The romance with #WildAsparagusTable
continues
Sometimes I feel I am sailing
in a cruise called #WildAsparagusTable, stopping at one city to try the cuisine
of that place. Our captains, our guides…Ananya Banerjee and Saloni Malkani…steer
the ship towards one destination every month, and we learn not just about food,
but culture, dress style and sometimes pick up few language skills too. We have
covered France, Mexico, Germany and this month it was SriLanka.
We are inspired and
encouraged to swim into unknown waters, experimenting cuisines that we have
never tried before. One month we spent sailing through net, googling-reading
different food blogs, admiring food pictures, watching videos and hoping that
we are able to match the ethnic taste of the natives.
During this month I learnt
that #SriLankancuisine is the mixture of many cuisines (Indian, Indonesian,
Singaporean, Asian) with different curries, flatbreads, rice. The ingredients
popularly used are coconut (in different forms) tamarind, curry leaves, caramelised
onions, chilies and spices.
What I didn’t know was
that it has such a big variety of curries and desserts….my foodie friends
surprised me when I finally saw the menu. Yes it’s a potluck. Each member
prepares one speciality of the place, it may be tried and tasted, or just an
experiment with new ingredients to explore new cuisine.
Eyes opened wide when
the menu is made
And the eyes opened
wider when The food is cooked…..we stand drooling, wondering what to start
with, how much to eat. Everybody takes great effort to make a dish, so it will
not be fair if we are too full to skip any dish. The trick is to skip dinner
and breakfast and concentrate on only one lunch, savour each dish slowly, enjoy
the fragrance, the textures, and the flavours of each dish.Take your own sweet
time….
Our hostess, Rummy
(Inderpreet Nagpal) had taken utmost care in setting the long dinning table
with beautiful serving dishes and cutlery, a big spread of jasmine flowers
surrounded the rows of burning lamps, Great selection of books lined neatly over the shelf, drinks
were served from revolving turn table at the bar and the centre table in the living room displayed assortments of Vegetarian
thali, Non-vegetarian thali and great variety of desserts. The beauty was that
every dish was cooked with love and interest and every dish tasted awesome.
To add to the zest of
the feast, some were dressed in typical Sinhalese sarees. Common ice-breaker
was “So, what did you cook?” Discussion was mainly around, (what else?) Food
and recipes….
Throughout the
afternoon there was uproar of happy laughter, as different jokes did their
rounds in-between mouthful of tasty bites.
Ananya cooked the
traditional dish Lamparis.
“The Lamprais, an influence of the Dutch Burgher community. It's rice
that's been cooked in meat stock, stuffed with curry, meatballs and brinjal.
This is wrapped in a banana leaf packet that's then steamed.”-She said. It
was Delicious!
During my research, I
discovered that Wambatu mojo is the favourite dish prepared in every Sri Lankan
home. It’s a kind of Brinjal pickle, it had interesting recipes and I decided
to experiment on this dish
It was a simple recipe.
1. Half kg of brinjals
are cut into thick strip, salt and turmeric is added to it and is kept for some
time and then deep fried in small batches till dark brown.
2. Half kg of shallots,
slit and deep fried
3. 100gms of green
chillies, slit and deep fried.
4. 50gms curry leaves
washed and deep fried
5. Pound together into a
smooth paste
1tbsp mustard seeds
4 cloves of garlic
1inch ginger
1tbsp sugar
1tsp red chilli powder
salt to taste
6. Add vinegar
combine and it should
be sweet sour and hot.
7. Mix in with deep
fried brinjals, shallots, green chillies and curry leaves.
8. Keep it for few
hours to mature.
Enjoyed meeting all the
home chefs and came home with the tastiest SriLankan pickle made specially
for all by our most gracious hostess.
Thank you so much!!
A special thank you to our afternoon refreshment courtesy
