minutes.
Recipe Source: Skiz Fernando.
Short bio of Skiz Fernando:
Journalist, musician, and filmmaker, Skiz Fernando is the author of Rice and Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking (Hippocrene Books, 2011), a New York Times notable cookbook. He guided TV host Anthony Bourdain on a culinary tour of Sri Lanka for an episode of the popular Travel Channel series, No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain.
Accompanying the mango kesari is one of my favourite fruit juices – mango juice.
Mangoes have high levels of vitamin C and A and a generous amount of antioxidant compounds, iron and calcium but it would be wise to consume mangoes in moderation as they are also recommended for those seeking to gain weight.
While I usually like a simple juice by blending the fruit with water, I did like my mother’s version recently.
Ingredients (for 1 cup):
Mango – ½ cup, chopped
Orange juice – 1 tbsp
Mint – 2 or 3 leaves
Sugar – 1 tsp
Method:
Simply blend all the ingredients together with water and then sit back and enjoy a delicious drink.
Clean and chop the beans and carrots. Boil the beans and carrots in water, adding a little salt, for about 10 mins.
Separate the cooked carrots from the beans. Drain the beans, keeping the water aside for re-use. Transfer the cooked beans to the serving dish.
Heat a tbsp oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion, ginger, garlic and chilli for a couple of mins before adding the cooked carrots and continuing to stir-fry for an extra minute or two.
After cooling slightly, blend the carrot mixture from the pan.
In a sauce pan, heat the previously cooked water, together with the ground carrot mixture, that was kept aside. Adjust salt, as per taste.
Pour the carrot sauce over the beans and serve warm.
Today, I will share one of my mother’s latest cake experiments. She got very much caught in her fruit cake series that she wanted to bake this triple layer cake. I call it the cake extravaganza and it very much reminded me of Tian-Tian’s birthday cake with the many ingredients put into it and the time taken. It did taste good, though personally I would have preferred each of the three layers as a separate cake.
Triple layer veggie and fruit cake
Time taken: 1 ¾ hours
Serves 15 to 20
Ingredients:
Layer 1 (bottom layer): Beetroot – ½ cup, steamed
Layer 2 (middle layer): Apple – ½ and Guava – ½ , Mint leaves – 3 or 4
Layer 3 (top layer): Carrot – 1 large, steamed
All-purpose flour – 1 ½ cups ( ½ cup for each of the layers)
Sugar – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers)
Oats – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers)
Vegetable oil margarine – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers) + 1 tbsp (for icing)
Banana – 3 tbsp, mashed (1 tbsp for each of the layers)
Water – ¾ cup ( ¼ cup for each of the layers)
Baking soda – ¾ tsp ( ¼ tsp for each of the layers)
Baking powder – 1 ½ tsp ( ½ tsp for each of the layers)
Vanilla essence – 3 tsp (1 tsp for each of the layers)
Lime juice – 5 tbsp + 1 tsp (for icing)
Green food colour – 1 tsp (for second layer)
Orange food colour – 1 tsp (for third layer)
Icing sugar – 4 tbsp (for icing)
Method:
Steam the beetroot and carrot for about 10 mins.
Separately blend the steamed beetroot and carrot in a processor.
Next, finely chop up the apple and guava. Grind a few mint leaves.
Cream ¼ cup margarine and ¼ cup sugar each in three mixing bowls.
To the first bowl, add the pureed beetroot to the mix and to the third bowl, add the pureed carrot to the mix. To the second bowl, add the finely chopped apple and guava together with the ground mint leaves.
Add ¼ cup of oats and 1 tbsp of mashed banana to each of the three bowls and mix well.
Stir in the lime juice (2 tbsp each for the first and third bowl and 1 tbsp for the second bowl) and 1 tsp vanilla essence each, together with ¼ cup of water, to each of the three bowls and beat the respective mixture well.
Add a tsp of green food colour to the second bowl (apple and guava mix) and a tsp of orange food colour to the third bowl (carrot mix)
Divide the flour into three ½ cup flour piles. Sift each with ¼ tsp baking soda and ½ tsp baking powder. Add a sifted ½ cup flour mix to the mixture in each of the three bowls.
Whisk the cake batter until smooth.
Transfer the beetroot cake batter to the baking tray and spread the batter evenly.
Then, transfer the apple, guava and mint cake batter to the baking tray and spread the batter evenly over the beetroot mix to form the middle layer.
Transfer the carrot cake batter on top of the apple batter and spread it evenly.
Bake the cake at 170⁰C/ 338⁰F and bake for 45 mins – 1 hour.
Whisk together 4 tbsp icing sugar, 1 tbsp vegetable margarine and 1 tsp lime to make a light icing and spread it thinly over the cake, after it has cooled.
Slice the cake into 15 or 20 pieces and serve with a cup of plain or fruit tea.
Ingredients:
A Taste of Sri Lankan cuisine 