Category Archives: Vegetarian

Mashed pumpkin salad

This is a simple and quick to prepare recipe of my mother’s, which is a huge hit with visitors. My mother generally likes experimenting. She can also replicate something she has once tasted. As this dish is something that falls under the two, I have labelled it under ‘Colombo’ (the city where different Sri Lankan cuisines meet) – which is also the city my mother has lived nearly three decades so far and where she feels most at home.

Mashed Pumpkin Salad

Time taken – 20 minutes

Serves – 4

Mashed pumpkin salad

Ingredients

  • Pumpkin – 250g
  • Coconut milk – 2 or 3 tbsp
  • Green chillies – 2
  • Onion – 1 medium sized, chopped
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Lime juice

Method

  1. Chop the pumpkin into chunks, does not need to be small, and leaving the skin on. Remove seeds and clean the chunks.
  2. Boil the pumpkin until it is tender and cooked, for around 15 minutes. Remove skin and mash the pumpkin.
  3. Add the coconut milk, green chillies, onion to the mashed pumpkin and mix well.
  4. Season with salt and pepper, according to your taste, as well as some lime juice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Aadi Kool

The first day of July in the Tamil calendar is called ‘Aadi’. It roughly corresponds to July 15 on the global calendar.

On this day called ‘Aadi pirappu’ or the birth of the month of Aadi, my mother makes a special dish usually for breakfast called the ‘Aadi Kool’.

Here’s my mother’s recipe for Aadi Kool:

Time taken: 45 minutes

Serves: 5 – 6

Ingredients

  • Dry roasted rice flour – 1 cup
  • Dry roasted green gram – ½ cup
  • Jaggery or brown sugar – ½ cup (can be adjusted as per your taste)
  • Chips of coconut – ½ cup
  • Coconut milk – 1 ½ cup
  • Water

Method

  1. Boil the green gram, which has been previously dry roasted, in one litre of water in a pot.
  2. Midway during the boiling, add the coconut chips (not grated but little pieces chipped off from a fresh coconut).
  3. Take 2 or 3 tbsp of the roasted rice flour and add a little hot water to make a paste. Make tiny balls from this rice flour mixture and add it to the boiling pot.
  4. After a few minutes of boiling, add the rest of the cup of rice flour into the boiling pot, slowly stirring it in.
  5. When the mixture starts boiling, add the coconut milk and the grated jaggery and leave it to simmer for another 10 minutes.
  6. Take the pot off the heat and serve the Kool in little bowls.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.