Cooking with Mary Anne! Learn how to make a classic Sri Lankan brunch of hoppers (with both egg hopper and sweet coconut hopper variations), along with coconut (pol) sambol accompaniment. Served with an accompanying fish or jackfruit curry, and mango-passionfruit mimosas.
Sunday, September 25, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
$60 / person (or $85 / person, which includes a signed copy of A Feast of Serendib and a 4 oz. sampler of homemade Sri Lankan curry powder).
(about one hour, plus cooling time; makes 16 bars)
These fruity little fusion bars could be breakfast or dessert! I used up the last of the berries from my spring garden, along with rhubarb, and gave it a slightly Sri Lankan inflection with lime juice in the filling and cashews for the topping.
If you don’t have fresh berries and rhubarb on hand, frozen will work fine — just cook them down long enough for the excess water to cook off, so you get a good thick filling consistency.
If you’re making this in Sri Lanka, you might use native embilla, a berry with a flavor that’s somewhat similar to grapes, or try Ceylon gooseberries, which have a flavor reminiscent of apricot.
Filling:
1 1/2 c. rhubarb, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 c. fresh berries — raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, etc.
1/2 c. sugar
2 T lime juice
1 1/2 T cornstarch
Bar:
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. quick oats
1/2 c. jaggery or brown sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. chopped cashews
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8×8″ square pan with parchment paper. (You can butter and flour the pan instead, but it’ll be a little harder to take the bars out neatly.) Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring filling ingredients to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes, until the filling is thickened and rhubarb and berries are starting to break down. Remove from heat; set aside until fully cooled.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combing flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Melt butter and drizzle in, stirring until the mixture forms loose crumbs.
4. Press half the mixture into the prepared baking pan. Spread cooled filling onto the crust, and crumble the reserved topping evenly onto the filling. Scatter chopped cashews over the top, pressing in lightly.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until filling is bubbly around the edge and topping is lightly golden. Let cool completely in the pan. Transfer to a cutting board and cut carefully into 16 bars. Enjoy!
When you wake up groggy and a little cranky but then come downstairs and remember that you asked Kevin to make cheese scones yesterday and everything is better.
Breakfasts post-party involve delicious leftovers. I’m not sure I can think of a better breakfast than a toasty hot veggie samosa + fish cutlet + coffee or tea.
In my imaginary cafe that I will never actually open, we will offer this as the Sri Lanka Workday Morning Special.
I have been trying to get to outdoor morning yoga at least once a week (a little interrupted by travelling) because I feel so much better the rest of the day if I do. Ideally, I’d like to have a daily yoga practice, but it’s likely going to take me a little while to work up to it. 7 a.m. classes!
But I just today realized that the outdoor yoga space for my studio (And then there was well), held in someone’s backyard, is only a block away from The Daly Bagel — I think I have my incentive now.
(30-45 minutes + soaking & fermenting time, makes 25-30)
Kundu thosai are round lentil & flour ‘pancake balls,’ similar to Dutch poffertjes, Danish aebelskiver, or Japanese takoyaki in approach, and they can be made in the same kind of pan. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they came to Sri Lanka by way of Dutch colonizers, though you’d need to consult a food historian to be sure!
Poffertjes use a pan with smaller (and more) indentations than aebelskiver — depending on your pan, you may need to adjust cooking time appropriately for your kundu thosai; larger balls will take a few minutes longer to cook through.
They’re typically made with leftover thosai batter, but you can certainly just make kundu thosai straight up. Remember to start at least a day and a half before you plan to eat them, as there’s a soaking lentils 6-8 hr step and a fermenting batter 6-8 hr step. They can be made with rice flour (traditional), wheat flour (softer), or a combination of the two.
Savory versions are sometimes dressed up with a little onion and chili (raw or sautéed briefly), and sweet versions add in jaggery, cardamom and fresh coconut. Do note that the sweet versions are still using fermented batter, so the sour-sweet flavor combo may not be what you expect; I have to admit that my kids have not quite decided if they approve or not!
Savory kundu thosai served with a little coconut chutney is a pretty perfect breakfast for me, and the lentils give a great healthy boost to your day.
INGREDIENTS:
1 c. urad dal / black gram / ulunththu, skinless and split
1 c. flour, divided
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
water to make batter
vegetable oil
Savory variation: 1/2 – 1 c. chopped onions and 1-3 chopped green chilies
Sweet variation: 1/4 – 1/2 c. jaggery or brown sugar, 1/2 t. cardamom, and 1/2 c. fresh coconut
1. Soak black gram for 6-8 hours or overnight (I would usually start this the afternoon before I planned to serve them, so starting Saturday afternoon for Sunday brunch). Grind finely using a grinder or food processor, to a thick paste — add a little water if needed for smooth grinding.
2. In a frying pan, toast 1/2 c. flour on high heat, stirring constantly, until light brown (5-10 minutes).
3. Mix toasted flour, remaining 1/2 c. flour, baking soda, salt. Add in ground dal and sufficient water to mix and create a batter. You’re aiming for a pourable batter, a little thicker than pancake batter; stir in water 1/2 c. at a time until you get the consistency right.
4. Set aside batter in a warm place to ferment for 6-8 hours or overnight. (If you’re in a cool climate, a good option is an oven that’s been warmed up and then turned off.) The batter should rise and likely double in bulk, so be sure there’s enough room in your bowl for that; you may want to put something under it to catch any spills.
Ready to cook! (If you haven’t made coconut chutney yet, pause and make that now, so that it’s ready when the kundu thosai start coming hot out of the pan.)
5. Stir batter (it will deflate). Heat molded pan on medium heat and add a little oil to each indentation. When oil is hot, add a spoonful of batter to each. Use a skewer, fork, or chopsticks to turn the kundu thosai to cook on the other side. (In Denmark, knitting needles are traditional!)
6. Remove from molds when cooked through, a few minutes each; serve warm with coconut chutney (recommended). You can also serve with other chutneys or with curry.
SAVORY VARIATION: Chop some onion, green chili, and curry leaves; sauté in oil for a few minutes if you like, or leave raw. Stir into batter.
SWEET VARIATION: Add some jaggery or brown sugar, ground cardamom, and fresh grated coconut to the batter. Note that they’ll look darker as they come off the pan, due to the caramelizing sugar in the batter.
Since Kevin made Valentine’s dinner for us, I made it for the kids.
Bacon roses (using Irish bacon from our local Irish store) topped with jaggery + pancake hearts (a heart cookie cutter makes it easy, especially if mom is perfectly happy storing the pancake edges to eat for breakfast tomorrow).
And then I couldn’t resist having a few pancakes myself with some passionfruit yogurt (Ellenos, new brand at our local Whole Foods, love it) and a drizzle of extra passionfruit purée, just ’cause.
Nice to wake up to scones. The kids, sadly, don’t love these because of the ginger — it’s a bit too intense a flavor for them. So I’m going to be packing most of them up later today to drop off to a few neighbors. But it was nice to wander down, a little groggy, and have these waiting for my breakfast. Reheat in toaster oven a few minutes, split, spread with butter and mango-passionfruit curd. YUM.
