FOOD EXPERIENCES
Today, I plan to work on our new business venture, PREMA KUMARA ... I'm not sure what else should go after it.. I'm open to ideas. Some of my thoughts are: P.K. CULINARY ENTERPRISES,or GOURMET ENTERPRISES, or just ENTERPRISES,which gives us the opportunity to diversify into other fields of tourism, eg historic, or cultural, rather than specialising In just the food aspect of the business. I'd be very grateful for comments on my Facebook page, which at the moment is under PREMA KUMARA ENTERPRISES.
PREM A KUMARA is Krishan's true name, which his mother gave him. He christened himself Krishan in his teens, as he hated his name then - (did we not all go through that? I changed the spelling of my name then to JENI,when I first arrived in Australa - I was always known as Jennifer in Ceylon, the country I left, but had to distinguish myself when I first started school at Waverley High School, Chadstone, as there were 4 Jennifers in the class, Form 3 B, and the teachers wanted a way of telling us apart!)
I feel that Krishan's real name is perfect for our business name, as it means "prince of love" in Sinhala...
This fits perfectly with my own business in Australia, which is CUISINE D' AMOUR, which, of course, is French for "food of love" - so the love element is predominant, and so appropriate for us!
It is quite a predicament for me!
Two items of real dilemma: a) Krishan fancies himself as such a good cook (and he certainly is!) to the extent that he insists on cooking for me, and almost bans me from the kitchen! At first I was annoyed and irritated, and protested vehemently that food and cooking was my life, my vocation, and that I was the world's best "kussi amma" (mother of the kitchen in Sinhala). Then I realised that it was part of his overall mission to protect me and look after me in Sri Lanka as a husband - in this country the husbands that do take marriage seriously feel a strong moral duty in their role. I have since softened my approach to the subject, and very gently have demonstrated to him that I do know a great deal about food and its propensities, and have accumulated about 55 years of culinary knowledge in my passion to pursue a lifelong vocation. He was intrigued, for instance, when I de-veined prawns the other day! And proudly boasted about it to his 3 sisters!
The kitchen has been off limits during our renovations, as there was lots of drilling, and dust, and wet cement, and tiles, and grouting, and pipes, and etc etc... The result of which is a magnificent bathroom, which is now in full operation!!! I have pronounced it the BBK - Best Bathroom in Kesbewa! And intend to have a Grand Opening, complete with cutting of the red ribbon, and was joking with my sisters in law the other day that I envisioned a police motorcycle escort and a parade of saffron-robed priests, followed by President Rajapakse himself, to cut the ribbon and make a speech!!! They guffawed with laughter at the thought!
During this period of non use of the kitchen, we had to resort to buying our meals from local food stalls in the vicinity, and I have now got my favourite eateries around here, depending what we choose to eat.
For me, breakfast has never been a prominent meal (sorry, dieticians and doctors!) - from childhood, I always felt very uncomfortable to have a meal at the start of the day. My ideal time is brunch, when my digestive organs are settled for the day. Krishan, on the other hand would be happy having 3 large portions of rice and curry each day! So - my compromise is - half a papaw (yes, that's what we call it here - NOT pawpaw!) . Papaws are an incredible fruit: its nutritious value is phenomenal, and the fruit here are just luscious - a rich orangey red in colour, not the insipid pale yellow/orange of those available in Australia, imported from Fiji, and lying on supermarket shelves for months on end!)
Krishan would have stringhoppers (iddi appung) - best described as a steamed vermicelli-like pancake made out of rice flour - available in rathu (red) or suthu (white). I prefer the former, as the unrefined rice flour is so much more nutritious. The accompaniments are: a lentil curry, or a potato curry, or both, pol sambol[(coconut grated on a hiramanay( an implement which is a seat, with a grater plate attached at one end - one sits on the ground and moves the halved coconut over the flat grater back and forth - a bowl collects the grated fresh coconut underneath) - mixed with chilly, salt, and lime juice. Delicious!)] Other variations on the theme could be polos curry (young jak fruit), hal massa curry (dried sprats) or fish or chicken curry. Beef is readily available in the supermarkets, but it is frozen, and there is an aversion amongst the conventional local population for artificial food, when there is such a preponderance of freshly caught fish, freshly slaughtered chicken, and freshly picked vegetables around. I am having a field day, jubilantly restoring tastes, and aromas, familiar from my childhood, every day!
Lunch is generally rice and curry, although there are some really good local Chinese restaurants, which also provide tasty noodle dishes, chop sueys, and the like, with a distinct Sri Lankan bent, very different from the authentic Chinese cuisine available now in Chinese restaurants in Australia.
There are different kinds of rice - mainly red rice and white rice - the red (country) rice is by far the most nutritious health wise, as it is less refined and processed, and hardly pre-cooked, as is the white. Varieties of white rice, all with subtly different flavours, are: muttu samba, basmati, always used for the more festive dishes,and the ordinary sort grained rice, also kakulu hal, the preferred rice for the traditional kiri buth (milk rice). A recipe for kiri buth follows this blog.
Curries which comprise an ordinary rice and curry meal will include: a fish or chicken (red, chilly flavoured and therefore hot and spicy) curry, and several vegetable curries, which are not hot. They are the way children are introduced to curries. Very flavour ridden, as they are cooked with garlic, onion, turmeric, karapincha (curry leaves), and finished with coconut milk, and a touch of lime juice to balance all the flavours.Vegetables cooked in this way could be - the famous lentil (dhal), potato, beans, okra, carrots, and the extremely wonderful indigenous vegetables, such as innala, a kind of mini potato-like veggie with the most delicious distinct flavour - one of my favourites - murunga (drumsticks), now available in cans in Australia, but one cannot beat the far superior fresh ones! - bandakka (okra), batu ( a round, green, tomato like veggie ) dambala (wing bean) - another favourite - and so it goes on, endlessly. The profusion of indigenous tropical vegetables in this country is staggering, and I intend to cover them more fully in a future blog. That isn't all! In addition, there is usually a sambol or two - this could be a fresh raw mixture such as pol sambol (previoulssly described) or cooked, such as the vambotu pahi (eggplant) or seeni sambola (a sweet onion mixture), a mallung (dry leafy vegetable mixture of garlic, onion, chilly, and essential to the dish is freshly grated coconut, and no rice and curry is complete without the ubiquitous deep fried pappadams..For all this food, one pays an average of AUD $1.50 to $2.00, which sometimes makes us lazy to cook our own food, as it definitely is more expensive, and time consuming! Which brings up my second dilemma - economy vs m passion for creating my own food inventions!
For dinner, again, it seems somewhat futile to cook a whole meal, as in the evenings, all the food stalls really come to life. We have a choice of: rice and curry (perennial, yet I cannot manage 2 rice and curry meals in one day, I've discovered!), pittu, (a cylindrical roll of rice flour and coconut combination steamed in a bamboo (pittu bambu), moistened together with a coconut milk sauce, and served with a curry (tripe is traditional), and a lunu miris sambol (onions, ground fresh chillies, salt and lime juice) or a katte sambol (similar, but cooked, with the addition of Maldive fish chips(umbalakada), or stringhoppers and accoutrements (already described), or any number of Indian style rotis - paratha, godamba - either triangular morsels filled with fish or vegetables - or egg godamba - flat crisp pancake like roti into which a raw egg is broken,prior to folding into a square shape, or koththu - a recent addition to the menu: roti mixed up with chicken or vegetables and sauteed with a deft cutting action so that the finished product resembles thick flat short spaghetti. The variety seems endless! And all for the most incredibly cheap prices!
As you can probably tell, returning to Sri Lanka has had a profound impact on my entire being.
I have never been so supremely and totally content in my life before!
Now, for the recipe, to conclude this segment...
KIRI BUTH (milk rice)
Kiri buth is symbolic of anything new - the white of rice and milk is symbolic of purity and therefore good luck. Traditionally, in Sri Lanka, the first meal for the New Year consists of a plate of kiri buth, various curry accompaniments, such as lunu miris sambol, pol sambol, and a more elaborate meal depending on one's affluence, a meat curry, and a specifically Matara (the town where I was born) dish, I've discovered...a mix of deep fried crispy onion, and lightly fried raw cashews in the same flavoured oil, salt and lime juice.
The kiri buth table must traditionally include a comb of plantains (bananas).
RECIPE:
Boil or steam the rice as normal. When cooked, add a sufficent quantity of milk to cover the rice, and a tablespoon of cocout milk powder. Stir until coconut powder is dissolved.You can also add the coconut flavour through a knob of creamed coconut, or obtain a liquid coconut milk by soaking dessiccated coconut in boiling water and leaving it for about half an hour before straining it.
NOTE: Of course, the traditional, more time consuming method is to grate the fresh coconut, and squeeze the milk out by adding a little water. Many Sri Lankans do not add the cow's milk and use coconut milk only intead, but I prefer the richness of the cow's milk as well. One may also add a2 inch pice of rampe, also known as pandan leaf, for extra flavour. Return to the stove and stir constantly, as it has a tendency to burn on the bottom. Extra salt may be added at this stage, if necessary. some like this feature, but I try my best to avoid it. the rice thickens, and it is a bit of a test as to when on removes it from the stove - too early and it does not set into the cake that it is meant to do, and too late means a burnt offering! Watch it carefully, and the timing really comes wth practice.
Turn on to a buttered, flat or shallow dish, remove rampe leaf,and spread until it forms a cake. With a knife, make shallow cuts in a diamond shape, so that portions are easier to cut when set.
Serve with accompaniments mentioned above.
THE FUTURE:
In future blogs, I intend to inspire, educate, and entice (!) all of you to join us here in Sri Lanka, where we can provide you with a guaranteed fun-filled, relaxed, purposeful, experience of by far the most bejewelled paradise island on our planet!
Until the next time...
Jeni xxx
