Janins’ between Colombo and wherever blog

Here is a recipe for all the lazy armchair pundits.

To me, an expert is as good as a pundit but considerably inferior to a soldier belonging to either side of the struggle.
I thought a dish of Lazy Rice would be appropriate.

Lazy Rice is the euphemism used for Sri lankan fried rice often made using the leftovers of the previous night including leftover rice. Much alike our blogosphere pundits who ruminate over the leftover arguments of other bloggers comments and posts

So for your lazy rice you will need :
1 or 2 eggs
2 teaspoons sesame oil
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon oil
1/4 cup of chopped onion
50g of Leftovers of any two types of meat or fish
(Sorry pundits comments and blog posts won’t be usable)
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup finely sliced carrots
2 tablespoons green peas
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt to taste
1/2 cup bean shoots
Optional : Shallots or spring onions

Beat the egg or eggs depending on how eggy you like your fried rice with a little sesame oil, sprinkle of water, and a pinch of salt and sugar.
Heat oil in a pan over a medium heat, pour in the egg mixture to cover the base of the pan like a thin pancake. As soon as the bottom is sealed, tilt the pan up and using a spatula roll the egg pancake. Remove from the pan and chop up into pieces about one cm thick.

Cover a hot wok with oil over a high heat using a teaspoon of oil. Add the onion and any raw meat leftovers and seal, then add cooked meat and or fish leftovers. Add leftover rice keep tossing the mixture continuously and carrots. Allow to cook for a few minutes then add peas, pepper and salt to taste. Finally add bean shoots and mix the previously prepared cut egg.

Optionally finish the dish off with a sprinkling of spring onions / shallots.

In the past week if the blog-sphere is to be believed everybody is going loony or is that lunu here in Columbo.

I love living here as much as I love Columbo and that includes loving the war as much as peace, the LTTE as much as El Buffallo and gang. Life go’s on quite admirably irrespective of all this static that seems to have overcome Kottu and Zsri.

So on with the Lununess that is Lunu Miris.
A dried Chillie, onion and fish sambol :
You will need :
100g of Dried Chillies
25g of Maldive fish flakes
1 onion chopped
Salt
Juice of 1 lime

Simply Grind Chillies, Maldive fish and onion into a paste (you can substitute LTTE, El Buffallo and war - for the armchair pundits out there…..)
Using a pestle and mortar or food processor.
Then add salt and lime juice to taste (or substitute with peace but only to taste ).
Serve with hoppers, roti, or curries (Or with foreign press, NGO’s etc…) Can be stored in an airtight container (or in a political vacuum ).

Well the new year is but a distant memory, no doubt a lot of Kiribath was consumed in the interim period. The Kiri in the title is the milk of the coconut which could be described as brown on the outside and white on the inside. The milk isn’t from a cow’s udder but still white in colour rather like this white male in case i should ever forget…
Here is my recipe for Kiribath
 
250g red or white rice (Using a high starch grain will help with the absorption of the "kiri")
75g coconut milk powder
750ml water
1 tablespoon salt
4 cardamon pods (crushed with their cases removed)
10g butter


Wash and drain rice. Combine coconut milk powder with water to make the coconut milk. Place rice in a pot with 500ml of the coconut milk, add the cardamon seeds and salt. Simmer over a low heat for 30 minutes. When the liquid has evaporated, add the remaining coconut milk.

Stir well and cook until the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is thick and like sticky rice Spread on a plate or greased and lined tray, when smoothing the top using a knife dipped in melted butter will stop it from sticking.

Usually served cut into diamond shaped pieces when cold or in a bowl when hot. Accompanying any dish which has no coconut in it like lunu miris or lunu dehi

And yes the dehi in the title of this post is Lunu dehi.
It’s a tomato and lime pickle which require no cooking and has a sweet and sour chilli kick !

The base ingredient is lime pickle which you can purchase off the shelf either the "MD" or "Larich" brand. I find the "Larich" brand easier to get a hold of here, but I prefer the "MD" brands taste just a bit harder to find sometimes.

I believe that there is an "MD" brand shop in Colombo. I think they have a distribution control thing going on with the supermarket chains here in Colombo.

So to make enough dehi for about 20 servings :
You will need :
350g Lime pickle
2 tomatoes, de seeded and finely chopped 1 onion finely chopped
one and a half tablespoons sweet paprika
4 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt

Add all the ingredients together and mix. Use as you would a relish or as a spread.

Thanks to Moju for his recipie which is most appropriate given his logo.

On the subject of vegetables. This would be as good a time as any to introduce the final curry powder which was mentioned in my original posting. The un- roasted curry powder :

As it’s name states the spices in this mix aren’t heated prior to grinding. As a result the aromatic oils (which contains all the flavours) in the spices are not fully released at the time of spice mixing. Instead they are released when the spice mix cooks with it’s accompanying ingredients in the dish it’s used in. This results in a different aroma, look and taste to the completed dish in which this spice mix is used in, when compared with the roasted variety.

The spice blend consists of :
1/4 cup ground coriander
1/4 cup ground fennel
1/8 cup ground cumin
1/2 tablespoon ground fenugreek
10 curry leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground tumeric
1/4 cup shredded (or desiccated) coconut
1/8 cup of rice

Add the rice into a warm pan heat until lightly brown, then add coconut and shake until golden. Remove from the pan, place in a coffee grinder with the raw spices and blend to a powder.

Variation :
Add 2 cloves of garlic a 3cm piece of ginger sliced to the mix and blend.

Any contributions are most welcome, please feel free to comment. There is a new link for those of us who prefer rice to noodles check out "sticky rice".