Tag Archives: Greens

Salad Colombo

Since there were a couple of different mangoes in the house, I felt like using some in a salad. I was also curious about trying out tea in a salad dressing so concocted this – Salad Colombo. Why Salad Colombo? Because I used locally produced ingredients from different parts of the country brought together in Colombo. So, why not Salad Colombo? 🙂

Salad Colombo

I am taking this crunchy, tangy, bitter-sweet salad over to Angie’s FF#122, co-hosted this week by Aruna@Aharam and Mollie@The Frugal Hausfrau and for the first time, the party at Throwback Thursday #44, hosted by Quinn@Dad What’s 4 Dinner, Mollie@The Frugal Hausfrau, Carlee@Cooking with Carlee, Meaghan@4 Sons ‘R’ Us and Alli@Tornadough Alli.

I have been listening to Coldplay the whole day so decided to feature a song I liked.

Hope you enjoy the salad and the featured song for this week.

Salad Colombo

  • Servings: 1
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Lettuce leaves
  • Mango – ½ (large) or 1 (small)
  • Pomegranate – 2 tbsp

Pomegranate and lime infused Orange pekoe tea dressing:

  • Lime/ orange juice – 1 tbsp
  • Pomegranate juice – 1 tsp
  • Tea –  1 – 2 tsp
  • Salt and pepper, to taste (optional)

Method

  1. Clean and chop up the lettuce leaves and arrange on a plate or bowl.
  2. Add sliced mango and pomegranate to the plate.
  3. Prepare the salad dressing by preparing a strong black tea and transferring about 2 tsp to a little bowl.
  4. Add the freshly processed pomegranate juice to the tea. Let it sit for a few minutes before adding the lime juice. (I prefer lime to orange juice for the dressing)
  5. If you wish, add salt and pepper, to taste. I didn’t add any in my version preferring the tanginess of the lime to be enough but my mother preferred adding a pinch of salt and pepper.
  6. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve immediately.IMG_0234

 

Summer Salad

We had a spell of unbearably warm weather the last couple of months here in sunny Colombo. It’s just this week that the dry spell has been broken with rain showers. Cooling salads became a regular part of our meals during the last several weeks so I felt like sharing a salad post this week. A simple, colourful and cooling salad.

summer salad

Instead of the usual music videos that I share with my food posts, this week, I am extending a special invitation to you to join Fiesta Friday. I am delighted to co-host Angie‘s Fiesta Friday #119 with Diann@Of Goats and Greens. Fiesta Friday is a linky party initiated by Angie, the Novice Gardener. The fiesta is a congenial place to share your post of the week, usually food posts, and interact with the other party-goers by checking out their party submissions and commenting. Everyone is welcome to bring their post of the week to the party and check out the link party guidelines, if it is your first time. Click on the image below to join the party 🙂

Fiesta Friday Badge Button I party @

Hope you enjoy the salad as well as join in the fiesta! 🙂

Summer Salad

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Carrot – 1, medium
  • Beetroot – ½
  • Onion – ½
  • Grated/ scraped coconut, fresh – ½ cup
  • Green chillies – 2 or 3
  • Gotu kola (scientific name: Centella Asiatica) – ½ cup
  • Tomato – 1
  • Cucumber – 1
  • Lime – 1
  • Salt and pepper, to tasteIMG_0208

Method

  1. Lightly fry the chopped onion and chillies in a frying pan. Add the grated coconut and gotu kola leaves to the pan and stir fry for 2 – 3 mins.
  2. Transfer the contents of the pan to a food processor and process it.
  3. Add the juice of half a lime and salt, to taste, to the ground gotukola mix.
  4. Clean and grate the carrot and beetroot separately.
  5. Divide the juice of the remaining half of the lime between the grated carrot and beetroot. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Arrange the salad on a plate with the green gotu kola mix in the center surrounded by the grated carrot and beetroot.
  7. Add the sliced cucumber and tomato to the salad plate.
  8. Enjoy the cooling salad on its own or with a little rice.

salad

 

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Mulai Keerai Curry

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.

Mulai keeraiSince 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.

Now, for the recipe… 🙂

Mulai Keerai Curry

  • Servings: 3
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Ingredients:

  • Mulai keerai – 1 cup, chopped
  • Green chilli – 1
  • Capsicum – 1
  • Onion – 1
  • Tomato – 1
  • Salt, to taste
  • Crushed chilli – to taste
  • Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Wash the green leaves and chop them up finely.
  2. Cook the green leaves with a little salt and water for about 10 mins till the water dries up. Remove from heat.
  3. Slice the green chilli, onion and capsicum.
  4. Add a tbsp of oil to a separate pan and lightly sauté the three.
  5. Chop the tomato and add it to the pan. As per your taste, add salt and crushed chilli and continue to lightly fry for a few more minutes.
  6. Transfer the contents of the pan to the cooked green leaves. Mix and serve warm with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

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.

Salad

As part of the Eid Special series,

(d) Salad

Preparation time: 5 – 10mins

Serves 4

Salad

Ingredients:

  • Orange – ½, peel removed
  • Apple – ½
  • Tomato -1 small
  • Onion – 1 small
  • Chillies – 2 or capsicum – 1
  • Salad leaves – 1
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • Sugar – 1 tsp, can be adjusted to taste
  • Lime juice – 1tbsp (Optional: can use yoghurt instead of lime juice)

Method:

  1. Chop up the vegetables and fruits.
  2. Make the salad dressing by mixing salt, pepper, sugar and lime juice.
  3. Toss the salad with the dressing.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.