Category: Dinner

(10 minutes, serves 4)

Adding seeds, coconut, and lentils to your rice boosts its nutrition as well as its flavor. If you’d like, you can use black sesame seeds instead (or a mix); black seeds retain their hulls, and have a slightly more bitter flavor and more nutrients. This savory rice is a tasty accompaniment to a fruity curry, such as pineapple, mango, or ripe jackfruit.

1/2 t. salt

1. Dry roast sesame seeds in a medium sauté pan, stirring constantly on medium-high, until they start to pop; remove to a bowl.

2. In the same pan, dry roast two red chilies and the coconut, stirring constantly, until coconut is dry and lightly golden; don’t let them burn; remove to the same bowl.

3. Add oil to the pan and mustard seed. Heat, stirring occasionally, until they start to pop. Turn heat down to low; add urad dal and fry for about 25-30 seconds, stirring.

4. Add cumin seed, curry leaves, and the rest of the dried red chilies (broken up), and sauté for about 30 more seconds, stirring.

5. Add sesame seed & coconut mixture, salt, and rice to the pan, and stir until well-blended. Serve hot.

NOTE: Sesame seeds can go rancid over time — they’re generally fine in a dark, cool pantry, but if you don’t use them frequently, they should be stored in the fridge or frozen, in a tightly-sealed package. Check seeds for taste before use; if they taste sour or otherwise off, throw them out.

(10 minutes, serves 4)

Ever since I had children, I’ve become a little more focused on trying to get some protein into every meal, if possible. Lentils are protein powerhouses, and these lentils don’t even require any soaking or boiling in advance — they just fry for a few minutes, and end up as crunchy little bites mixed in with the tangy tamarind rice. This rice is delicious with fried plantains, but to be honest, I often just eat it straight up, right out of the pot.

You can make fresh rice for this, but it’s also a terrific way to revive day-old rice!

6 T tamarind juice (1 T tamarind paste dissolved in 5 T hot water)

NOTE: This recipe moves quickly, and it’s worth having all the ingredients prepped in advance. You can measure out the whole spices into one container, and the ground spices into another, and dissolve the tamarind paste in advance.

1. Heat oil on medium-high and sauté lentil, mustard seed, cumin seed, dried chilies, curry leaves for two minutes, stirring constantly — be careful not to burn.

2. Stir in ground spices, then add tamarind juice. Bring to a boil and let simmer a few minutes, until thickened.

3. Remove from heat and stir in rice, mixing until well-blended. Serve hot!

Here’s a South Asian / Sri Lankan cuisine question, for those in the know. Here in cold Chicago, we love roasting vegetables — it brings out the flavor and the sweetness.

When I’m looking through my gazillion Sri Lankan cookbooks for recipe development, generally, roasted vegetables just aren’t a thing, which makes sense, because if you’re in a tropical country, who wants to turn an oven to 400 for an hour?

But I still kind of want to include a few roasted vegetable options, because they’re so delicious, and I can just do that, since my cookbook really tilts a bit Sri Lankan American, rather than ‘pure’ Sri Lankan, but I’m curious whether there’s any cultural precedent for roasting. I have to think that in the villages, there must be some slow-cooking of root vegetables over banked coals in fire pits, perhaps?

Thoughts? Would especially love to hear from people in Sri Lanka or who have spent time with cooks there.

(Roast squash recipe here)

(30 minutes, serves 6)

This is one of the prettiest curries I make, in springtime pink, gold, and green — it’s also delicious, sunshine in a bowl. A little sweet, beautifully fruity, creamy with coconut milk, and aromatic with saffron threads. Pairs well with roasted cashews or chickpeas, a green jackfruit curry, or kale mallung.

pinch of saffron threads (or 1/4 t. turmeric)

1. In a large pot, sauté onions, ginger, and garlic in oil on medium-high with mustard seed and cumin seeds until onions are golden/translucent (not brown), stirring as needed.

2. Add green chilies, curry leaves, pineapple, and salt — cook five minutes, stirring occasionally. (Add a little water if needed.)

3. Add coconut milk and saffron threads, stirring gently to combine. Turn down to medium, cover, and let cook 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally; add water if needed. Serve hot with rice or bread.

Sri Lankan chicken curry + squash curry (they combine well), with a little rice on top. Yummy.

Sometimes I just want South Asian food I don’t have to cook myself. Which Kevin can actually do a good job of cooking for me, but since we’re also trying to keep our local restaurants alive, it’s a good excuse to order from Khyber Pass. Tandoori chicken, samosa chaat, lamb vindaloo, saag paneer, Goan fish curry, papadum, naan — and it comes with rice and a complimentary veggie curry. Don’t forget the mango lassi.

That’ll do (for several days).

#shoplocal

(makes 1 qt. soup, 15 minutes if you have curried squash on hand)

Let’s say you made a big batch of curried squash, and you eat it for a meal or two, and you still have a fair bit left, and you feel like a change. That’s the perfect time to turn your curry into soup! This also freezes well, if you’d like to make a big batch for a rainy day.

roasted cashews, sultanas, and pepitas for topping, optional

1. Combine curried squash and vegetable broth in a pot and simmer 10-15 minutes, until well blended. Taste and adjust seasonings; you may want a little more salt, pepper, or lime.

2. You can just serve it as is, homestyle, but a nice option is to blend the soup to smoothness (an immersion stick blender makes it easy; be careful if transferring hot soup into a blender).

3. Serve hot, topped with roasted cashews, sultanas, and pepitas (pumpkin seeds).

(1 hr, serves 6-8)

If you’re going to be roasting squash, you can quickly knock up a lovely curry sauce while the squash is cooking. This is a long list of spices, but the process is very simple — just sauté onions with seasonings, add some tang and coconut milk, and you’re basically done. Cashews add protein (and deliciousness), helping to make this a complete meal.

You can use any squash, but I think the combo of butternut and acorn is particularly delicious.

chopped cilantro or other greens to garnish, optional

1. Prep squash with first four seasonings and set squash to roasting, per previous recipe.

2. Sauté onions in oil on medium-high heat, stirring. Add in chilies, ginger, garlic, mustard seed, cumin seed, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom pods, curry leaves, and cashews; sauté until golden.

NOTE: If you’re not strictly vegan, it would be culturally appropriate to add 1-2 t. dried Maldive fish or something similar with the sautéing onions, which will bump up the umami component; if you do that, you may want to reduce salt.

3. Add tamarind paste and coconut milk, stir until well combined. Taste and adjust seasonings — you may want to add a little more curry powder, salt, and/or lime juice. If you want a more liquid sauce, add water and stir to blend well; if you want it thicker, let simmer to desired thickness.

4. When you’re happy with the curry sauce, add cut up roasted squash (if the squash isn’t ready yet, just turn off the heat on the sauce until it is). Roast squash should be somewhat sweet already, but I like adding in some sultanas for added pops of sweetness in the curry, to balance the tang and the spice.

Serve hot with rice or bread. Lovely with sambols and pickles.

(10 minutes prep + 50 minutes roasting time, serves 2)

Roasting in an oven is not a common process in tropical Sri Lanka, but I live in Chicago, and roasting squash brings out the sweetness beautifully. This is a simple dish, super-easy to prep on a night when you’re tired, especially if you’re looking for something warm and comforting.

Squash can be a little difficult to cut up, so I tend to just split it and then roast; it’s easy to peel afterwards. But if you have the energy to peel and cube it raw, then you can get seasonings spread more evenly on all the sides of the cubes.

1 t. jaggery or brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.

2. Split squash (or peel and cube), drizzle with oil and seasonings. Place cut side up on foil-covered baking sheet (for ease of clean-up.) Bake about 50 minutes, until tender.

3. Let cool slightly, then peel and cut to bite-size pieces.

Serve hot with rice; I’ve added a topping of fresh micro beet greens here. This is very simple as is — you could add a coconut milk drizzle, another vegetable dish (a varai, perhaps), or a sambol or pickle accompaniment, to add complexity and interest.

This recipe may not quite match up to the photos, since when I was making biryani for New Year’s, I used leftover lamb curry as my base. But it’s basically the same concept. So luxurious — fit for a maharajah’s table.

Lamb Biryani (or Goat, Beef, or Chicken)

Biryani, derived from the Persian word berya, which means fried or roasted, is a rice-based dish made with spices and either lamb, goat, beef, chicken, egg, prawns, or vegetables—your choice! It is generally more strongly spiced than a pilaf (though closely related), and commonly layered as part of its preparation. Sri Lankan biryani is spicier than Indian, and generally served with curries and sambols.

This has a lot of ingredients and may look a bit intimidating, but it’s actually quite straightforward—mostly, you’re just adding everything to one big pot, step-by-step. It isn’t usually everyday food, given that it does take a while to cook, but if you have a special occasion to celebrate, biryani is an impressive crowd-pleaser. It will come out a bit dry, so I would serve it with a curry, or something else that offers a gravy. Even a yogurt raita would work!

Tip: If you don’t have an oven-safe dutch oven, you can start this in a regular large pot and transfer it to a baking dish for the final step.

4 boiled eggs, peeled and sliced in half

7. Serve on a flat dish and decorate with fried sultanas, cashew nuts, and boiled egg halves.

Note: For a fancy preparation, I’ve read that some chefs fry papadum, cut it fine, until it resembles straw, and then use that to concoct a nest; they nestle the biryani with it, and mold chickens out of a combination of mashed potato, butter, and egg yolk. But I’ve never seen or tried that!