Serendib Kitchen

(45 minutes, serves 6)

You may remember that I’m on something of a kick to convince the kids to eat beans, as part of an attempt to get us to eat healthier and also less carnivorously.  (I don’t know that we’re likely to ever go all-vegetarian, given how much we like meat and how weak our wills are, but we can at least reduce how much meat we eat, which is better than nothing, for ourselves, for the animals, for the planet.)  You may also remember that pasta with broccoli rabe and cannellini beans was a dismal failure — the broccoli rabe was so bitter that the kids declared the entire dish inedible.  (Kevin and I liked it.)

For take two, I figured I would coax them into it.  I’d use flavors I knew they liked (chicken broth and Parmesan), I’d add in Italian sausage, and I’d cut the amount of beans in half, so they’d be a little less overwhelming.  Success was…mixed.  I thought it was delicious, though the peas were perhaps a little too similar in texture to the beans.  (Should’ve stuck with my original plan to serve this with broccolini, but I forgot to pick some up at the store, oops.)  Anand ate his entire plate and had seconds, hooray!

Kavya, sadly, avoided both beans and peas (she did have two bites of each, to show willing, but that was all I could talk her into), ate lots of sausage, and said that even her beloved pasta tasted strange to her.  Ah well.  I’ll probably try making this or something like it a few more times and hope that she gets more accustomed to the flavors.

2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. Italian sausage, skin cut off
1/2 c. white wine
2 c. chicken broth
1 c. canned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 c. grated Parmesan
1/2 t. crushed red pepper
2 c. cooked pasta (I used veggie penne)
1/2 c. frozen peas
additional Parmesan for grating on top

1. Sauté onion in olive oil on medium-high, stirring, until softened.  Add garlic and continue sautéing until onions are golden-translucent.

2.  Turn heat to high, add Italian sausage and break up, stirring, into small chunks, letting sausage brown a little.

3.  After a few minutes, add white wine to deglaze the pan, scraping up any browned bits.  Add chicken broth and beans, stirring to combine.  Add Parmesan and crushed red pepper.  Simmer on medium until sausage is cooked through, 5-10 more minutes.  By that point, the liquid should have reduced to a nice thick sauce.

4.  Stir in pasta and frozen peas and cook a few minutes more, until well combined.  Serve hot, passing additional Parmesan for grating.

(1 hour, serves 6)

Continuing in the project of accustoming my children to Sri Lankan food, I made chicken curry last night, which is one of the classic dishes that you will find at many local restaurants.  I reduced the chili powder from my standard two tablespoons to just one, and that was the only change my daughter needed to be perfectly happy with the dish.  Hooray!  My son, sadly, thought it ‘tasted weird.’  We ended up supplementing his dinner with chicken nuggets out of the freezer.  (Standard recipe below.)

I suspect I will just have to keep making the curry, and keep having him taste it, until Anand is actually accustomed to it.  I should have undoubtedly started this process years and years ago, but better late than never, I suppose.  One of our goals for this year is to actually get the whole family eating the same dinner more often, which should, in the long run, make our lives a lot easier.

One thing worth noting in these photos is the color change from the second to third photo.  A key to a good chicken curry is having a tasty kulambu (or kuzhambu, depending on how you do the transliteration), which is basically the curry sauce or gravy.  Some people make it more liquid, some more thick (if you use potatoes in this dish, they will thicken the sauce).  In this recipe you build a fairly spicy sauce, and then add whole milk partway through the cooking process, which melds the flavors and mellows the spice level, lending your curry a creamy richness.

You can use other kinds of milk if you’d prefer, and in fact, coconut milk is often used in Sri Lanka, but coconut milk is a little rich for everyday cooking — my family tends to save it for special occasion meals.  I’ve used goat milk (works fine) and soy milk (a little thin, but acceptable).  Almond milk is quite thin, and has a distinct nutty flavor — it’s not bad, but it does take the curry in a different direction; if you can find cashew milk, that might be a better option.

Note:  If you’re using coconut milk, which is fairly sweet, you may want to switch out the ketchup for chopped fresh tomatoes + a little vinegar.  My mother started using ketchup (which has sugar in it already) to compensate for the lack of sweetness in cow’s milk, when she first came to America as an immigrant in 1973, and coconuts and coconut milk were not so easy to come by.

3-5 medium onions, diced
3 TBL vegetable oil
1 tsp black mustard seed
1 tsp cumin seed
3 whole cloves
3 whole cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick, broken into 3 pieces
1-2 TBL red chili powder
1 TBL Sri Lankan curry powder
12 pieces chicken, about 2 1/2 lbs, skinned and trimmed of fat. (Use legs and thighs — debone them if you must, but they’ll be tastier if cooked on the bone. Don’t use breast meat — it’s not nearly as tasty.) (Alternately, use 6 pieces of chicken, and three russet potatoes, peeled and cubed)
1/3 cup ketchup
1 heaping tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 TBL lime juice

1. In a large pot, sauté onions in oil on medium-high with mustard seed and cumin seed, cloves, cardamom pods, and cinnamon pieces, until onions are golden/translucent (not brown). Add chili powder and cook one minute. Immediately add curry powder, chicken, ketchup, and salt.

2.  Lower heat to medium. Cover and cook, stirring periodically, until chicken is cooked through and sauce is thick, about 20 minutes. Add water if necessary to avoid scorching. Add potatoes if using, and add milk, to thicken and mellow spice level; stir until well blended.  (Be careful not to cook on high at this point, as the milk will curdle.)

3.  Cook an additional 20 minutes, until potatoes are cooked through. Add lime juice; simmer a few additional minutes, stirring. Serve hot.

(2-3 hours, serves 8)

The end result is a tangy stew (or soup, if you prefer), delicious with a little rice or bread.  I’m continuing my efforts to accommodate my daughter to Sri Lankan flavors, so this uses half the chili powder I would normally put in for myself.  She loved it, and I like it just fine like this, but for a more Sri Lankan version, do double the chili powder!

1 T ghee or oil
1 lb. beef chuck, cubed
1 beef shank
1 c. canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 c. chopped frozen spinach
1/2 cup vinegar
1 T tamarind paste, dissolved in 3 c. water
1/4 c. ketchup
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 medium onions, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 T finely chopped fresh ginger
1 stick cinnamon
2 stalks curry leaves
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped
3 T Sri Lankan curry powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp salt

1.  Heat the oil or ghee on high in a large, heavy pot, and sear the beef, stirring, until browned on all sides, which adds great depth of flavor to the sauce.

2.  Keeping heat on high, add remaining ingredients to the pan and stir to combine, scraping up any browned meat on the bottom of the pan.  Bring to a boil, cover the pot, and simmer gently until meat is tender, approximately 2-3 hours.

3.  Remove lid and stir; if the gravy is too thin for your desire, reduce it by boiling rapidly uncovered.  Serve hot, with rice or bread.