0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 11 88//2211//0099 22::2222::1177 PPMM 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 22 88//2211//0099 22::2233::3333 PPMM Sri Lankan Cooking Douglas Bullis and Wendy Hutton Photos by Luca Invernizzi Tettoni TUTTLE PUBLISHING Tokyo • Rutland, Vermont • Singapore 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 33 88//1199//0099 1122::3311::2244 PPMM 4 Sri Lankan Cooking 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 44 88//1199//0099 1122::3311::2244 PPMM Contents 50 Seafood dishes Food in Sri Lanka 7 Spicy fish stew 52 One Land, Many Cuisines 11 Portuguese fishball curry 53 Colonial Tastes 14 Deep-fried battered fish 55 Banking on Tea 16 Tamarind claypot fish 55 Prawns in a coconut curry gravy 56 Dining in Sri Lanka 18 Stir-fried spicy prawns 57 The Sri Lankan Kitchen 21 Curried prawns 58 Sri Lankan Ingredients 23 Curried squid 58 Vadai prawn patties 60 28 Coconut curry crabs 61 Basic recipes Roasted curry powder 29 62 Meat & poultry dishes Unroasted curry powder 29 Bitter gourd sambol 30 Chicken curry 64 Dried chilli sambol 30 Coconut and cashew nut chicken 65 Bird’s-eye chilli sambol 30 Curried meatballs 66 Fresh coconut sambol 30 Spicy stir-fried lamb 67 Roasted coconut sambol 31 Lamb curry 68 Onion and Maldive fish sambol 31 Pork curry 68 Wing bean sambol 31 Royal chicken 70 Babana blossom sambol 32 Beef smore 71 Coconut milk gravy 32 Melon ginger sauce 32 72 Vegetable dishes Saffron lemongrass sauce 32 Young jackfruit pickles 33 Spicy eggplant 74 Pickled eggplant 33 Dhal stew 74 Curried cabbage 75 Curried okra 76 34 Spicy green beans 77 Rice & bread recipes Tangy coconut okra 79 Butter rice 37 Portuguese omelette 79 Coconut milk rice cakes 38 Green mango curry 80 Ragi flour flatbreads 39 Pumpkin curry 81 Seasoned coconut and rice flour flatbreads 40 Crispy dosai pancakes 41 82 Desserts & drinks Rice flour hoppers 42 String hoppers 42 Topknot cakes 85 Coconut cakes 85 44 Coconut cinnamon cashew slices 86 Soups Cashew brittle 87 Pumpkin soup with prawns 47 Coconut spice cake 88 Tomato soup with fennel 47 Sweet coconut slices 89 Rich seafood soup 48 Portuguese semolina love cake 90 Curry leaf congee 49 Coconut halva 91 Coconut milk congee 49 Refreshing orange spice cooler 92 Pineapple cinnamon cooler 93 Acknowledgements 94 Index 95 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 55 88//1199//0099 33::3322::0011 PPMM 6 Sri Lankan Cooking 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 66 88//2211//0099 33::3333::3322 PPMM Food in Sri Lanka Cinnamon, cloves and other spices are the island’s culinary gems Sri Lanka, the fabled island of sapphires, rubies and other precious stones, is home to one of the least known Asian cuisines. Rarely found in restaurants outside the island itself, Sri Lankan fare is often mistaken for yet another Indian regional cuisine. To the culinary explorer, however, Sri Lankan food is as intriguing and unique as the many other customs of this island paradise. Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, is located off India’s southeast coast. The rugged terrain of the central highlands— characterised by high mountains and plateaus, steep river gorges and swathes of tea plantations—dominates much of the island. This falls away to sandy lowlands, rice paddies and long stretches of palm-fringed beaches. The ancestors of today’s Sinhalese peoples arrived some 2,500 years ago from Northern India. They named themselves after a mythic ancestor who was born of a sinha (lion) and a princess. After conquering the local Yakshas, a succession of kingdoms—Sinhalese in the centre and south, and Tamil in the Jaffna Peninsula—rose and fell over the centuries. The first Portuguese ships chanced upon Sri Lanka in the early sixteenth century and set about trading in cinnamon and other spices. There followed four hundred years of Western presence in the form of Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British before Sri Lanka regained her independence in 1948. Such diverse influences may be tasted in dishes of Arab biryani (yellow rice with meat and nuts), Malay nasi kuning (turmeric rice), Portuguese semolina love cakes, and Dutch breuders (dough cakes) and lampries (savoury rice and meat packets). Sri Lankan cuisine, which is based upon rice with vegetable, fish or meat curries, and a variety of side dishes and condiments, reflects the geographical and ethnic differences of the land. Seafood dishes, such as Spicy Fish Stew (seer fish stew), Tamarind Claypot Fish (ambulthiyal), Coconut Curry Crabs and Rich Seafood Soup (Jaffna kool), are common to coastal and, increasingly, inland areas. The eating of large animals, such as cows and deer, is less popular due to the predominantly Buddhist and Hindu population; chicken and freshwater fish are usually preferred instead. Top, from left: Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coriander seeds, mace, pepper and cardamon pods. Bottom, from left: Turmeric, fennel, fenugreek, cumin, mustard seeds and dried red chillies. Introduction 7 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 77 99//99//0099 1111::0055::5544 AAMM Sri Lanka is also blessed with an abundant harvest of fruits and vegetables. Jackfruit, breadfruit, okra, gourds, plantains and drumsticks are but some of the vegetables, tubers, and leaves that feature in one or other Sri Lankan dish. It is a cuisine expressed in spices—cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, coriander, mace, pepper, cardamom, red chillies, mustard seeds, cumin, fenugreek and turmeric are all used to flavour curries, while some add flavour to desserts and cakes. The spices of Sri Lanka, which helped to shape the history of the island, are truly its culinary gems. A Gustatory Paradise Sri Lanka’s dry and wet seasons are reversed from one side of the island to the other by two monsoons. From May to Wall painting at Sigiriya. August, the southwest monsoon, Yala, brings heavy rain to the southern, western and central highland regions, leaving the family plantations can be found even a few kilometres inland other side dry. From October to January, the gentler northeast from the coast, but the higher the plantation the better the monsoon, Maha, brings rain to the north of the island. The tea. The premium Dambula and other highland teas grow on coastal regions are hot and humid year round, while the hill tidily pruned plantations that undulate over the landscape as country feels like perpetual spring. gracefully as slow-flowing water. The teas are processed in When Sri Lanka’s first settlers arrived from India in about multi-storey factories painted white or silver that stand out amid 500 BC, the coastal lowlands they found were no paradise. the landscape like ghosts on a green sea. Undaunted, they set to work making them one. They had And of course one can’t overlook the island’s spice gardens. brought with them the techniques of turning a stream into a The gaily proclaimed ones along the highways to Kandy are for small pond, and of digging sluices with gates to let water into tourists. The serious spice plantations growing for export are small fields on demand. What happened over the next ten found in moist valleys or hilly areas. Be they for tourist or export, centuries is one of the greatest irrigation feats in world history: the goods are the same: over here spindly, weedy bushes Sri Lanka’s system of reservoir “tanks” feeding a latticework of whose flower yields a darkish nubbin that dries into clove; watercourses produced a rice surplus so large that it financed over there bushy nutmeg trees with bright tan fruit. the island’s architectural and sculptural splendours. The delicate seed pods of the cardamom grow symbiotically The simple brown rice of those early times became the under clove plants. Gangly peppercorns cluster under the long twenty-odd varieties grown today. The two monsoons translate leaves of their plant, looking rather like grape bunches that took to two harvests a year over much of the island. Low-country rice their diet too seriously. Visitors to these professional spiceries is mostly plain white rice that cooks easily and has no strong are treated to a fabulous bouquet of odours as they learn all taste to distract from the curries. Somewhat upscale is a red about how spices are grown and prepared for consumers the rice that bursts as it cooks, yielding a fluffy white interior with world over. reddish flecks on the surface—this is the festive suduru samba A final glance at the country’s agriculture focuses on the served when entertaining guests. The highest grade of rice is men who walk ropeways high in the sky doing the dangerous long-grained basmati, often used when aromatic dishes are job of harvesting drippings from the flowers of the kitul palm. desired. In between, many lesser varieties are grown, usually Treading gingerly along a single rope and guyline 15 metres in small quantities for local use. (50 feet) or more above the ground, they tie shut the tips of the However, paddy agriculture is far from the only kind of kitul’s flowers with cord so they cannot open. The sap, which farming. Slash-and-burn, or chena farming, is the bane of ordinarily would go into swelling the flower and then filling its the back country, as it produces only two or three harvests fruit, instead oozes into clay pots tied to the flower’s stem. Every of millet and root vegetables before depleting the soils and few days these are visited by the tappers, who empty the juice forcing the farmer to move on. But for many poor people, into a pot slung around their waists. it is the only choice. The resulting treacle has a unique flavour which matches In a category all of its own is the island’s enormous superbly with Sri Lanka’s high-butterfat but bland curd or production of tea. The nuances of Sri Lankan tea are as buffalo-milk yoghurt. When the treacle is hardened by boiling complex and sophisticated as the nuances of fine wine. Small and then cooled, it becomes jaggery, the most popular 8 Sri Lankan Cooking 0011 SSLLCC FFrroonnttmmaatttteerr..iinndddd 88 88//1199//0099 1122::3311::3300 PPMM