Was Busy...

 Akki....
you know we were so busy setting up the new management and kitchen staff at Hotel Sapthapadhi so yours truly didn't have much time to blog....
and...
you have tasted some good dishes on your birthday dinner....your favourite Aubergine dry curry....commonly known as Wambatu Moju in Sri Lanka....
I will post that recipe soon  since I am still busy with stuff please use the link below to read my Arabic rice recipe published earlier...

you can see a good rice recipe here

Please try some of the recipes and show me pictures of your cooking...

Green Beans in Coconut Milk

Hey Akki....back after my trip to Oman and today I found little time to show you a new recipe...
This will accompany the Gotukola Salad when you serve your lunch menu...

it is Green Beans (French Bean) in Coconut Milk (curry)...

Ingredients

200gms fresh green beans

3 red onions sliced
1 clove garlic sliced
1 medium size green chili sliced
1cm piece of cinnamon
2 cm piece of pandan leaves
curry leaves
1/4 teaspoon of red chili powder
1/2 teaspoon of Maldive Fish flakes 
1/2 tea spoon of raw vegetable Spices Powder
(1 part coriander seeds, 1/2 part Cumin seeds and 1/4 part Fennel seed grind together to prepare Vegetable Spice Powder)
Pinch of Turmeric Powder

3 to 5 seeds of Fenugreek
1 cup of thick coconut milk sprinkle with a Pinch of freshly ground mustard powder
1 Table spoon of Pure Coconut Oil
salt to taste 

Preparation

Clean the beans with breaking the edges with your finger tips and removing the vein along both sides of the bean pods and wash them prior to slice them sideways to get longer pieces. This will give you a nice texture once the curry is made.

Cooking

Mix all the ingredients except the coconut oil and cook in coconut oil on slow fire until beans become tender for 8 to 10 minutes. Once the beans are properly cooked in oil, add the coconut milk and cook for 3 minutes in slow fire until coconut milk is cooked.


This dish will be one of the greens you can serve as lunch to accompany Gotukola salad and soon I will show you the second green curry to go with it.

Salads

 

Akki....Gotukola  sambal is your favourite so I will start with that...

what you need..

• one bunch of fresh gotukola (select the ones with roots and not the bunches sold only with leaves)
• 5 nos red onions (small rathu lunu) finely sliced finely
• 2 medium size green chilies chopped Finley
• 1 table spoon of Maldive fish flakes
• juice of half of a lime
• salt to taste
• half a cup of grated fresh coconuts.

Preparation...
Clean the Gotukola by removing the roots and yellow colour leaves (if any) and wash them three times in running water in a colander and let the Gotukola drain.

• Chop Gotukola on a cutting board to 3mm size pieces and put into a bowl.
• add finely chopped red onions, green chili, Maldive fish and salt and mix gently without crushing gotukola to avoid extraction of bitter juices.
• add lime and then grated coconut and gently mix and serve.

Tips...
Always crush the finely chopped onions on the chopping board with you fingers before you add them to the salad.

the begining

akki needs/wishes to restart her cooking again and said this..."...papa whenever u find u r stuck in a place, Colombo or sapthapadhi...maybe u can start to write down cooking recipes?? just a tot. ...when u find u got nothing to do 'wage' and here I go with my new blog....hopefully one day HB and Mel will read this and be happy, because they were the first friends who started calling me "chef-architect"...why....you know....

so akki..this is for you...

as I told you when we were preparing  dinner last night...remember it is so easy to prepare srilankan meals as long as you know how to handle the ingredients and I will guide you step by step, day by day, like achchi who taught me how to stir a kirihodda, or to cut wambatu....

there are very few spices (dry and say green) we use..for veggies...and they are;

Green spices

• green chili
• red onions (Rathu Lunu)
• Bombay onions (Rata Lunu)
• garlic
• curry leaves
• rampa (pandan leaves)

Dry Spices (in powder format or otherwise as indicated)

• turmeric (kaha)
• red chili powder
• thunapaha (non roasted)powder
• black pepper powder
• penugeric (uluhaal) seeds
• cinnamon (sticks)
• aba (mustard Powder)
• cardamon
• claws
• Maldive fish pieces (umbalakada)

The above are for veggies and there are some more like goraka, sera (lemon grass), siyambala (tamarind) etc we use for fish and meat curries which I will explain later.

Before you start cooking, you must have a sense of menu planning. Which means to select the right combination of dishes whether it is for lunch or dinner. When we go on this journey together we both will find out what we can serve together for lunch and dinner.

I will think of a very simple menu and publish in my next post how to prepare it. Then, you have to prepare that menu and send me a photo after you serve it to nangi and malla. Then only I will post the next one. It is a challenge for both of us but lets do this...
see you tomorrow.
love
pa