Sri Lankan Cooking - Try your hand at it.

Want to try your hand at cooking. Here are two recipes from Sri Lanka. Hope you are successful in your efforts.

Jack Curry - 'Polos'

Recipe

Tender Jak........................................... 250G

Saffron powder.................................... 1 teaspoon

Roasted 'curry and chillie' powder........ 1 dessert spoon

Coconut milk........................................ 3 cups from half a large coconut

Roast dark and ground fine the following

Scraped coconut.................................. 1 dessert spoonful

Rice...................................................... 1 dessert spoonful

Curry leaves...........................................1 sprig

Salt water...............................................4 1/2 dessert spoonfuls

Vinegar...................................................1 dessert spoonful

Maldive fish.............................................1 dessert spoonful

Goraka.....................................................2 pieces

Cinnamon................................................1 small piece

To temper

Curry leaves............................................A sprig

Dill seeds.................................................1/2 spoon

Coconut oil..............................................2 dessert spoons

Lime........................................................1/2

Roasted curry powder..............................1 dessert spoon

Preparation

Cut the tender jak with the skin in large pieces. Boil well with sufficient water to cover. Cut off the skin and center after boiling and cut the remaining into 1" cubes. Mix in all the ingredients (other than the roasted curry powder, coconut oil, curry leaves, dill seeds and red onion). When mixture is ready, temper it with the coconut oil, dill seeds, curry leaves and red onions. Cover and cook on a low fire. Stir occasionally when cooking. When sufficiently cooked, remove from fire and spread the curry powder and cover.

Fish buns

Recipe

For the dough

Wheat flour............ 500Gms

Salt

Yeast.......................1 teaspoonful

Sugar......................1 tablespoonful

For the Filling - Mash it up

Boiled Fish or salmon

Boiled Potatoes

Black pepper

Preparation

Sieve the flour. Mix the sugar, yeast, salt and water to make the dough. Knead and mix it well. Cover the prepared dough with a wet cloth and leave it for about 8 hours to ferment and rise. At the end of the 8 hours make small balls with the prepared dough. Flatten the balls of dough and insert the prepared filling and cover with the dough keeping the filling in the center. Beat some egg white and brush the top of the buns with some of the beating. Switch on the oven and let it heat up to 250 degrees Centigrade. Insert the buns on tray inside the oven. Bake at 250 degrees Centigrade for 15 mins. Check that they are baked well and remove from the oven.

Sri Lankan Grey Hornbill

I took this picture at Kosgama, Sri Lanka, in a wooded area close to a house. There were two hornbills. One of them settled on a branch and I managed to zoom in and take this picture. In the picture you can see the hole in the Kithul tree. This is obviously the entrance to the nest of the couple as they were hovering around all the time.