Serendib Kitchen

You get a pic of me along with the meal I served the reporter yesterday, because I knew she’d be taking photographs so I actually changed out of grubby summer garden clothes for a change. I really go a little wild / feral in the summer. But look, clean hair! Earrings that match my dress! So fancy.

One of the things we talked about was how there aren’t any recipes using meat substitutes in Vegan Serendib — no Beyond meat, etc. I thought about using those, but a) they’re often expensive, b) they’re not commonly used in Sri Lankan cuisine, and c) there’s SO MUCH that’s inherently vegan in Sri Lankan cuisine, that you just don’t need meat substitutes to make large, satisfying, varied and interesting meals.

Neither she nor I are actually vegan, so another thing we talked about was how we definitely want to feel full and satisfied after a vegan meal. For this meal, the jackfruit & mushroom curry takes that role — it’s the main ‘entree,’ as it were, and you could just eat that with rice and feel satisfied. (Adding chickpeas or cashews to the curry would make it even more substantial.)

Of course, I wanted to let her taste lots of different dishes, and usually you’d have at least a few accompaniments to the meal in Sri Lanka. Sambols, pickles, etc. I was just cooking out of what I had in my fridge, so this is what I ended up with:

• red & white rice combo (Sri Lankan red rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice, and I’ve taken to doing half & half with white basmati when I make rice these days)

• jackfruit & mushroom curry

• mixed vegetable poriyal (potato, carrot, and pea pod)

• potato sothi (a coconut creamy, fenugreek-heavy mild dish)

• eggplant sambol

• ripe jackfruit curry

• coconut (pol) sambol)

Not bad for a few hours of cooking. If I hadn’t run out of onions AND coconut milk, though, I would’ve been tempted to make just one more curry….probably lentils / paruppu / dal, which would have made the meal even more filling.

It was interesting talking to the reporter yesterday about jackfruit — she’s a very accomplished chef (much more than me), but hasn’t really worked with jackfruit. I told her that yes, you could often find jackfruit nearby at Pete’s or Tony’s grocery stores, if you wanted to buy fresh and break it down, but to be honest, that’s a lot of work, and mostly, I like to just keep jackfruit on hand in forms that are easy to work with.

So for green jackfruit, that’s cans, usually packed in brine (it shouldn’t be very salty, but taste before adding more salt in your recipe, just in case). It’ll be cut up already — sometimes I cut it up a bit more, but you can just toss it in too. For this recipe, which is the most substantial element in my vegan meal, I combined the jackfruit with mushrooms, but you could also add chickpeas and/or cashews, if you wanted even more substance and protein. Eggplant also works well with this. Trader Joe’s reliably has green jackfruit cans, and honestly, I find it in most of our local grocery stores these days.

Using exactly the same curry sauce, you get a very different result if you use ripe jackfruit, which is fruity, like ripe mango. It works really well as an accompaniment; I wouldn’t usually use ripe jackfruit curry as the main entree, but it’s a bright, sweet note on the plate. You could also do ripe jackfruit pickle, of course, if you wanted more tang. This is much easier to make if you just buy frozen ripe jackfruit and cook with that; that’s getting easier to find — I’m pretty sure I just got this at my local Whole Foods, but if not, then Indian grocery stores are a good bet. You can also get ripe jackfruit in cans, but they’s usually packed in syrup, so I’d drain the syrup (save it for a dessert or cocktail component) before using the jackfruit itself in a curry.

If you’re vegan or vegetarian, I strongly recommend trying both green and ripe jackfruit, if you haven’t yet! And even if you aren’t vegan or vegetarian, they’re both delicious, so you should try them too.

All of these options are available on Amazon too.

The only problem with making eggplant sambol, is that after I rub the eggplant slices in turmeric and salt, let sit for an hour, blot away the excess bitter water that’s been drawn out, and then fry them, there is a good chance Kavi will come by and excitedly eat a bunch of the eggplant ‘chips’.

This is not actually a problem. Salty fried is something she reliably loves, and I’m just glad that she gets a little nutrition from the eggplant.

Whatever eggplant chips she leaves me get tossed with sliced onion, lime juice, a few chopped green chilies, and a few tablespoons of coconut milk, just to bind it together. A really nice contrast on a rice & curry plate!

(Recipe in both Feast and Vegan Serendib.)

It just makes me happy when the island is accumulating a wide variety of Sri Lankan dishes. Not that wide — I’m restraining myself. But so far, digging through the fridge for whatever groceries I had on hand, I’ve cooked:

– potato, carrot, and pea pod poriyal
– mushroom and green jackfruit curry
– ripe jackfruit curry (I wanted the reporter to have a chance to taste the difference, and I happened to have some on hand)
– coconut sambol

Umm…it’s all spicy; I wasn’t really thinking about it, and ended up going pretty authentic on the heat levels. I hope she likes that. Well, the next two won’t be spicy:

– eggplant sambol (only a little green chili! you’ll barely notice it!)
– rice!
– (oh, and I have some potato sothi in the fridge, I can pull that out too…)

And I have some mango sorbet going in the freezer, that I *think* will be ready in time, and if she likes, I’ll make her a cocktail or mocktail. Many options there, so we’ll see what she feels like.

Little bits of Sri Lanka everywhere in this house, not just on the island. Isn’t the new little elephant on my door adorable? The door is actually held on by a magnet, and comes off entirely, so you could ‘open’ it, in theory. This Etsy shop makes the cutest doors:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/BlueToucanStudios