Pineapple Clove Bread

Today’s recipe is another of my baking experiments. My favourite aspect of cooking is baking. Ever since I tried out Kitchen Cici’s delicious rosemary cheese bread, I have started experimenting with breads. I had originally intended to make pineapple muffins but I guess people at home were kind of tired of my weekly experimental muffins so I decided to switch to bread which I also enjoy making. I adapted Jamie Oliver’s basic bread recipe to include pineapple and cloves. It turned out great so I am sharing it here at the Fiesta Friday. I will not be posting as much over the next twelve months as I did the previous year mainly because I will be away from home. However, I do have some recipes that I am yet to transcribe and post so will try to share at least one each month.

The music feature today is on raï. The first clip is an excerpt of a concert (1990) by Chaba Fadela and Cheb Sahraoui.

The next clip is a recent release of Cheb Khaled, whose song Didi was my introduction to raï music.

Hope you enjoy the music and this delicious bread!

Pineapple Clove Bread

Servings: 8
Time: 45mins + 2 hours proving time
Difficulty: average
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Ingredients:

All-purpose flour – 2 ½ to 3 cups
Water – ¾ to 1 cup, warm but not hot
Instant yeast – 7g
Sugar – 1 tbsp + 6 tbsp
Salt – ¼ tbsp
Ground cloves – ½ tsp + pinch (optional)
Pineapple – 1, medium or small (depending on how much pineapple you want in your bread)

Method:

Take a ¼ cup of the water and add the yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar and pinch of salt. Let the yeast mix rest for about 5 – 10 mins and turn frothy.
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and stir in ½ tsp of ground cloves.
Add the yeast mix to the flour and mix. Gradually add the remaining water little at a time till the flour-yeast mix becomes a soft dough that is not sticky. Knead the dough for at least 5 mins.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover. Let the dough rest for about 30 mins or till it has doubled.
In the meantime, roughly puree the chopped pineapple. (I used it chopped as I rather like to taste fruit chunks in my baked stuff but my mother’s feedback was that it would have been much better as a spread)
Add the pineapple puree and the remaining sugar to a saucepan and warm it over low heat for couple of mins (At this point, I also added a pinch of cloves but my mother feels that it is better not to add the cloves to the pineapple puree but rather directly to the dough). Do not over-heat or cook the pineapple as it will take away its taste. Remove from heat and let it cool.
When the dough has risen, transfer it to a floured surface and punch it down (I like this part).
Roll out the dough and spread the sweetened pineapple puree over the surface. Roll in the dough starting from one end.
Transfer the rolled dough with filling into the lightly greased baking tray and form the shape you want it to be (I like circular loaves). Brush the surface with warm sugar syrup.
Bake the bread at 170⁰C for around 30 mins. The time will vary according to your oven.
Let it cool for at least 15 mins before slicing and serving with some margarine.

Mothaha Muffin Crumble

I have been trying out different muffins over the last few months and I was in the mood of trying out some experimental muffins. I wanted to create some muffins which had a strong leaning towards a Sri Lankan dish. While thinking about using different local non-wheat flours, inspiration struck. I do very much like the delicacy – mothaham or kolukkattai, that my mother makes during special festivals like the ongoing Navarathri festival. I decided to try out the muffin version of this steamed dish and it turned out a cross between a muffin and a crumble. I am sharing it at both my brother’s birthday today as well as bringing some over to Fiesta Friday tomorrow.

The music selection for today focuses on some lovely Persian music. The first group featured here is the Chemirani Zarb Trio, a classical percussion group. I first heard their music when they visited Sri Lanka to perform at the WOMAD concert 2005. The clip I share here is one of their performances at another WOMAD concert.

While searching for Chemirani Trio clips on youTube, I came across a few other Persian groups that I liked. The second clip is a music video by the folk group Zâr Ensemble, formerly known as the Ensemble Shanbehzadeh.

The last clip is a beautiful one by classical singer Homayoun Shajarian and instrumentalist and composer, Tahmoures Pournazeri.

Hope you enjoyed the lovely music as much as I did! As usual, please do share which clip you liked more.

Mothaha Muffin Crumble

Servings: 9
Time: 40mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

Roasted red rice flour – 1/2 cup
All-purpose flour – 1/2 cup
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Salt, pinch
Green gram, de-skinned – 1/2 cup, boiled
Jaggery – 1/4 cup, chopped
Coconut – 1/4 cup, freshly scraped
Cardamom – 1/4 tsp
Margarine – 120g, melted
Oil, as required

Method:

Melt the margarine and let it cool slightly.
Mix the freshly scraped coconut, green gram, jaggery and cardamom in a bowl.
Add the coconut and gram mix to the melted margarine. Stir to mix the contents a little.
Sift the rice flour and all purpose flour together. Add the baking powder and salt and mix.
Add the flour mix to the wet ingredient mix. If the resulting mix is too dry, just add a little oil until it is sufficiently moist.
Bake the muffins for about 25 – 30 mins at 180C.
Serve warm with a hot beverage.

Mango Saffron Cake

I wanted to bake a special cake today to celebrate the birthday of a close friend undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and glaucoma. As there was a ripe mango in the fridge, I decided on a mango cake. Thinking of the spice that I could mix with mango in a cake, I decided to try saffron as I had recently tried out kesari in my muffin loaf and had also enjoyed the Cornish saffron bread that I had baked a couple of months back. Therefore, while both my exotic muffin loaf and this mango saffron cake look outwardly similar, the taste is different.
Of course, on this special day, I wish to feature a very special singer – K.S.Chitra whose birthday coincidentally happens to be today as well. One of my favourite singers, Chitra has won six Indian national awards during her 35 years of playback singing as well as was awarded the Padma Shri in 2005. She has had extensive training in Carnatic music.

As I had already shared her first award-winning movie song in the post featuring music composer Ilayarajaa, I will share a beautiful song clip from her devotional song album, Krishnapriya (2005).

The second clip is a lullaby she sang for the Craft (Center for research in assisted reproduction and fetal therapy) hospital and research center. The center shares this song for downloading from their website with the message, “For our emotionally stressed women and men we hereby give a small gift- A Lullaby of hope that will go straight to your hearts- soothe you and transcend you virtually to the wonderful world of parenthood.” Chitra lost her eight-year old daughter in 2011 and resumed her singing with this track.

The last song clip is her award-winning movie song from Cheran’s movie Autograph (2004) featuring actress Sneha and the Comaganin Raaga Priya orchestra. The music was composed by Bharadwaj and performed by the special blind orchestra while the lyrics was written by P.Vijay (who also won an award that year) and sung by Chitra. The clip I chose to share here has roughly translated subtitles (courtesy of YouTube user Antony Rajabala).

Hope you enjoyed today’s music by one of my favourite singers and the lovely cake!

Mango Saffron Cake

Servings: 8
Time: 45mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

All-purpose flour – 1 cup
Roasted semolina – ½ cup
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Baking soda – ½ tsp
Salt, pinch
Vegetable oil margarine – 100g
Sugar – 6 tbsp (can add more, as per your taste)
Milk (non-fat or vegan substitute) – ½ cup
Saffron threads – ¼ tsp
Vanilla essence – ½ tsp
Mango – 1, chopped
Cashew nuts and raisins, to sprinkle

Method:

Heat the milk with the saffron. Once bubbles start to form, remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool.
Sift the flour together with baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the roasted semolina to the dry ingredients bowl and keep aside.
Chop up the mango and add the vanilla essence to the chopped mangoes in a separate bowl. Let the fruits soak in the essence.
Whisk the margarine and sugar together until creamy.
Stir in the saffron milk and continue whisking.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients bowl, continuously stirring.
Fold in the chopped mangoes and transfer to lightly greased baking pan.
Sprinkle chopped cashew nuts and raisins.
Bake the cake at 170⁰C for around 30 mins. The time will vary depending on the oven.
Let the cake cool off before slicing and serving with a hot cup of Sri Lankan tea. Enjoy!

Mango Mocktail

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).

Hope you enjoy the music and the drink!

Mango Mocktail

Servings: 1
Time: 5-10mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

2 tablespoons mango delight cordial
1/2 teaspoon lime juice
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup chilled plain soda
Crushed mint leaves
Finely chopped apple
Crushed ice

Method:

Blend the first four ingredients together.
Add crushed mint leaves, chopped apple pieces, crushed ice and serve.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Exotic Muffin Loaf

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!

Exotic Muffins

Servings: 8
Time: 40mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

Flour – ½ cup
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Salt – 1/3 tsp
Oats – ½ to 2/3 cup
Brown sugar – 4 tbsp
Cinnamon powder – pinch
Milk – ½ cup
Vegetable oil – 1/3 cup
Vanilla essence – ½ tsp
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.

Ginger Date Cake

As today is my eldest sister’s birthday, I felt like sharing one of her recipes today. I decided to bring one of the cakes she enjoys making to the Fiesta Friday together with some lovely music. The recipe is given below after the music fest.

The featured musician today is Hariharan. He trained in both Carnatic and Hindustani music though he is foremost a prominent ghazal singer and has released lots of ghazal albums. While Hariharan started his playback singing in the late 70s in Hindi movies, he was introduced to the south Indian movie world only in the early 90s by A.R.Rahman. Since then, he has been awarded both state and national awards for some of his songs. Hariharan was awarded the Padma Shri award by the Indian government in 2004.

I first chose to share a ghazal piece from the launch of the album Hazir 2, Hariharan’s second one with tabla maestro, Zakir Hussain.

The second clip is from a concert where Hariharan sings with Chitra one of their songs from the movie Love birds, the soundtrack of which was composed by A.R.Rahman.

While selecting the last clip to share here, I was trying to decide between two songs. One used to be very popular on Sri Lankan television in the late 90s, Krishna Nee from the self-titled Colonial Cousins album of the music duo – Hariharan and Leslie Lewis. The other was a Bathiya and Santhush single with Hariharan. Finally, I decided to share the one with the Sri Lankan musicians.

Hope you enjoy the music as well as the cake!

Ginger Date Cake

Time: 45mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

250g self-raising flour (optional: can reduce the amount of flour and add roasted semolina ensuring that the total is 250g)
250g margarine
250g sugar
5 eggs, separated
250g dates
100g ginger preserve
Vanilla essence

Method:

De-seed the dates and chop them up roughly before letting them soak in a bowl of hot tea.
Chop up the ginger preserve separately and keep aside.
Whisk together the margarine and sugar.
Add the egg yolks and the vanilla essence and continue beating the mixture.
Then add some of the flour, chopped dates and ginger preserve, egg white and mix well before repeating the process till all the ingredients have been mixed well.
Bake at 180⁰C for around 25 minutes.

Date and Walnut Cookies

Today, I would like to share my mother’s recipe for date and walnut cookies. She often substitutes cashew nuts for the walnuts when we run out of walnuts.

I also wanted to mention a start-up that came to my attention recently and thought it might be of interest to those planning travels around Asia. Withlocals.com is a venture, currently covering 7 countries including Sri Lanka, initiated by a group of self-labelled ‘digital geeks with a combined passion for travelling, food and people.’ The interesting part of their services is ‘Eat with locals,’ where local hosts register to offer home-cooked meals. I might take up the offer of Martin (a staff at Withlocals.com) to try one of the eating experiences listed, next time a non-Sri Lankan friend visits me, provided the host is willing to share one of the recipes on this blog.

In the meantime, do enjoy these delicious date and nut cookies! 🙂

Date and Walnut Cookies

Servings: 40
Time: 40mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

Dates – ¼ cup, chopped
Walnut or cashew nut – ¼ cup, chopped
Roasted gram/ Pottu kadalai flour – ¼ cup
All-purpose flour -1 cup
Baking powder – 1 tsp
Oats – ¼ cup
Sugar – 2 tbsp
Cinnamon powder – pinch
Rose water – 1 tsp
Margarine – ¼ cup

Method:

Mix all the ingredients. Add a little water if the mixture is too dry.
Place the cookie dough on a lightly greased tray tablespoon at a time leaving an inch of space between them.
Bake for about 20 mins at 170⁰C/338⁰F.
Store in an air-tight container.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

Mung Kavum

Mung Kavum is another New Year delicacy. I find it similar to payatham paniyaram, a north Sri Lankan festival snack that is usually prepared at my home. The difference is that in the north, it is made a little more spicy by the addition of cumin and pepper.

As I am writing this, I am listening to a new song of Bathiya & Santhush, a popular Sri Lankan band. Sharing it with you as well.

Mung Kavum

Time taken: 1 hour

Makes 25 – 30

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 500g + 250g
Green gram flour – 1 Kg
Pol pani/ Coconut treacle – 3 cups (~700ml)
Margarine – 3 tsp
Cardamom powder – 1 or 2 tsp
Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
Salt, to taste
Oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Warm up the pol pani. Remove from heat.
Add 500g rice flour, green gram flour, cardamom powder and margarine to the warmed up pol pani.
Mix together to form a dough and roll it out. Cut into diamond shapes and keep aside.
Prepare the batter by gradually adding water to 250g rice flour mixed with ½ tsp of turmeric powder and a pinch of salt.
Heat the oil in a pan.
Dip the diamond shapes in the batter to coat it on all sides and then deep-fry.

Recipe source: Lalitha Senadheera.

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.

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