Okra is called ladies fingers in English in Sri Lanka or bandakka in Sinhala. I’m used to calling it okra, so that’s what I’ll go with. 🙂 One of Fahim’s cousin, knowing that I’m interested in cooking Sri Lankan food, gave me a Sri Lankan cookbook a year or so back. It’s called Ceylon Cookery …

  A mallung (also spelled mallum) is a Sri Lankan dish made with some type of vegetable or leaf that’s cooked with freshly shredded coconut. They’re usually cooked for a fairly short period of time and are fairly quick dishes to put together. A note on cabbage. If you’re not a fan – like me …

Gotukola Sambol Gotukola Sambol

Gotukola, also called gotu kola (Centella asiatica), is an herb that grows wild in this part of the world and is commonly sold at grocery stores, vegetable shops, and off the back of vegetable seller’s bicycles. It even grows on our lawn amongst the grass and mosses. One day, for no particular reason, I started …

The question came up on Twitter about me, a Canadian, living in Sri Lanka, and what are my cuisine experiences, how do I cope, and whatnot. That’s really quite a big question in a lot of ways. Sri Lankan food is quite spicy. From what I hear, it’s on the spicy end of the scale …

This is a very basic, easy recipe that requires little work, and it’s good for any small fish like salaya, handella, or sprats, all of which are fish under 5″ long. If you fry it only until the flesh of the fish is cooked, then the small bones can be, ah, uncomfortable going down. Fry …

Yeah, I know – it sounds bizarre. Fahim, Lou, Ike, and I did a massive shopping trip at Majestic City today. Massive. At some point in all of this, we’re hungry and head into the basement where the food court is. We’re all prepared to be pretty much disappointed – this is, after all, a …

Fahim and I went grocery shopping, and among the things we bought was Wattalapam, which, if I talk with my normal North American style of speech, I butcher. If I slow down, I pronounce it properly. Basically, it’s a custard. It’s only got five ingredients, or ingerdients, as the manufacturer spells it. It has jaggery, …