with Mary Anne Mohanraj
I almost never make biryani, but I don’t know why, because I really like it. There’s a big debate about whether potatoes do or don’t belong in biryani — I am agnostic on the subject, so I made it without, but served some roasted potatoes on the side. 🙂
https://serendibkitchen.com/2021/01/05/lamb-biryani/
My passionfruit-mango-strawberry Sri Lankan butter cake was delicious as always (I even made passionfruit curd from scratch), but lord, I am not going to win any awards for cake decorating. This may be my most lopsided cake yet — at one point, I thought the whole thing was going to slide off the serving plate.
Recipe: https://serendibkitchen.com/…/sri-lankan-butter-cake…/
I don’t remember Amma making green mango curry when I was growing up — this is a recipe I developed for Feast, and supposedly was served at King Kasyapa’s court in 5th century Sri Lanka. I make it pretty often now, when I’m making a party’s worth of rice and curries — the fruitiness of the mango is a great element to contrast with the other typical dishes.
Recipe: https://serendibkitchen.com/…/green-mango-curry…/
I ended up cooking a lot last Friday — invited my local aunts over to my dad’s house, along with his good friends Kanagaratnam Jegathesan and Kanthimatthi Jegathesan. I’m not really sure why I spent the whole day obsessively cooking — it was an impulse, to invite people over at all.
I suppose it’s just that we were in CT for a week to do college tour and spend time with my dad, and given the timing (we were leaving Saturday morning), I knew it wasn’t so likely that Kavi would see her other relatives unless we made an extra effort, so having people over seemed like the thing to do.
The aunties brought curries (crab and fish) and short eats (ribbon sandwiches and stuffed shrimp and mutton rolls), and both my dad and Jega Uncle ordered vatallappam, so it was a proper feast — way too much food, honestly, but that’s okay, we packed up the leftovers and sent them home with people, as we do. Hopefully nobody had to cook all weekend.
(Marina Aunty brought two large trays of short eats for me to bring back to Chicago, per usual — she is amazing, and her stuffed shrimp, mutton rolls, and milk toffee are perfect.)
It was great spending time with relatives and friends, but sad too. Cooking in Amma’s kitchen, hosting people the way she did so often, when it’s been two years since she’s been able to host people there. Kavi and I went to see her in the memory care unit on Thursday, and as expected, she didn’t recognize us. This is how I remember her best, I suppose — cooking her food.
These shrimp toasts are her recipe — Priya helped me prep and assemble them, but I should’ve made them spicier, and a little tangier, and we think they needed a little more mustard on the toasts. Guess I need more practice.
Lovely to see you, Jega Uncle and Kanthi Aunty! Glad you could join us. Wish Amma could’ve been with us too.
Made this tonight, from the Skinny Taste air fryer cookbook, because Kev got us an air fryer a while back and I figured I should learn how to use it. This was good, but dang, white people food makes a lot of mess to cook. So many dishes! And then you need utensils to eat it too…