Category Archives: Non-Vegetarian

Around the World #3: Carrot Sambol and a Round up!

Check out Indu @Indu’s International Kitchen tour of Sri Lankan cuisine.

Indu's International Kitchen

DSC_1214Its time for a round up of all the Sri Lankan recipes that I have made. I have been ogling at and drooling over countless recipes and I did end up making 7 different ones and have more lined up on my pinterest page that I hope to make soon!  My virtual journey has made me even more determined to visit Sri Lanka some day.  The cuisine just resonates with me so much because of the similarities between Kerala and Sri Lankan way of cooking. The liberal use of coconut and the abundance of seafood and spices! Gosh the recipes are so varied – There are simple salads like this carrot sambal that are made using fresh ingredients and serve as a side/ accompaniment to spicy rich dishes.  Then there are stuffed breads,  spicy chicken appetizers like spring rolls/cutlets and delicious curries using coconut milk.  The desserts are amazing too and mostly use rice…

View original post 90 more words

Potato Layered Pie

This week’s recipe is the last of the five recipes sent in by Trevor Martil. I am bringing this recipe, together with some lovely music from Senegal, to Fiesta Friday.

Today’s featured musician is Youssou N’Dour. The first clip is from an 80s concert of Le Super Etoile de Dakar.

The next clip is a music video (1994) composed by Youssou N’Dour, Neneh Cherry, Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp.

Hope you enjoyed the songs and do send me your feedback if you try out the recipe given below! 🙂

Potato Layered Pie

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: average
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 250g flaky pastry
  • 250g potatoes
  • 150g boiled minced meat (vegetarians can substitute this with mushroom or vegetarian sausage)
  • 30g butter or vegetable oil margarine
  • 1 egg
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • MD ginger paste and garlic paste
  • 1 tablespoon MD tomato sauce and chilli sauce
  • onions
  • curry leaves
  • 30g cheese
  • parsley and chopped tomatoes, for garnish

Method:

  1. Make flaky pastry and keep aside.
  2. Stir-fry onions, curry leaves, ginger and garlic paste, boiled minced meat or vegetarian substitute and boiled mashed potatoes.
  3. Mix the tempered ingredients well.
  4. Add a beaten egg, sauces and seasoning.
  5. Roll the pastry cut into squares.
  6. Sprinkle cheese and parsley and the potato mixture. Roll it to a cone shape.
  7. Bake for 30 minutes.
  8. Garnish with parsley and tomatoes.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Surprise Delight

This week’s recipe is from Trevor Martil, who shares another of his mother’s favourite recipes – a dessert she named ‘surprise delight.’ I am bringing this recipe together with some lovely songs, from a country I visited three years ago, to Fiesta Friday.

While there were several highlights of my trip, the most inspiring was the visit to Robben Island. And yes, I was also introduced to some south African music while there. Today’s music features some of the South African music that I enjoyed starting with Mama Afrika – Miriam Makeba.

The other clip for today is from the Soweto Gospel Choir.

Hope you enjoyed the music and do send me your feedback if you try out the recipe given below! 🙂

Surprise Delight

  • Servings: 8
  • Difficulty: average
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons low sugar mixed fruit jam
  • 1 1/2 cups mixed fruit cordial
  • 1 can cocktail fruits
  • 1 tablespoon condensed milk
  • 2 cups cake crumbs
  • 60g cashew nuts
  • 60g sugar
  • 3 dessertspoons corn flour
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 2 egg whites
  • 2 teaspoons gelatin or agar-agar
  • 1 packet strawberry jelly (jelly, 2 cups water, 15g china moss)

Method:

  1. Mix cake crumbs with mixed fruit jam, cashew nuts and press into shallow dish. Leave to set.
  2. Add cordial, water, corn flour, gelatin to a pan and cook till it thickens.
  3. Take off heat, add condensed milk and stiffly beat in egg whites.
  4. Mash mixed fruits, spread over cake crumbs.
  5. Pour the cordial custard over it.
  6. Make the jelly.
  7. Once set, chop the jelly and spread it over the custard.
  8. Sprinkle nuts.
  9. Chill and serve.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Sri Lankan Chicken Curry

Re-blogging Indu’s Sri Lankan chicken curry post. Thanks for sharing it on your blog, Indu!

Indu's International Kitchen


IMG_5109


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…

View original post 236 more words

Chicken with Broccoli

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!

Chicken with Broccoli and Spinach

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 1 chicken breast
  • 150g broccoli
  • 100g spinach leaves
  • onions
  • ginger paste and garlic paste (Trevor’s mother prefers using the Sri Lankan MD brand)
  • 1 tablespoon chili garlic sauce (Again, Trevor’s mother has mentioned the MD brand)
  • oil, for tempering
  • chili powder
  • turmeric
  • cumin seeds
  • fresh ginger and garlic, to taste
  • salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

  1. Grind the cumin seeds, ginger, garlic and 50g spinach leaves to a paste. Keep aside.
  2. Cut chicken into large pieces, marinate in ginger and garlic paste and sauce for 30 minutes.
  3. Allow to cook in own juice.
  4. Add oil and stir-fry, adding the chopped onions.
  5. Add ground ingredients, the remaining spinach and the broccoli.
  6. Add 1/2 cup milk together with chili powder and turmeric as per your taste. Allow to simmer.
  7. Serve with steamed rice.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil.

Savoury Rice

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!

Savoury Rice

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: average
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 250g cooked rice
  • 150g chicken (vegetarians can substitute this with tofu or mushroom)
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 capsicum chili
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon soya sauce (Trevor’s mother prefers to use Sri Lankan MD brand)
  • turmeric
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • chili powder
  • ginger paste and garlic paste (Again, Trevor’s mother prefers the ready-made MD brand)
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 30g green peas
  • 2 eggs
  • cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, star anise
  • curry leaves
  • 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock (vegetarians can substitute this with vegetable stock)
  • parsley
  • coriander leaves

Method:

  1. Temper spices, star anise, onions, curry leaves.
  2. Add cooked rice, 1/4 cup milk, turmeric. Allow to simmer.
  3. Add green peas, eggs and stir in a tablespoon of butter.
  4. Serve and keep aside.
  5. Cut chicken into small pieces, marinate in soya sauce, and place in a pan.
  6. Cook till water is absorbed.
  7. Add oil and stir-fry adding all vegetables, onions, ginger, garlic sauces and 1/2 cup chicken stock.
  8. Cook and take off heat with gravy.
  9. Pour over rice.
  10. Sprinkle parsley and coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Recipe source: Trevor Martil

 

Capsicum with Eggs

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.

IMG-20140611-WA0000

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!

IMG-20140611-WA0001

Courtesy of Refinceyaa Patterson

Capsicum with Eggs

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 lb (~100g) capsicum
  • 2 potatoes cut into small pieces
  • 1 large tomato
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 large onion sliced
  • curry leaves
  • 1 oz Maldive fish (optional)
  • a teaspoon of salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 dessert spoon oil
  • 1 cup coconut milk

Method:

  1. Wash and cut the capsicum into four slices (lengthwise).
  2. Add salt, turmeric, curry leaves, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and the capsicum slices to a pan together with a little water.
  3. Cover the pan and cook for a few minutes.
  4. When the water dries up, add the oil and the optional Maldive fish to the pan and fry the contents for a few minutes.
  5. Now break the eggs over the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
  6. Add a cup of the first extract of coconut milk to the pan.
  7. Bring the curry to a boil and take it off the fire.

Recipe source: Refinceyaa Patterson.

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.

Rushda saladTime 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:

  1. Make the salad dressing by mixing olive oil, vinegar, pinch of sugar, mixed herbs and finely crushed garlic. Keep aside.
  2. 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.
  3. Toast the roughly cut tomatoes in a wok or pan over low heat.
  4. Meanwhile, slice the boiled eggs, bell peppers and cube the avocado.
  5. Assemble the ingredients on the salad plate, in an eye-catching way.
  6. 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.

seeni sambalTime 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:

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

Recipe source: Hasini Wanninayake.

Odiyal Kool

Decided to take a break this week and re-post a few recipes from the initial days of this blog.

This is a traditional recipe from the North of Sri Lanka made from a palmyrah product. My mother tells me her grandmother used to make this for them on special occasions. While this is typically a spicy sea-food dish, it can be a vegan dish if one omits the seafood.

So, I am sharing my great-grandmother’s odiyal kool recipe, as remembered by my mother.

The base for this kool is ‘Odiyal’, a healthy and nutritious root that is dried before making into a flour. One can purchase the ‘odiyal flour’ from Katpaham marketing outlets around Sri Lanka, run by the Palmyrah Development Board, and might be found at Sri Lankan stores outside of Sri Lanka. However, if ‘odiyal flour’ cannot be obtained, corn flour can be tried out as a substitute.

Odiyal Kool

Cooking time – 45 minutes

Serves: 8 – 10

Ingredients

  • Odiyal or Odiyal Flour – 1 cup
  • Chopped mixed vegetables (brinjal/ katharikkai, jackfruit seeds/ palakottai, yardlong beans/ paithangai, small green leaves/ pasali keerai or murungai ilai, manioc, ash plantain) – 100g each
  • Chopped mixed seafood (prawns, crab meat, squids etc.) – 100g each, omit if vegetarian
  • Boiled rice – ½ cup
  • Dried red chillies – 5- 10, depending on your desired level of hot spicy
  • Cumin seeds – 1 tbsp, can add another tablespoon if you like it really spicy
  • Pepper powder – 1tbsp, can add another tablespoon if you like it really spicy
  • Tamarind extract – ½ cup
  • Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
  • Salt to taste
  • Water – 2 litres

Method:

  1. Grind the odiyal into flour or use the ready-made odiyal flour.
  2. Dry grind the cumin seeds, red chillies and pepper and keep aside.
  3. Boil the vegetables in a pot with half litre water.
  4. Boil the seafood in a separate pot with half litre water.
  5. Then, mix the boiled vegetables and seafood and add another litre of water, along with the tamarind extract.
  6. As the water comes to a boil, slowly stir in the odiyal flour, avoiding lumps.
  7. Add the boiled rice to the pot.
  8. Add the ground spice mixture and the turmeric powder to the pot and salt to taste. Let it come to a boil.
  9. You can add a little water to adjust the consistency to your liking, e.g. if the water has dried up or you prefer a watery Kool.
  10. Serve hot in medium-sized bowls.

Recipe Source: Raji Thillainathan.