Kiri Koss

Today’s guest blogger is Indika and her favourite recipe is Kiri Koss.

Kiri Koss

Cooking time: 30 mins

Serves 5

Ingredients:

3 cups of unripe Jack-fruit
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 green chillies
2 cups coconut milk
curry leaves
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp chillie powder
salt to taste

Method:

Clean and de-seed the the Jack-fruit. Cut the Jack-fruit into thin long stripes. Clean the seeds and cut them into two.
Mix the Jack-fruit, the seeds and all the other ingredients and the the coconut milk in a pan.
Put the pan on a medium flame, cover and cook for about 30 mins, until the jack-fruit is well done.

Recipe source: Indika K.

Polos and Kos Mallung

Jackfruit, both the unripe and ripe fruit, is very popular in Sri Lanka. The unripe jackfruit is cooked in different styles across the country. My mother and I like the Southern style. My mother’s unripe jackfruit dishes therefore are a slightly adapted version of her friend’s recipes for polos and kos mallung. While I will certainly post the long and traditional way of cooking polos when someone sends me the recipe for it, today I would like to share the adapted recipes that my mother uses.

(a) Polos

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 4

Ingredients

Unripe jackfruit/ kos/ palakkai – 2 ½ cup (250 g), chopped and cleaned after peeling off skin
Chillies – 2
Coriander seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Cloves – 3
Cinnamon – small piece
Cardamon – 3
Ginger – ½”
Garlic – 3 – 4 cloves
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Rampe leaf/ pandan
Onion – ½, large and chopped
Freshly scraped coconut – ¼ cup
Salt, to taste – 1 tsp
Tamarind extract – ¼ cup or Goraka/ Garcinia Cambogia – small piece
Water – 1 ½ cups

Method:

Put the cleaned and chopped up raw jackfruit in a pot. Add 1 ½ cups of water and cook for about 15 – 20 minutes till the water dries up. Remove from heat and drain off the water.
Dry roast the chillies, coriander and cumin, grind them and add to the pot.
Crush the ginger and garlic and add the ginger-garlic paste to the pot.
Add the cloves, cinnamon and cardamom together with the chopped onion, curry leaves and rampe leaf to the pot.
Blend ¼ cup of freshly scraped coconut with 2 cups of water. Strain and add the coconut milk to the pot.
Add the goraka piece or tamarind extract to the pot.
Add salt to taste and mix all ingredients in the pot well.
Put the pot back on the stove and cook for 10 minutes.
Then, reduce to low heat and simmer for about 30 mins. If the ingredients are scaled up, the simmering time also needs to be increased. For e.g. if 1 Kg of jackfruit is being cooked, the simmering time will need to be at least 2 hours.
If you prefer having more gravy in your polos curry, add a little coconut milk and cook for a few minutes more before removing from heat.
Serve with rice.

(b) Kos Mallung

Cooking time – 25 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Young, unripe jackfruit/ kos/ palakkai – 2 cups, finely chopped after peeling off the skin and cleaning it
Salt – ½ tsp + more, as per taste
Pepper – ½ tsp
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Garlic – 4 – 5 cloves, chopped
Green chillies – 2
Onion – 1, small, chopped
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Scraped coconut – 1 tbsp (optional)
Lime juice – 1 tsp
Low fat oil (canola or sunflower) – 1 tbsp
Water – ½ cup

Method:

Marinate the finely chopped unripe jackfruit flesh and seed with ½ tsp salt, pepper and turmeric powder. Keep aside for about 10 minutes.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and sauté the chopped garlic, chillies, onion and curry leaves for 2 minutes.
Add the marinated finely chopped jackfruit to the pan. Mix well.
Add ½ cup water and test for salt, adding more if required. Cover and cook on low heat for 10 minutes.
Uncover after 10 minutes and if there is still water in the pan, cook till the water dries up.
If you like adding scraped coconut, you can add the freshly scraped coconut now and remove from heat.
Add 1 tsp lime juice. Mix well and serve hot with rice.

Recipe source: Lalitha Senadheera and Raji Thillainathan.

Mixed Veggie Idli with Sambal

My mother’s idlis and vadais are famous amongst family and friends. So, the two are regularly made at home. Unfortunately, I have never been fond of either and used to often eat instant noodles whenever they were being made at home. On the rare occasions that I did eat them, it had to be only that made by my mother. However, I became a fan the first time I tasted my mother’s experimental mixed veggie idli with sambal. I still don’t eat idlis or vadais outside of my home but I am no longer fussy when idli is on the dinner menu at home.

So, today, I am sharing my mother’s recipe for the mixed veggie idli and sambal.

Mixed Veggie Idli

Cooking time: 10 – 15 mins + Soaking and fermenting time: around 12 – 24 hours

Makes 16 idlis

Ingredients:

Urad dal (Black gram) – ½ cup
Basmathi or samba rice – ½ cup
White raw rice – ¼ cup
Carrot – ¼ cup, grated
Leeks – ¼ cup, grated
Onion – ¼ cup, grated
Green chillies – 2, finely chopped
Fennel seeds – ½ tsp
Curry leaves, finely chopped
Coriander leaves, finely chopped
Baking powder – 1 tsp (optional)
Salt, to taste
Oil

Method:

Soak the urad dal, samba or basmathi and white raw rice separately for a minimum of 6 hours. Overnight soaking is better.
Grind the dal and rice together with a little water to a thick batter consistency, much thicker than pancake batter.
Cover and keep for 6 hours.
After six hours, heat a little oil in a pan and lightly sauté the fennel seeds, chopped onions, curry leaves for a few seconds before adding the carrots, leeks and chillies and fry lightly. Remove from heat and cool.
Stir in the sautéed vegetable mixture and the chopped coriander leaves into the batter mix. Add salt, to taste, baking powder (optional) and a little water so that the batter is easy to pick with a scooping spoon.
Pour the batter onto the idli molds on an idli steamer and steam for about 10 mins.
This batter mix makes 16 idlis.
Serve hot with sambal.

Note: For those who do not have an idli steamer and wish to simply try out this recipe once, the alternative would be to pour the batter into a small bowl placed in a larger bowl with water and steamed, similar to a steamed pudding. The steamed idli can then be overturned onto a plate or tray and then cut into pieces. This would mean though that you would not get the standard or usual shape of idlis and would need to repeat the process a couple of times till the batter mix runs out. Then again, if you do end up liking what you eat, you would probably want to invest in a regular idli cooker with a four or five tiered idli stand for the next time around.

Sambal

Preparation time: 5 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Scraped fresh coconut – 1 cup
Dried red chillies – 5, chopped
Onion – 1, medium sized, chopped
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Oil

Method:

Heat a little oil in a pan and roast separately the chopped red chillies, then the curry leaves, chopped onion and finally the scraped coconut and remove from heat.
Mix all and dry grind them to make the sambal.
Serve with the mixed veggie idli.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Mushroom curry

My mother tells me that my grandmother was very fond of wild mushrooms and she liked picking them fresh. It seems that mushrooms sprout overnight after a heavy rainfall with a lot of thunder but they turn poisonous once the sun rises and they bloom. My grandmother used to go to her field just before dawn and pick the mushrooms, with its stalks, which grew under a particular huge tree. There were also snake holes around that tree where snakes did live but my grandmother was quite a fearless woman.

While her children and grandchildren no longer neither live near fields nor would we know how to identify good mushrooms and when we should pick them, my grandmother’s fondness for mushrooms has been transferred to everyone at home.

So, here’s my grandmother’s mushroom recipe as remembered and very often replicated at home by my mother.

Mushroom curry

Cooking time: 15 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients

Mushrooms (Button/Agaricus or Crimini) – 1 cup, sliced
Garlic – 3 or 4 cloves
Ginger – 1” piece
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Coconut milk – 1 cup (thin or ½ cup coconut milk mixed with ½ cup water) + ¼ cup thick (optional)
Curry powder – 1 tbsp
Mixed dry roasted spice powder – fennel, cardamom, cinnamon and clove (3C + fennel) – 1 tsp
Salt, to taste

Method

Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan and sauté the garlic, ginger and curry leaves.
When the aroma begins to waft about, add the sliced mushrooms and mix well.
Add 1 cup of thin coconut milk and add curry powder and salt. Cook for around 10 to 12 mins.
Add the mixed dry roasted spice powder together with ¼ cup milk, if the curry has dried up or if you prefer it with gravy, and let the curry simmer for a few minutes before removing from heat.
Serve hot with rice or rotis.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Mulai keerai aviyal

This is my grandmother’s recipe, as often cooked at home by my mother. Since I was on an Indian culinary journey last month, I realize that this recipe resembles a simpler variant of the Kerala avial, sans the curd.

Mulai keerai aviyal

Cooking time: 10 – 12 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Amaranth greens/ mulai keerai/ thampala – 2½ cup, washed thoroughly and finely chopped
Carrot – ½ cup, sliced
Chilli – 1, chopped
Onion – 1 small, chopped
Garlic – 1 or 2 cloves, chopped
Salt to taste
Water
Scraped coconut – 1 tbsp

Method:

Put the washed and chopped vegetables in a pot with ½ cup of water and salt. Cook till the veggies are tender and the water dries up.
Add the scraped coconut, mix well and cook for another 2 mins.
Serve hot with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Kiribath with pol sambol and seeni sambol

This is my mother’s version of the traditional South Sri Lankan breakfast. It is very much part of the Sinhalese cuisine and a must during New Year celebrations and birthday breakfasts. I like kiribath, more so than the milk rice equivalent in Tamil cuisine called pongal. Therefore, my mother makes kiribath occasionally at home for breakfast. While I will be posting other kiribath recipes when sent in by friends, I am posting today my mother’s recipe for this coconut milk rice dish and accompaniments.

The recipes below serve 3 – 4 persons.

(a) Kiribath

Cooking time: 20 to 25 mins

Ingredients:

Rice – 1 cup
Coconut powder – 3 tbsp
Salt, 1 tsp or to taste
Water

Method:

Place the rice in a rice cooker and add water to about 2 inches above the surface of the rice. Add the coconut powder and mix. For those who prefer using fresh coconut milk, they can add the coconut milk of medium consistency instead of adding water and coconut powder.
Add salt to the rice and milk mixture and boil the rice.
Once the coconut milk rice has been cooked, it can be put in bowls. Before serving, upturn the molded rice onto a plate or tray.
Serve with pol sambol, seeni sambol and bananas.

(b) Seeni Sambol

Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients:

1 onion, large
Fennel seeds – ½ tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Cinnamon – 1” stick
Tamarind extract – ½ cup extracted from 1 small ball of tamarind
Crushed chillies – 1 tsp
Sugar – 1 tsp
Low fat oil (canola or sunflower) – 1 tbsp

Method:

Chop up the onion in thin, long slices.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan and sauté the fennel seeds, curry leaves and pieces of the cinnamon stick. Add the onions and sauté on low heat, for about 5 – 7 mins, till the onions lightly brown.
Add the tamarind extract of medium consistency and crushed chillies to the pan and cook till the onion sauce thickens.
Add 1 tsp of sugar, mix well and cook for about 2 mins more before removing from heat.
Serve with kiribath.

(c) Pol Sambol

Cooking time: 5 to 10 mins

Ingredients:

Scraped coconut – ½ cup
Dried red chillies – 3
Onion – 1 small
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Low fat oil (canola or sunflower) – 1 tsp

Method:

Chop up the chillies, onion and curry leaves and lightly sauté in a little oil.
Remove the chillies, onion and curry leaves from the oil and mix with the scraped coconut.
Add salt to taste and grind the mixture to a sambol texture.
Serve with kiribath.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Salad

As part of the Eid Special series,

(d) Salad

Preparation time: 5 – 10mins

Serves 4

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:

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

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Potato curry

(c) Potato curry

Cooking time – 20 mins

Serves 4 – 5 persons

Ingredients:

Potatoes – 2 large
Onion -1 medium sized
Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
Rampe leaf/ pandan
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Water – 2 cups
Non-fat milk – ½ cup + ¼ cup (optional) – Can substitute with coconut milk, if vegan
Curry powder – 2 tsp
Salt, to taste
Low fat oil (Canola or sunflower) – 1 tbsp

Method:

Cut the potatoes into small chunks.
Heat a little oil in a pan. Saute the fenugreek, onion, rampe and curry leaves for a few seconds.
Add the potatoes to the pan, mix well and fry for about two minutes till there is a nice aroma of fried potatoes.
Add 2 cup of water and ½ cup of milk. Add the curry powder and salt to taste.
Cook the curry for around 10 to 15 mins. When the liquid dries up, it can be removed from heat.
If you like the curry in gravy, add the optional ¼ cup milk and cook a few minutes more before removing from heat.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Stuffed Chilli Fry

As part of the Eid Special series,

(b) Stuffed chilli fry

Cooking time:

Serves 4

Ingredients

Capsicum/ Kari Milagai/ Malu Miris – 4
Ash plantains – 2
Chillies – 1 or 2
Onion – ¼
Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
Salt and pepper, to taste
For batter:
Wheat flour – ¾ cup
Salt – ¼ tsp
Water – 1 cup
Bread crumbs – 100g or 1 cup
Low fat oil (canola or sunflower) – deep fry + 1 tbsp (for sauté)

Method:

Steam the capsicums.
Make a small hole at the top of each capsicum and remove the insides of the capsicum, which you can discard. Keep the hollow capsicum.
Boil the ash plantains. Remove skin and keep the skin aside for a peel salad.
Chop up or mash the boiled ash plantain (sans skin) and mix with the chopped onion and chillies and fennel seeds. Lightly sauté the ash plantain mixture, adding salt and pepper to taste.
Fill the insides of the capsicum with the lightly sautéed ash plantain mix and keep aside.
Make a batter by mixing the wheat flour, salt and water. The consistency of the batter should be similar to that of a pancake batter.
Dip the stuffed capsicum in the batter and roll it in bread crumbs.
Repeat the dipping in the batter and rolling in the bread crumbs for a double coating of the stuffed capsicum.
Deep fry the stuffed capsicum.
For those who prefer non-veg, substitute ash plantains with tinned fish (pilchard or salmon).

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Fried rice

To celebrate Eid al-Fitr, my mother prepared a special lunch today: fried rice with potato curry, stuffed chilli fry, salad and wattalapam jelly pudding. So today, I will share my mother’s recipes for all five dishes, which comes under experimental and fusion cooking, in a series of posts.

(a) Fried rice

Cooking time: 30 mins

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Basmathi rice – 2 cups
Carrot – ¼ cup, chopped
Green peas – ¼ cup
Leeks – ¼ cup, chopped
Onion – ¼ cup, chopped
Mixed 3C spice powder – Clove, cinnamon, cardamom powder – 2 tsp
Kesari powder – ½ tsp (Can use biryani powder or saffron or turmeric powder)
Low fat margarine – 50g or 3 tbsp
Cinnamon – 1 ~ 2’’ stick
Rampe leaf/ pandan
Salt, to taste

Method:

Put the rice in a rice cooker and add water to about an inch above the rice surface. Add a cinnamon stick, rampe leaf and a little salt and cook the rice.
Sprinkle a little salt on the chopped veggies and keep aside.
Heat the margarine in a pan on low heat.
Add the mixed 3C spice powder and sauté for 2 seconds before adding the chopped vegetables.
When the veggies become tender, add the kesari powder.
Add the cooked rice and mix well.
Serve hot.

Recipe Source: Raji Thillainathan.