Eggplant Pickle

When we lived in Australia, our flat was across the road from Paddy's market in Flemington. For family events we would often go there bright and early and pick up fish and vegies at remarkebly cheap prices.
When I went to make this eggplant pickle, I'd often grab a box of eggplants from the markets so that I could make up a huge batch, because trust me, once you start it's hard to stop with this one!

WARNING: This recipes takes more that 12 hours to complete

Don't you hate it when you get half-way through a recipe to see "step 5: leave for 72 hours".....gah....happens to me all the time because I don't read the recipes properly of course.

This recipe is based on one by the famous Peter Kuruvita. The first time I made it, I was low on some of the spices so ended up toning them down. I loved the flavours so much that I've kept my ratios but stuck to Peter's awesome ingredients.

Ingredients

800g of eggplant, cut into cubes
2 small red onions chopped into quarters
4 green chillis
4 tablespoons of turmeric
oil for frying
2 sprigs curry leaves
6 cloves of garlic crushed
30g of ginger crushed
90g of cumin (ground)
60g of sugar
1/2 cup of white vinegar
Salt to taste

Preparation

In a large bowl combine the chopped up eggplant with 2 tablespoons of turmeric and mix well.

I use a large wok for frying but a deep fryer would be even better. Heat the oil and fry the eggplant in small batches until deep golden brown!

Next, fry the onions and green chillis until golden and drain all the fried good well. If I'm being good I will lay them on 3-4 layers of paper towel and leave overnight, usually replacing the towel before I go to bed. I think it helps make the pickle less oily. If you can't be bothered, never mind, but I do recommend at least leaving it a small while.

Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to a heavy-based saucepan. When hot add the curry leaves, ginger and garlic. When lovely and fragrant add the cumin and fry till the spicy smell fills your house.


Next add the remaining turmeric, sugar and vinegar.

Let the mixture come to the boil and simmer for a few moments until the sugar is dissolved.

Finally add the fried eggplant, onions and chilli and give the whole thing a good stir.

I store this in sterilised jars and I'm happy to keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

While you can eat this and soon as it's cool enough to touch, I would wait a day or two to let the flavours really develop.

Caramel Pudding/ Cheats Creme caramel

This is a really easy and simple pudding that is famous in Lanka. Everyone makes it and everyone loves it. This is Mr Firehouse's absolute favourite. It's guaranteed to win me "wifey of the day."

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• I  can full of water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 eggs lightly beaten

Praline for decoration

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp slivered almonds toasted

Preparation

In a non-stick pan place the cup of sugar and place on a medium heat. Leave on the heat without stirring until it turns a lovely golden caramel colour. It changes quite quickly so don't leave it. 

This is the colour you are looking for

Pour the caramel into the base of a small oven proof tin/dish. I've used individual ramekins but a small single dish works just as well

While the caramel cools pour the condensed milk into a jug, now fill the empty tin with water and pour that into the same jug. Add the  beaten eggs and vanilla and give the whole mixture a good mix. 

Pour the custard mixture over the caramel (or divide into the ramekins) Place the pudding/puddings in an oven tray and pour enough water into the tray so that it comes up about 1/2 way on your creme caramel dish. Cover the whole tray with aluminium foil and place in the oven.   Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until the mixture trembles lightly in the middle

When cool, run a sharp knife around the edge and up-end on a serving dish.

For the optional  praline

Place the nuts on piece of baking paper in a single layer

Place the sugar in a non stick saucepan and place on a low heat until the sugar turns to caramel. Pour over the nuts and wait till it hardens. Snap the praline into bite-size pieces and enjoy with the creme caramel! 

Godamba Roti

My dad comes from a small town in Sri Lanka, between Kegalle and Avissawella. Ruwanwella it's called and we spend a good part of our holidays there. My uncle, Tissa Mama, is a local somebody. Tissa mama is a foodie of sorts. He has a nose for finding dingy little local joints that have untold of culinary wonders. From spicy vadais, to fried chicken and egg rolls. In fact, one of the most endearing memories I have of him is him running down the stone steps of his house when he hears the music of the bakery truck (yes in Sri Lanka the bakery truck comes around of an afternoon rather than the ice cream one) sarong hitched up, wallet in hand.

One of his finds was a local place that sells amazing Godamba roti, a flat crispy bread akin to the Roti Canai of Malaysia and paratha of India. When we were there last, hubby and my brother-in-law insisted on accompanying us to get this tasty treat from "town". The shop itself was beyond dingy. The man behind the counter dingy and dirty and sporting a greasy pony tail. The one light globe was attracting flying insects of every description, but this was Sri Lanka, we were undeterred.  The pony-tailed one grabbed a ball of dough that was sitting in a vat of oil and deftly stretched it with the palm of his hand on the countertop, a fly walked across and he expertly shook is off and continued stretching until the dough was paper-thin. He then placed the now transparent dough on the hot plate and repeated the process on another ball, when it was done he lay it ontop of the first roti and flipped the whole thing over. He layered each roti, one on top of the other until he had a pile of about 10. He wrapped them all in plastic wrap then newspaper and handed them to us. It says something about how good this roti is that we didn't give a toss about the flies, the dust or the dirt. If anything, watching the process only made my husband determined to try making the roti at home.

Now that we're in Seattle there's no chance of finding these goodies down the road, so we're left to our own devices. Here's our very liberal interpretation, they might not be as good as the ones back in Lanka but I reckon that has a lot to do with the lack of flies.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp oil
• Enough luke warm water to make a dough
• IL of canola or vegetable oil

Instructions 

You can easily do this by hand but I'm inherently lazy with things like this and use appliances. So I put the flour, oil and water into the bowl of my kitchenaid. 

Remember to use the dough hook, I say this because if you use the whisk it'll be a huge mess.

Give it a good mix on a medium speed and slowly add the water as the mixer is moving

You want to keep adding the water until the dough forms a ball and comes away from the sides of the bowl.  Turn the mixer up a little and knead for 4-5 minutes. 

Form the dough into small balls and lay in a flat dish. Here's the funky part, you have to cover the whole lot in oil. Submerged! The oil changes the texture of the dough, does something cool with the gluten and it makes it lovely and stretchy. 

It's a lot of oil yes, but I keep mine in a jar (like below) and reuse it every time I make roti. 

 Cover the rotis up and leave them to sit for at the very least 4 hours.

When you're ready to cook, place a large frypan on the hob and turn it up to medium heat.
Start with one ball of roti and using the palm of your hand start stretching it out on the counter top. You need lubrication so don't be afraid of a little oil.

Carefully place the roti on the pan and cook until brown on one-side, then flip. 

Tada, this is what they look like when they're all cooked. Crispy and scrumptious. 

Chicken Curry

Here's a fact; every Sri Lankan I know has a chicken curry recipe that varies slightly. There's usually a secret ingredient, a steadfast opinions on the necessity of tomato and the right way to use curry powder. I learnt how to make curry from my mother, so this is based very much on her chicken curry.

The medley of Sri Lankan spices I use 

This curry goes amazingly with bread, steamed white rice, roti and even crispy fries....trust me. Even baby Callum has had some of this with some the chilli and salt omitted of course.

The list of ingredients is daunting but in this day or globalisation most of these ingredients can be found at a local supermarket. The curry powder thing is confusing, basically a roasted curry powder is a raw curry powder that has been dry roasted in a pan until it's dark brown in colour and smokey in flavour. Again, a good Sri Lankan grocery store will have it on hand.

http://www.srilankacooking.com/2009/03/how-to-make-sri-lankan-rosted-curry.html

Now people, health conscious people will tell you that you can make chicken curry with lean, mean chicken breast. Lies...all lies....don't listen to them. Block you ears, walk away. Chicken curry must, do you hear me MUST be made with meat on the bone. The marrow imparts amazing flavour, the meat is sweeter and there is no greater pleasure than chewing on those bones after they've been soaking in curry sauce for ages.

Ingredients

• 2kg Chicken cut into pieces - use a good quality, high welfare bird or legs and thighs portioned up. The meat must be on a bone and whether you leave the skin on or not is up to you. 
• 1 small red onion chopped
• 3 cloves or garlic chopped
• Thumb-sized piece of ginger  peeled and finely chopped
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• handful of curry leaves
• 1 pandan leaf
• 3-4 cardamon pods bruised
• 5 cloves
• 3 tablespoons ghee
• 1 tsp unroasted curry powder
• 2 tsp roasted curry powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp roasted chilli powder
• 1 tsp turmeric
• Salt
• Tin of chopped tomatoes
• Sugar (optional)

Preparation

I love making curry in cast-iron ceramic pot, it's strangely reminiscent of the clay pots of Lanka and gives an amazing evenness of heat and flavour.

I start by frying the cinnamon stick in the ghee. Once the smell of cinnamon hits my nose I add the curry leaves, pandan leaf, ginger, garlic, onion, cloves and cardamon.

Bruising the cardamon and cloves a little in mortar and pestle
 helps release the flavours a little more

I sweat all the ingredients off and wait for the onions to go lovely and soft. 

At this point I start adding the spices, I add them all at once and fry the resulting paste for about 4 minutes on medium heat until the spices really smell good. I mean, they smelt pretty ok to begin with but they should be knocking your socks off by now.

 Next the chicken goes in and you the chicken to be coated in all of the spices and lovely and sealed. Basically that raw pink meat should look nice and brown and spicy.

Next we add the tomatoes, I sometimes whizz this up with my stick blender especially if the little man is going to get into it, it's totally not necessary but makes for a smooth sauce that he can eat easily. 

One last stir to meld the chicken, the spices and the tomato and then pop on the lid.

Here's the hard part...you must leave the curry alone. I bring the pot to the boil, bring the heat to a simmer and then cook for half an hour. 

At the end of the half-hour the chicken will be cooked, the sauce will be lovely and thick and best of all your house it going to smell ah-mazing! 

Take the lid off and give it a good stir before seasoning with salt to taste. I've put sugar on the list as an option because really it depends on your  tastte, sometimes the tomatoes can make the sauce very acidic and a little bit of sugar balances it out. Sometimes I find that the sugar is totally not necessary. Use your judgement here. 

Brownies

Back in the day, when I stopped being a Physio (though one could argue I barely started) and decided I wanted to be a teacher, I started going to uni at night. I was in a class with about 12 other amazingly, special people! We made a special bond and I consider them some of the most amazing people I know. We took prodigious care of each other and would often bring food to carry us through the late afternoon/night classes. Emma, a dear friend bought these eggless brownies one day and they were truly amazing. If you are indeed intolerant of eggs, simple replace each egg with 1/4 of blended silken tofu. It works a treat and I for one can't taste the difference.

Ingredients

• 375 g butter
• 375 g dark chocolate ( use something with at least 60% cocoa solids, don't worry it won't be bitter)
• 6 eggs or 1 and a half cups of silken tofu (ie 1/4 cup tofu = 1 egg)
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 500 g caster sugar
• 225 g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 300 g chopped walnuts

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius or 350 fahrenheit

Lovely, unctuous melted chocolate....mmm

Melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan. Use a nice low heat and you can avoid having to use a double boiler. The chocolate will melt and become lovely and glossy.

Make sure you leave this to cool to room temperature to avoid the unfortunate scrambled eggs scenario.

Beat tofu/eggs, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. I use the team beat lightly, you just want to break-up the eggs because brownies are quite dense so air is in fact the enemy.

Add the chopped walnuts to the chocolate mixture and slowly incorporate this into the eggs and sugar. I add a little at a time to make sure it's cool enough. If you're not keen on walnuts, pecans or macadamias also work brilliant, heck...why not do a combo?

Chop these as big or as small as you life. If you're particularly finicky, use a food processor or as my husband does....a mortar and pestle. 

Finally add the flour and salt and mix!

Pour it into your prepared ban and pop in the over for 35-40 mins. Basically you want the center to be slightly sticky, not liquidy.

These brownies are amazing warm and even better if you leave them a couple of days.

Lavariya

This is a post dedicated to my cousin Ruwanthi who specifically asked for the how-to. I don't claim to be an expert, only that I have executed the process with some success.  Some, being the operative word. Lavariya as I know it is basically a caramelised coconut wrapped in a string hopper. Great with a cup of good Ceylon tea.

Ingredients

Pani Pol

• Treacle
• 1 cardoman pod
• 3 cloves
• 1/2 stick of cinnamon 

Lavariya 

• MDK Stringhopper flour
• Water

Instructions

Pani pol

Kithul Treacle - available from good Lankan groceries.

I make my pani-pol by heating the kithul treacle in a pan with the spices. 

Once it comes to the boil I simply add the un-sweeted desiccated coconut and stir. 

I leave it on the heat for about 10 minutes until the coconut has absorbed the pani and becomes dark and caramelly. 

Lavariya

I make my string hoppers the cheats way. That is, I get my mum to send me the MDK flour which you mix with cold water and bam....string hoppers....almost. This stuff is so easy to use and  it makes having string hoppers for dinner really simple.

Simple mix the stringhopper flour with enough water to make a sticky dough. I can't give you the exact amount because like all doughs, it varies. But here is a picture of the consistenty I got.

I then scoop it into my stringhopper maker and pipe it onto a circle of baking paper. 

I place a tea spoon full of the cooled pani-pol mixture onto the string-hopper and use the baking paper to fold, making sure the edges are pressed together. 

I then place it on a string-hopper mat and into the steamer for 5 minutes to steam. Yummo!

Dairy/Soy free Banana Bread

Have I told you about my lovely husband that always reminds me to buy bananas when I go shopping and then lets at least one of them rot in the fruit bowl. Well now you know. This has forced me to have a variety of banana friendly recipes to use up the soft bananas....good thing I lurrve banana bread. 

Now that I can no longer eat the king of all foods (butter) I've had to change a few of my recipes around. They now include dairy/soy free milk, butter and would you believe it, sour cream! 

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup dairy/soy free margarine (I used Earth Balance)
• 1/4 cup olive/canonal oil
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup mashed banana
• 1/2 cup sour cream (I used WAYFARE)

Instructions

1. Grease 1 large loaf pan and preheat oven to 350 F or 180 C
2. Add the margine, eggs, vanilla and olive oil to the mashed bananas and mix well
3. Finally add the sour cream and blend again
4. In a second bowl mix the flour, sugar, salt and baking soda
5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and pour into the load pan. 
6. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes to an hour or until a skewer comes out nice and clean.

Enjoy with some dairy free spread...yummo!