Pavatkai Curry

Today’s recipe is a slightly different variation of bitter gourd/ pavatkai curry that my mother makes. The recipe for the more common way that my mother makes this dish is given in this earlier post.

Continuing with my sharing of Indian movie songs, today I would like to feature one of my mother’s favourite singers – S.Janaki and a few of the songs I like of hers. Janaki was born in 1938, started her musical training at the age of 3 and her movie musical career in the latter part of 1950s. According to my wikipedia source, she has sung around 20,000 songs in various Indian languages and won state and national awards for some of them. She made headlines last year when she refused to accept the Indian government’s prestigious award – the Padma Bhushan.

The first song here is from K.Balachander’s movie Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu (translation: The colour of poverty is red, 1980) starring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi. The music composition is by M.S. Viswanathan (MSV), who was more popular between the 50s to 70s. The singers are SPB and S. Janaki.

I couldn’t resist sharing another song from one of my favourite movies, Salangai Oli/ Sagara Sangamam (1983) whose music was composed by Ilayarajaa. This time it is a solo song by S.Janaki and the two actors/ dancers, Kamal Haasan and Manju Bhargavi, in the song are trained classical dancers.

The last song is a relatively more recent song from the movie Sangamam (literal translation: Confluence, 1999) and the music was composed by A.R.Rahman. The singers are Janaki (lead vocalist), Unnikrishnan and Madhumita.

Hope you enjoyed the movie clips and do try out this bitter gourd recipe!

Pavatkai Curry

Servings: 3
Time: 40mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

Bittergourd – 1
Tomato – 1
Onion – ½
Green chilli – 2
Tamarind extract – 1 cup (light)
Coconut milk – ¼ cup
Sugar – 1 tbsp
Salt, to taste
Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Wash and cut the bittergourd into small pieces. Keep aside.
Chop the chillies and onion. Lightly fry them in a tablespoon of oil in a pan.
Add the chopped bittergourd to the pan and continue frying for a few minutes.
Add the tamarind juice and salt to the pan. Cover and let it simmer for around 10 to 15 mins until the curry thickens.
Chop the tomato and add it to the pan together with ¼ coconut milk.
Add a tablespoon of sugar and salt to taste.
Cover and cook for another 15 mins.
Remove from heat and serve warm with rice.

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.

Since 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
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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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:

Wash the green leaves and chop them up finely.
Cook the green leaves with a little salt and water for about 10 mins till the water dries up. Remove from heat.
Slice the green chilli, onion and capsicum.
Add a tbsp of oil to a separate pan and lightly sauté the three.
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.
Transfer the contents of the pan to the cooked green leaves. Mix and serve warm with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

Karunai Kilangu Curry

The recipe I would like to share today is my mother’s recipe for karunai kilangu/ elephant yam curry.

I also felt like sharing some music clips. Today is the birthday of Ilayaraaja, one of South India’s famous movie soundtrack composers, who has composed music for more than 1000 movies (around 4500 songs). His debut in South Indian cinema was in the 70s and while he continues his work to this day, I think the peak in his musical career was in the 80s. Having grown up watching a lot of South Indian movies, I felt like sharing three of my favourite Ilayaraaja compositions in honour of his 71st birthday.

The first song is from one of my all-time favourite movies Salangai Oli (translation: the sound of a dancer’s ankle bells, 1983), the Tamil dubbed version of the Telugu movie Sagara Sangamam. The movie has a Bharathanatyam theme and has a great cast including one of India’s best actors, Kamal Haasan (featured in the song). The movie won the Indian national award for best music direction and best male playback singer (S.P.Balasubrahmanyam).

The second song is from one of my mother’s favourite movies, renowned director K.Balachander’s movie Sindhu Bhairavi (1985). This movie’s story has a Carnatic music theme running through and a great soundtrack which again won Ilayaraaja the Indian national award for best music direction. The movie also won the best actress award (Suhasini Maniratnam, featured in the song) and the best female playback singer award (K.S.Chitra who made her Tamil movie music debut through this song) for the song shared here. This song is a fusion of folk and Carnatic music.

The third song that I am sharing here is a song from Maniratnam’s movie Thalapathi (1991). It’s simply a lovely short song.

Hope you enjoy the music as much as you enjoy the curry! 🙂

Karunai Kilangu Curry

Servings: 3
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: average
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Ingredients:

Yam – 1 cup, chopped
Brinjal – 1 cup, chopped
Onion – ½
Fenugreek – 2 tsp
Tamarind extract – ½ cup
Coconut milk – ½ cup
Curry powder – 1 to 2 tsp
Salt, to taste
Oil, as required

Method:

Boil the yam for about 15 mins. Then, roughly chop into smaller pieces.
Lightly fry the chopped brinjal and yam. Keep aside.
In a pan, add a tablespoon of oil and lightly fry the chopped onion and fenugreek for a few minutes.
Add the lightly fried brinjal and yam to the pan.
Add the tamarind and milk to the pan together with curry powder and salt to taste.
Cook the curry for about 15 mins and then remove from heat.
Serve with rice.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan

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

Turmeric Coriander Bread with Seeni Sambol

May this special day of Wesak, which celebrates the day of birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha, bring you peace!

Blue water-lily – the national flower of Sri Lanka

I am sharing this post on Angie’s challenge for this month with my recipe for turmeric coriander bread filled with seeni sambol. Ever since I started baking last year, I have found that I enjoy baking different types of bread. One of my favourite and successful breads is rosemary olive oil bread (recipe source: Jessie@A Hint of Honey). Using her recipe as a base, I have sometimes played around with herbs to make different versions of the bread and today, I would like to share my Sri Lankan twist to this bread.

Turmeric Coriander Bread with Seeni Sambol

Servings: 4
Time: minimum 3 hours
Difficulty: average
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Ingredients:

Flour – 2 to 2 ½ cups, approximately
Turmeric – 1 tsp
Coriander – 2 to 4 tbsp fresh coriander leaves (as per your taste) or 1 tsp dried powder
Pepper – pinch
Salt – ½ tsp
Sesame/ Gingelly oil – 2 tbsp
Warm water – 1 cup
Sugar – 1 tbsp
Yeast – 2 tsp
Seeni Sambol – recipe provided in this post

Method:

Stir in 1 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp yeast in 1 cup of warm water in a mixing bowl and let it sit for about 10 mins till it becomes frothy.
Sift the flour and set aside.
Add a cup of flour to the yeast mixture and add the salt, turmeric, pepper, chopped coriander or powder to the mixing bowl.
Mix well before adding the sesame oil and add the remaining flour ¼ cup at a time till the dough is formed. Knead for a few minutes till it is smooth.
Lightly dab the mixing bowl with a little oil and cover, leaving the dough to rise for about an hour.
Transfer the dough to a floured surface and roll out the dough.
Spread the seeni sambol mixture over the surface. Starting from one end, roll the dough into a log.
You could leave the dough as a log or connect the ends to make a round bread or cut into 8 equal pieces. If you cut into 8 pieces, make each piece into a ball ensuring that the ends are closed and that the filling is not seeping out of the dough.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased baking tray. Cover and refrigerate till about 30 minutes before you plan to bake.
Leave the tray out in the kitchen for about 30 minutes before brushing the bread with either a little melted margarine or dissolved sugar.
Bake the bread at 175⁰C/340⁰F for 20 mins. Check at intervals as the baking time differs depending on the oven.
Serve warm with a nice vegetable soup.

Sweet Yoghurt Rice

It is nice to have something sweet to welcome the weekend. So, today’s recipe is sweet yoghurt rice, a very easy and yummy dish to make. It has been a long time since I participated in one of Angie’s Fiesta Fridays so I am sharing this post in Fiesta Friday #15.

Today’s featured music is of a special percussion group called Elephant Foot.

The first piece that I am sharing here, Rainforest, is what caught my attention some years ago. Since then, I have kept my ears open for more of their music. So far, they have released three albums.

The second is from their most recent album – Elephant Foot.

Enjoy the drum beats of Elephant Foot/ Hikkaduwa drummers as you tuck into this delicious treat!

Sweet Yoghurt Rice

Time taken: 25 mins

Serves 3

Ingredients:

White raw rice or Basmathi rice – 1 cup
Yoghurt – ½ cup
Raisins – 2 tsp
Nuts (any) – 2 tsp
Banana – ½ or 1, sliced
Honey or coconut treacle, as required

Method:

Boil the rice and let it cool.
Whisk the yoghurt well to make it creamy. Fold in the raisins and chopped nuts.
Little by little, add the rice to the creamy mix.
Chill for at least 5 mins.
Serve with banana slices and drizzled with honey or coconut treacle.

Recipe source: Raji Thillainathan.

Spicy Curd Rice

The rice dish for today is a tasty spicy, curd rice.

While not a fan of hip hop, I felt like featuring three musicians who are primarily considered hip hop artists though several of their songs cross over to other genres.

The first is Iraj Weeraratne. His songs like J town story, Gemak Deela caught my ears and eye over the years. In more recent years, he seems to be more engaged in composing or singing in Indian movies and multi-country collaborative song productions. The song that I am sharing here is from his debut album a decade ago – ‘J town Story’ with Krishan featuring Yawuwanan and Infaas.

The second featured musician is Ranidu Lankage. A R&B and hip hop musician and an economics graduate of Yale university, his first solo album released a decade ago was a huge success. Here, I am sharing the song that made him famous – Ahankara Nagare (the remix version with Iraj). While I haven’t listened to many other songs of his, I did like a recent song that he dedicated to all mothers – Amma mathakai nam.

The third featured musician of the day is Ashanthi de Alwis. She has released four music albums and featured in several songs of Bathiya and Santhush (I shared a recent production of the popular music duo in last week’s post). The song of Ashanthi’s shared here is an upbeat, catchy song ‘Papare’ featuring Krishan.

Spicy Curd Rice

Time taken: 30 persons

Serves 3

Ingredients:

Rice – 1 cup
Curd – ½ cup
Crushed chillies – 1 tsp (optional)
Chickpeas – 1 tbsp, fried
Dried red chillies – 2, chopped (adjust according to taste)
Onion – ½ , chopped
Fenugreek – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Sesame/ Gingelly oil – 1 tbsp

Method:

Lightly fry the chopped onion, fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and chopped dried chillies in a tablespoon of sesame oil.
Add the crushed chillies and fried chickpeas to the pan.
Next, add the yoghurt and mix well before adding the boiled rice.
Stir well before removing from heat and serve immediately.

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.

Kokis

Today’s New Year traditional dish recipe is that of Kokis. It is a type of fried cookie which I used to think was typically Sri Lankan. However, during my Indian culinary journey last year, I came across Ruchik Randhap’s Mangalorean cuisine site and there was a recipe for Kokis (referred to in Mangalore as Kokkisan or Rose cookies). One of my friends from Sweden, Malin, then informed me that kokis reminded her very much of the Scandinavian traditional cookies called Rosettes. I guess the cookie found its way to India and Sri Lanka during the Dutch era here.

The only difference in Sri Lanka is that unlike in the rest of the countries where it is a very traditional Christmas cookie, in Sri Lanka it is part of the Sri Lankan New Year food (celebrated primarily by the Buddhists and Hindus in the country) and not part of the Christmas cuisine.

Kokis

Time taken: 1 ½ hours

Makes 35 to 40

Ingredients:

Rice flour – 500g
Turmeric – ½ tsp
Coconut milk – 1 cup
Water – ½ cup
Egg – 1 (optional)
Salt, to taste
Oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Mix all the ingredients together to make the batter.
Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat.
Prepare the kokis mould by placing it in the oil until it is heated.
Plunge the mould into the batter until it is coated and then place it in the oil pan.
Using a skewer or pointed end of a spoon or fork, gently slide the kokis off the mould as soon as it starts to puff up and is easy to slide it off without crumbling it.
Fry the kokis until golden brown and remove from pan.
Repeat the process by heating the mould in the oil for a few seconds before plunging it in the batter. This allows the kokis batter to first coat the mould and then to slide off without sticking to the mould.
Store in an air-tight container.

Recipe source: Lalitha Senadheera.

Konda Kavum

It’s been two weeks since the New Year celebrations. I asked a friend of my mother to share a few recipes of the traditional dishes she made during this time. She shared three of her recipes which I will be sharing this week.

The first is Konda Kavum, a snack my mother is particularly fond of since her childhood.

Konda Kavum

Time taken: 1 ½ hours

Makes 25 to 30 kavum

Ingredients

Rice flour – 4 cups
Brown sugar – 1 cup
Vegetable oil margarine – ½ cup (100 g)
Coconut milk – 1 1/3 to 1 ½ cups (300 ml)
Cardamom – 2 or 3
Kithul pani/ palm jaggery treacle – ½ cup
Oil, for deep-frying

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl to make the batter. Set aside for 30 mins so that the ingredients can mix well.
Heat the oil in a pan.
Scoop two tablespoon of the batter into the pan.
Plunge a long stick skewer in the middle of the batter holding it in place.
Turn the batter with the spoon as it gets cooked while rotating the skewer rapidly, like a spinning top but keeping it in one place.
The batter soon puffs out and a tiny mound forms at the center. Continue the rotation until the kavum is fully cooked.
Remove the kavum and place in a tray lined with grease absorbing paper. Repeat the process until the batter is finished.
Store in an air-tight container.

Recipe source: Lalitha Senadheera.