In the brightly lit kitchen at Foodology, Damayanthi Paul is ready with all the ingredients needed to cook up a typical Sri Lankan lunch. And there’s a lot of coconut involved. In fact, every single dish has some form of it. “That’s Sri Lankan cooking for you,” she says.
Apparently, the cuisine shares several similarities with Kerala cuisine, using ingredients like kokum (Malabar tamarind) and pandan leaves to impart a strong, distinct flavour to the dishes. Avocado is also used extensively as it is available commonly all over the island nation. And when it comes to protein, fish is the preferred choice.
A native of Colombo who now lives in the United Kingdom with her hotelier husband, Damayanthi’s interest in cooking began when she was 15. “No one in particular inspired me; it was just my passion that I began working on,” she says with a smile.
One of Damayanthi’s first forays into the industry was when she trained the chefs at the Intercontinental Hotel, Bengaluru, for a Sri Lankan food festival. Since then, she has helped put together several other such festivals in India and in the UK. For the first time, she shared her knowledge in a cooking class, organised by Shree Periakaruppan in Chennai. The day before the session, we meet for a quick private class.
So what goes into a typical Sri Lankan lunch? We start by making a salad of gotu kola, what is called vallarai keerai in Tamil, with grated coconut in it. Then there’s achcharu, which is pickled pineapple and mango. It manages to be spicy, sour and sweet all at the same time, thanks to the salt, peppercorns, chilli powder, mustard, Maldive fish powder, vinegar and sugar added to it. “You can also make this with apples and pears, but not with papaya. The Maldive fish powder is used in a lot of dishes, even vegetarian ones,” says Damayanthi.
One cup of zeeraga samba rice is soaked in cold water, in preparation for the kaha bath. “Kaha means yellow; a pinch of turmeric powder gives it the colour. Usually, samba rice is used, but this is close enough. Even basmati rice can be used,” she says. The rice is cooked in two cups of coconut milk and spiced with cinnamon, black pepper and pandan leaf; the aroma once it’s done is divine. The generous handful of cashewnuts fried in butter (no ghee is used), added to the rice just before it went on the stove, might have had something to do with that.
We get hands on with the fish curry, chopping the vegetables and marinating them. I’m using kokum for the first time in the kitchen and Damayanthi warns me not to be heavy-handed with it. “Earlier, people used to make batches of the fish curry without coconut milk so they could store it for long periods without refrigeration. As needed, they would take the fish, add coconut milk and let it cook through.”
Once the curry is simmering away on the stove, she makes the dough for pol roti using maida, shredded coconut and coconut milk. She deftly flattens the balls of dough on a plate greased with coconut oil. “My mother used to make huge rotis like this, one for each person. I’m following her method on a smaller scale,” Damayanthi says. She makes near-perfect circles while my attempts look like the amoeba diagrams we used to draw in biology classes.
Damayanthi has already made mackerel fish cutlets, which she now fries in, what else, coconut oil. They’re too tempting to resist, so I sample one right off the stove and I’m not disappointed. She has also brought seeni sambal from her own kitchen; the coarse, spicy sauce with a hint of sweetness goes really well with the roti. This is just one out of a variety of raw and cooked sambals that are part of the cuisine, she says.
As we tuck into the hearty meal, Damayanthi says that this is standard fare at home. “I do make the occasional pasta, or cook differently when my daughter visits. She’s 25, and not really interested in this kind of food. But for me, it is the taste of home.”
1 kg seer (vanjaram) fish
2 tbsp roasted curry powder (recipe below)
1 tbsp roasted chilli powder
1 big onion
2 green chillies
1 bunch of curry leaves
2-inch pandan leaf (thazhai)
2 tbsp chopped garlic
1 piece cinnamon
1 tbsp Sri Lankan tamarind paste (kokum)
2 big tomatoes, chopped finely (optional)
1 cup thick coconut milk
4 tbsp coconut oil
Method
Mix the fish in a large bowl with the tamarind paste, roasted chilli powder, roasted curry powder, curry leaves, pandan leaves, garlic and tomatoes. Let it marinate for 15 minutes; then add a glass of water or thin coconut milk.
Heat the coconut oil in a cooking pan on a high flame.
Add chopped onions, green chillies and cinnamon, and fry till golden brown.
Add the fish and lower the flame. Don’t stir too much after adding the fish; stir it before it begins to boil. Cover and let it cook for 15 minutes.
Add the thick coconut milk and let it cook for five minutes.
Serve hot with rice.
Roasted curry powder:
Dry roast 500 gm coriander seeds, 250 gm cumin seeds, 250 gm fennel seeds, 100 gm peppercorns, 100 gm mustard seeds, 50 gm fenugreek, 50 gm raw rice, 10 gm cinnamon and 1 cup of curry leaves till brown. Cool for 15 minutes, then grind till it gets a fine texture. Store it in an airtight container.
Malu Hodhi (Sri Lankan Fish Curry) |
Ingredients |
