with Mary Anne Mohanraj
I needed a little Sri Lankan food today; Jaffna crab curry (pulled from the freezer) and rice at the potluck.
Tentatively plan to make the potlucks a monthly thing again, last Sunday of the month, 12-6. About fifteen people today, nice to catch up with old friends and new.
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.
Couple hours layover, going to try to get through a little bit of photo posting.
A few days ago, tried sardines on toast with some Sri Lankan spreads — the eggplant pickle was a little too sweet, I think — a touch of it would’ve been nice, but not on its own. The seeni sambol (spicy-sweet caramelized onions) worked better, but I have to admit, I like mine better than this one that comes ready-made in a jar. On the other hand, for a 3-minute breakfast (just long enough to toast the bread), the jar is awfully convenient…
Most breakfasts this week — toasted multigrain bread (I’ve been eating Dave’s recently), Sri Lankan swordfish curry, hard-boiled egg. Delicious, and doesn’t raise my glucose much.
Recipe for swordfish curry below.
Shrimp curry, rice, cabbage varai. Life slowed down enough that I could actually cook a proper meal WITH a vegetable…
It’s been a long, hard week, and you want something delicious and fancy, but also reasonably healthy, and also you don’t want to spend a lot of money, and also you want it to be fast. If you happen to have a bag of Costco Thai Chili Mango chopped salad kit on hand, this is what you do:
1) Go to Carnivore Oak Park and ask them for one of their luscious crab cakes ($9).
2) Come home and heat a little oil in a pan. While that’s heating, pull out the Costco salad and empty the greens, dried mango, nutty bits, and about half of the chili-mango dressing into a big bowl. Taste — if you want more dressing, you can add it, but about half was right for me.
3) Take crab cake and sear on one side for a few minutes, then sear on the other side for a few minutes. If you really want, you can try to brown the edge a tiny bit too, but that’s hard to do without it falling apart, and it’s really not necessary.
4) Place crab cake on salad. If you have some fresh tomato, slice it and add it to the place. If you have fresh ripe mango, even better, but that can be hard to come by in Chicago in the winter.
Enjoy your little feast. (If you are feeding two, just make two crab cakes — the salad will likely be enough for two. Although it comes in a two-pack, so if you really want, you can make two bags of salad…)
Made Sri Lankan grilled halibut yesterday to eat with the grilled eggplant and mushrooms from the other day — tasty, but string hoppers are dry without sothi!
It was all right with some yogurt sauce, but today, I made sothi and pol sambol, and it was so much better. Some food combos are just classic, and shouldn’t be messed with too much. 
