Cooking with Amma (2)

The ultimate rice & curry feast

This was an absolutely incredible meal. It looks like a lot of work but with a few helpers for prep, really quite easy and straight forward.  

The helpful prep - 

Chop a huge pile of onions finely as they will be used in many things

Gather fresh curry & pandan leaves

Chop garlic, ginger and pound till a paste forms 

WADE

Soak some lentils (either red lentils or yellow split peas)

Using a grinder, process the lentils to a very coarse paste along with

-        Chopped red onions

-        Chilli flakes (green chillies add extra texture and spice)

-        Maldive fish flakes (or dried shrimp also works)

-        Curry leaves

Season to taste  

Shape into balls with a spoon and fry at low heat with a neutral oil (we used rice bran) 

POTATOES

Boil the potatoes till 80% cooked, basically done – drain all the water

Fry curry leaves till fragrant, then add potatoes and stir to coat

Add 

Salt

Chilli flakes 

Maldive fish powder (ground Maldive fish flakes)

Toss to coat and warm through

Add a small amount of finely chopped onion and cook with lid on for a few minutes 

BEANS in claypot

(We made these with snake beans, but I guess any similar vegetable could be cooked this way)

Chop the beans into small bite sized pieces and place inside the empty claypot

Toss together with

-        Curry powder

-        Turmeric

-        Salt

-        Chilli powder

-        Coconut powder (in lieu of coconut cream)

Once well coated, add water and bring to a boil. Add some pandan / curry leaves if using

Simmer gently till all the coconut clumps have dissolved and the sauce is slightly thickened

DAL

Soak red lentils for an hour or so, and wash thoroughly (eg. 3 times)

Add to the claypot along with onion, garlic & curry leaves

Season with

-        Curry powder

-        Chilli

-        Turmeric

Add enough water for approx 2x the volume of lentils

Bring to boil and simmer till a thick gloopy delicious mess forms  

CHICKEN CURRY

Fry in a generous amount of oil the 3 Cs (cardamom, clove & cinnamon)  till fragrant

Add the ingredients to form the base of the curry

-        Onions

-        Pounded garlic & ginger paste

-        Curry leaves shredded

Add chicken pieces (thigh is best, or any type except breast will do)

Add a generous spoon of curry powder and some natural yoghurt

(Don’t add any water as water may escape from the chicken)

Once coated and cooked, add some fine chilli powder and tamarind

Cook for 10 - 15 min till the sauce is thickened, stirring occasionally

(Optional: can marinate the chicken in yoghurt & spices)

RICE

The centrepiece of this whole feast!

Wash basmati rice and drain well

Use the same flavour profile of the chicken curry – cook in oil onions and the 3Cs (cinnamon & clove & cardamom)

Add rice and toss to coat all the grains with the delicious aromatic oil

Prepare some cold water in which you dissolve some turmeric to make the ideal amount of yellow

Take the rice from the stove and tip into the rice cooker along with the turmeric water

While the rice is cooking in the rice cooker, fry some cashews

Once cooked tip the rice onto a generous platter and scatter with cashews & raisins 

(Words cannot describe how fragrant and delicious this dish is)

Cheat’s version – fry in oil the leftover gravy from the chicken curry with raw rice and proceed with the rest of the steps

ALL TOGETHER...

We also had freshly fried pappadums 

And this refreshing salad of finely chopped carrot (could be grated) and parsley with a generous squeeze of lemon. 

The feast altogether looked like this

My plate... I mean my first plate before I went back for more! 

Finally a little sweet watalappan (spiced coconut custard pudding)... will have to learn how to make this next time!

Cooking with Amma (1)

I went to Melbourne this weekend to catch up with friends and was generously hosted by my wonderful friend Papaya and her family. They are a real interesting and eclectic lot, having lived in Japan (her oldest sister could only speak Japanese when they left!), the US, Samoa and New Zealand before finally settling in Australia.

In my own words I shamelessly invited myself to their place to stuff myself with Lankan home cooking, but I really didn't anticipate how much I would learn about how to cook these dishes! A few simple ingredients put together well can be incredibly tasty. Amma uses no measurements and everything is done to taste (you like this a little more? add more!) I took a few notes on scrap paper and really want to capture how to make this delicious food.

HOPPERS

Hoppers are way easier to make than I imagined. The essential piece of equipment is the hopper pan, a deep concave pan with two handles for optimal swirling

The batter is made of

Rice flour

Coconut cream

(Water if too thick)

Yeast and a little sugar

Mix till it is a thick batter. Leave to ferment till loose and puffy (5hrs or overnight is good)

At the end add some salt, as the fermentation will be affected if salt is added too early

Once it is a thick liquid (a little thinner than pancake batter) with many bubbles, it is ready to be used.

Grease the hopper pan with a little paper towel dipped in butter or excess

Add a generous blob to the bottom of the pan and swirl to coat the sides

(The right amount of batter to add leaves a small residual amount to bubble up at the bottom )

Add the lid and wait patiently. Once it becomes crispy & golden around the edges, it will lift away easily

Serve warm with sambal or any other curries 

Tips from Amma:

Freshly ground rice is delicious, especially red rice but any rice flour can be used

Wait for the batter to be ready… it will depend on the activity of the yeast but don’t start before it is bubbly

Excess batter can be stored in the fridge for instant hopper making

If using a non stick hopper pan cool the pan down by taking it off the stove or dip it in cold water, as the dough will not stick to the sides if it is too hot

If making an egg hopper crack an egg in the pan as soon as the swirling action is done

Amma gave me a hopper pan to take home (talk about the Sri Lankan hospitality!).. I really can’t wait to try this with sourdough!

SAMBAL

This is one of the most popular Lankan side dishes that is absolutely refreshing, uplifting and delicious.

Add to a mortar & pestle

-        Very finely chopped red onion (or any onion)

-        Chilli flakes

-        Maldive fish flakes (apparently a Lankan staple)

-        Freshly grated coconut for coconut sambal (can be bought frozen and defrosted before use)

Pound until a coarse paste forms

Remove from the mortar & pestle. Add salt & lemon juice to taste.

(Apparently this can also be done in a food processor but the pounding action really integrates the flavours well)

STRING HOPPERS

These were quite easy to make too… but sadly I don't think I will ever have the right string hopper paraphernalia 

Mix “string hopper flour” with water until a firm dough forms

(You want the dough to be firm but not too firm or it will be too hard to press through)

Take the hopper maker (looks like a giant garlic press) and load some dough into it

Press the trigger (extremely stress relieving) and do two big circles of the noodles covering the steamer

Steam for 3 minutes or so till cooked and easily dislodged from the steamer

KIRI HODI

This is a very simple yellow coconut cream gravy that goes with string hoppers

Heat coconut cream in a small pot along with pandan leaves, turmeric and ground fenugreek

MILK RICE

Cook rice and coconut cream together till well cooked and bordering on mushy

Tip out into a roasting dish and use the rice scraper to smooth the top pressing the rice down

Leave to cool for a few minutes then slice into squares

You can top each square with a raisin or eat it as is with sambal & curry 

In my kitchen: August 2019

In the depths of winter, it is almost impossible to recall the lightheartedness of summer. Once in a while, there will be a day where the lunchtime sun is warm enough to soothe our weary souls. On other days there are heartwarming foods…

It is just perfect weather now for soup. This one I made with silverbeet stalks, chickpeas and lovely tightly curled pasta from a market in Budapest. With a generous base of paprika and chilli, this was so rich and warming topped with some cheese. The rustic handpainted bowl is from a roadside stall in Romania.

 This sourdough scroll worked out so well for a lazy afternoon tea. I stuffed it with fig jam and butter cookie crumbs. Pulling apart those warm buttery strands was heavenly...  the 3 of us demolished the whole thing. 

I tried Not QuiteNigella’s Biang Biang noodle recipe – they worked out a treat! I didn’t eat them with the recipe sauce, instead opting for a light smattering of vegetables and a spoonful of chilli oil. The next day I ate them in soup, also delicious!

Nothing like hot steaming dumplings in winter! I love how the dough relaxes and becomes supple during resting, and become so much easier to roll after an hour or so. These were stuffed with pork, chinese cabbage, green capsicum and flavoured with ginger and coriander. Another time I also made some with kim chi, my favourite filling. 

I'm also in love with sprinkles I bought from Japan, here served simply on top of cold tofu. 

Onto my Food and Music series...

I made these sourdough fruit buns for the Merewether ensemble. They are basically the hot cross bun recipe without the crosses. I ran out of time to glaze them so the crust set a bit hard, but they still served up nicely with a bit of butter.  We played Mozart’s Clarinet quintet in A major, a few Handel arrangements for wind & strings and also Mozart’s Kegelstatt trio. 

 

My string quartet had a French themed dinner where we ate the most delicious boeuf bourgignon, fluffy Parisian mashed potatoes and veggies along with Barney sourdough baguettes. 

There was also an incredible cherry clafoutis which served as my impromptu birthday cake. We enjoyed this absolute feast along with some French favourites, the Faure piano quartet in C minor and the rich and wonderful Debussy string quartet Op. 11.

Last week it was my turn to make dinner for the quartet and we decided on pasta. Of course it was impossible to incorporate sourdough into pasta, so I made fresh egg pasta. I had no idea fresh pasta was so “easy” to make! It certainly is simple in recipe, I used the 100g flour to 1 egg ratio. There were a few blunders, like when the egg refused to stay inside the flour well and threatened to escape to the floor. 

Then we covered the cellist’s entire kitchen with flour whilst rolling out the pasta, heaps of fun! 

The strands that got stuck to each other got accidentally rerolled into Australia. We are a patriotic quartet.

These turned out so well, springy with just the right amount of bite. We ate this with a simple mushroom lentil tomato & red wine based sauce. On this night we played all our favourites, because sadly we won’t be meeting for the next few weeks while a few of us are busy with travels. There was Dvorak’s American quartet, Schubert’s Death and the Maiden and finally our favourite Beethoven, Op 18 no. 4 in C minor. I adore C minor! For dessert we played a little of Mendelssohn’s Piano trio no. 2 in C minor.

I took this lovely loaf to a piano meetup where a dozen people came together to share their love of the piano. The music was so diverse ranging from the Beatles to serious heavy Chopin works. I performed the Brahms’ Op. 118 Intermezzo in A major and Chopin’s Nocturne Op 9 no. 2.

It has been very slow in the garden because of the chill, with the exception of these baby bok choy that grow year around. We also have lots of coriander that is battling on.

My father is away at the moment but he left me a pumpkin, which I've enjoyed as an ornament on my dining table along with some lovely flowers from his garden.

That's it for this month, thanks for sharing in the food and extra thanks to Sherry for hosting the In My Kitchen series.

The arrival of colour

I’m going to start with this realisation / analogy, inspired by a story that Anita told me about swimming.

One must learn to go from a state of not being able to swim to a state of being able to swim.

First one can stand forlornly by the pool, seeing everyone else glide through the water, seemingly with zero effort.

Then one learns the arm motions and leg motions. One practises them religiously but they seem to make no sense.

One splashes out clumsily into the water, arms and legs flailing, hopelessly not able to replicate what they could do independent of each other.

Perseverance follows for an indeterminate period of time.

Then one day, the arms and legs are moving together, and one is swimming.

The glory of that moment is quickly coupled by a realisation of the lack of grace and control.

Slowly, one acquires the ability to swim quickly or slowly, in different styles.

Finally, one completely unspecial day, without any announcements, one stands by the pool and realises that one can swim.

It is only then that one realises it is impossible to replicate that state of non co-ordinated awkwardness.

It is as if you passed through a gate, and it is a one way gate.

This is perhaps the best analogy I can think of what happened two weeks ago.

On July 16, 2019 when I woke up, I realised I had passed through the gate. I must have felt this once in my life before when I was learning to play the piano, but I have no recollection of that profound moment (if it happened).

Let me try to capture this moment now.

It was the day after an on call shift that had not been particularly busy. The sunlight streamed through the north facing window in my living room, where I sit most mornings and read while drinking coffee. After a bowl of chunky oats and my usual coffee, I thought it would be a good time to play the violin.

These winter mornings have been cold, and I often play standing in the sun trying to warm myself up. That seemingly unspecial day, I was immediately struck by the sound that came forth. I stopped and asked myself if something was amiss – was I particularly sleep deprived? No. Happy or sad? No. My mind felt even and "normal", there was no perturbation that was evident.

Yet somehow as I played, I realised that something had changed inside me. It is as if the connection between my soul and the music had been strengthened. If life were a video game, I had won a “power up” special power. I always feel music in such vivid colour and depth in my soul, and yet I was frustratingly unable to replicate it on the violin for the last near-decade. 

As solid as that obstruction had been, it was gone in a moment, and I was on the “other side”. Absolutely nothing magical happened to my fingers or the technical side of playing – I am as clumsy as ever playing double stops and in higher positions. 

But the colour had arrived, and with it a different world.

The last two weeks have passed in a blur. I had to work most of the days but each day after work when I pick up the violin, the colour is still there.

I tried playing in total darkness and realised I can play with absolutely no visual feedback – the music just arrives. I tried playing piano pieces I had played before on the violin, and the shapes form effortlessly. I tried playing with others and heard my violin sing with beauty that I have never known. More than ever, I am aware of my technical deficiencies and what I exactly must do to strengthen the colour. 

There are no words that can describe the ecstasy that this change brings. I simply feel drunk with the realisation of the connection. I feel mildly afraid that it will leave me somehow, but with each passing day (and it’s still there!), I feel imbued with this sense of hope about the future.