Pol sambol is an absolutely delightful dish, a food of the gods, if you will. It ranks as one of my top ten foods of all time, and depending on the day, might just be the winner. Sadly, we ate most of the Pol Sambol before I managed to remember to take a picture. Can …
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Pol (Coconut) Roti
I’ve seen my mother-in-law make coconut roti a few times, but haven’t made it myself and even, somehow, managed to not write her recipe down. Considering how much I love coconut roti, I can’t imagine why I wasn’t thinking! So when time came for me to make coconut roti, rather than going with my mother-in-law’s …
Tempered Okra Curry
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 …
Poll: Sammy the Sourdough needs a new name!
My first sourdough starter was named Nellie. Nellie as in Little House On The Prairie Nellie Olsen Nellie. Nellie because she was difficult, ornery, whiny, and just a general pain in the buttinski. It wasn’t her fault she was that way – I raised her in a “stainless steel” environment. “Stainless steel” in brackets cuz …
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Cabbage Mallung
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 …
Ala Badun, aka Sri Lankan Devilled Potato & Onions
I’m not a potato person. I grew up on boiled-until-glue potatoes six days a week and, you know, it just got old. Once I had a choice about what food was made/what groceries were bought, I swore off potatoes for a good many years. A few years ago, though, I tried out Ala Badun and …
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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 …
Weight vs. Volume Measurements in Cooking
I always knew that the UK gallon and the US gallon were different. What I didn’t know – and should have – is that the US cup vs. the Canadian cup are different. Oh, sure, Canadians were an English colony, so of course our gallons were UK gallons, not US. And then I recently learned …
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Baking on the Stove: Experiment 1
Fahim complained (read: whine ;-)) a few days ago that, by day three, my breakfast sweet buns were starting to get a bit stale. Well, yes, I agree, the buns are definitely at their best on day one. But baking single-serving buns in the oven would be a huge waste of gas. As it is, …
Sri Lankan Food and Me
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 …