Fried rice - fusion variation

I came home from work today to find the curries from lunch still out on the counter and the pot of rice on the cooker with the lid off. Sitting at the table were both of my kids and my husband with their laptops open busy at work! Now I was a little bit ticked that they were sitting there and hadn't noticed that the food was still out from lunch, but to their credit they were all working hard on their blogs. Can't fault them for that now, can I?

On my commute home I had decided to make some fried rice. Mainly because my daughter had called me at work and asked if she could eat bread with her curries for lunch instead of rice, and thus I assumed that there would be a heap of left over rice. However, it seems like she gave up on the idea and ate the rice anyways. Once I'm set on cooking something there is no changing my mind. I have what we like to call "large momentum". Once I get going on an idea there is little that can change my mind however the circumstances change. So I had to cook some new rice and enough for two meals because Wednesdays the kids have to take lunch to school.

Everyone enjoyed the rice and it was requested to be made a regular. Hence I need this blog so I can make it again.

Preparation time: 60 minutes ; serves 6 - 8 

Ingredients:

3 rice cooker cups	Basmati or other long grain, non-sticky rice
4 rice cooker cups	Cold water
1 l + 4 tbsp.	Oil
325 g	Eggplant
225 g	Carrots
1 tbsp.	Garlic, minced
300 g	Sausages, vegetarian of course!
75 g	Spring onions
300 g	Corn
50 g	Sun dried tomatoes
3 tbsp.	Vegetarian stirfry sauce
1 tbsp.	Soya sauce
1 tbsp.	Ketchup

Method:
Wash your rice well in cold water until the water is not so white. Usually recipes say until clear, but I have never managed clear. I don't know what that looks like when washing rice!! Then cook your rice either in a rice cooker with 4 cups of water or on the stove top. And here is a short description of how to do this because it seems like a lot of people have forgotten how to do this (like my mother-in-law who is 100% Chinese!).

Put the rice and the water in a heavy bottom pan with a fitting lid. Make sure that the rice is completely covered by the water. Place it on the stove top, on high heat, with the lid on. When the water boils (you will know this because the pot will start splattering and over flowing, can't miss it), take off the lid, reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting, stir the rice, put the lid back on and cook for 20 minutes. If it boils over again, which it might, just take the lid off, release the heat and put it back on again. Do not peep at your rice (unless you are not using a heavy bottom pan and you smell the bottom burning). Once the 20 minutes are up check your rice by eating a little bit. Then stir it again. For this recipe it is best to leave the lid off and allow the moisture to evaporate and the rice to cool.

So having that out of the way... while your rice is cooking prepare the vegetables. I finely sliced my eggplant and started deep frying it while chopping the other vegetables. Just heat the oil, add a 1/4 of the eggplant and fry it until golden brown. You should stir it once in the middle of the frying so that it gets cooked equally on all sides.

Next peel and dice your carrots, mince your garlic, wash and slice your spring onions, cut your sausages into slices, chop your sun dried tomatoes, and crack open the can of corn (yes, use a can and save yourself some time) and drain the water from it. By now you should be done frying the eggplant and it there is a good chance that your rice has cooked. If it hasn't, take a break and clean up the mess!

Once the rice is cooked heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a large wok (high heat). First add the carrots and stir fry them until they change colour (they become more yellowy). This takes a couple of minutes. Next add the garlic and mix everything well. Sausages should be added next. You can substitute the sausages with any other type of high protein food, like scrambled eggs, fried tofu sticks, or any of the other types of high protein foods that do not appear in this blog! Fry for another couple of minutes and then add all the other vegetables mixing well.

In a small bowl mix together the 3 sauces and pour them over the vegetables. Again mixing well. Next add the rice and stir until everything is well mixed. Voila you have fried rice!

Enjoy!!

Waffles (German style)

At breakfast this morning, I realized that I don't have my waffles recipe here. We use this one all the time and got it from the elementary school that my kids attended. Once a month they had "Waffeltag" (waffle day). Us parents donated the batter and our time to make the waffles and then they were sold to the children for 50 cents. Your typical PTA fund raiser (although here the teachers are not involved in a PTA). My kids are long out of elementary school but we still use the same recipe. I have not yet found a better one. If you want to eat the waffles with curry leave out the sugar.

Preparation time: 35 minutes ; makes 8/12/16

Ingredients:

125/187.5/250 g	Butter - melted (works with margarine too, just does not taste as good)
50/75/100 g	Sugar
250/375/500 g	Flour
1/1/2 pkt.	Vanilla sugar (substitute with any type of vanilla flavouring)
3M/4L/6M	Eggs (M-medium; L-large), lightly beaten
1 pinch	Salt
1.5/2.25/3 tsp.	Baking powder
0.25/0.375/0.5 l	Milk (can substitute with soya milk)

Method:
This is super easy if you have a blender. You just put all the ingredients in the blender and pulse it until it everything is just combined.

Prepare some fruit to have with your waffles

My blender broke a couple of years back (so don't ask me why I still have it in my kitchen cupboard!) so I make my batter by hand.

The butter I melt in the microwave. This way the butter does not get over heated. If it gets overheated it has a tendency to cook the eggs, which is bad. So chop up the butter and microwave it for around 30 seconds. Then take it out and stir it. If it's not all liquid put it back in for another 15-20 seconds. Keep repeating until the butter is liquid.

Then put the sugar, flour, vanilla, salt and baking powder in a large bowl and mix briefly. Make a well in the middle and add the melted butter. Work the flour into the butter by stirring and slowly incorporating the flour from the edge of the well. Once you have a thick paste add the eggs and keep going. If you notice that it gets lumpy just mix more vigorously. Finally add the milk about 100 ml at a time, working it into the dough. You should end up with a non-lumpy batter.

Heat up your waffle iron and follow the irons instructions.

My waffle iron

When your waffles come out of the iron put them on a wire mesh. They will cool quicker but will not turn soggy. Its the same philosophy as with a toast rack.

Waffles on a sunny Saturday in Bochum!

The typical way to eat waffles in Germany is with icing sugar,

but we also like nutella with fruit and whipped cream.

Potato and Pea Curry - tempered

This is a curry without any gravy. In Sri Lanka we call it a tempered curry. It's not 100% authentic because peas don't grow in  Sri Lanka. Nowadays you can get frozen ones in the major supermarkets in Sri Lanka, but they are terribly expensive. I've seen dried peas as well, although I have never used them I am sure they would work fine if you soaked them and boiled them for hours! Of course if you don't have access to peas then you can just omit them.

Made with "normal" potatoes

Preparation time: 35 minutes ; serves 4 - 8 (depending on how many other curries you have)

Ingredients:

1.2 kg	Potatoes (or a combination of sweet potato and regular)
4 tbsp.	Oil
1 tsp.	Salt
2 tsp.	Coriander powder
1 tsp.	Cumin powder
1/2 tsp.	Tumeric
2	Green chilies, sliced
1/4 cup	French fried onions (Röstzwiebel)
1/2 cup	Peas (frozen or fresh)

Method:
If you live in Germany this is a very simple recipe! The Röstzwiebel are readily available in the store. In the USA they are called "French fried onions" and you can probably find a recipe to make them somewhere. Basically they are deep fried onions. The preparation time for this recipe does not take making the Röstzwiebel from scratch into account.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into bite sized chunks. Then boil them. My general experience is that if you put the potatoes in cold water and then bring them to the boil, that after boiling they take around 8 minutes to cook. However, this is highly dependent on  what type of potatoes you use. If you use a mixture of potatoes then boil each type separately to avoid over boiling. When your potatoes are done you should be able to poke a fork through them.

Drain the water and rinse under cold water.

Put the oil in a large wok and heat it. You can also use a frying pan. Keep in mind that you will not get a nice brown crisp on your potatoes if you use a non-stick. The best pan to use is a cast iron or aluminium one. Make sure it is well seasoned though, else the potatoes will stick.

Once the oil is hot add the potatoes and  toss until they are all covered with oil. Then add all the other ingredients and fry. Stir constantly until golden brown. And that is it!

Made with a mixture of "normal" and sweet potatoes

Sri Lankan Pumpkin Curry (Wattakka)

Today I need to boost up some curries that I made yesterday. There is not quite enough for two more meals but too much for one. Oh I'm just realizing that us adults don't need lunch tomorrow because we have to go for an on site review at the university. With a bit of luck they will provide us with lunch. Actually I'm pretty sure that hubby will get lunch (he's higher up on the ladder). But I've started cooking my pumpkin so there is no going back now.

As you have probably read by now, I am not 100% Sri Lankan. So my mum never cooked traditional Sri Lankan food. Yes, she cooked curry but there were some things she would just not do. Either because they were too time consuming or because she didn't have the correct implements. Because of this we never had traditional pumpkin curry at home. I absolutely adored it and would stuff myself whenever I got it at my aunts homes. Generally pumpkin is not considered a fancy dish, so you don't get it when there is a celebration. It's more the type of food you get when you go home with your cousins and share whatever has been cooked. Even better if you were not expected!

Now I think I have finally found a way to cook the pumpkin somewhat like my aunts. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. The secret ingredient is ground brown mustard seeds!

Preparation time: 45 minutes ; serves 4 - 8 (depending on how many other curries you have)

Ingredients:

750 g	Pumpkin (any type, cooking  time may vary)
1/2 cup	Diced onions
1 tbsp.	Finely diced garlic
1/4 tsp.	Tumeric
1/2 tsp.	Chili powder (or to taste)
2	Green chilies, sliced
10	Black pepper seeds
	Water to cover
1 tsp.	Salt
1 sprig	Curry leaves
1/4 tsp.	Dill seeds
2 tsp.	Brown mustard seeds
1 cup	Thick coconut milk

Method:
Before you start note that the mustard seeds are NOT optional. You can leave out many things but not the mustard. You will also need a good grinder and a stone mortar and pestle. 

You can use any pumpkin you like to make this. The cooking time will of course vary according to which type you use. You can cook it with or without the skin, also depending on the type. In these pictures I used hokkaido pumpkin. You need to cut the pumpkin into cubes around 1 inch cube. The pumpkin will disintegrate if you cut it too small, which is also a reason why you might want to keep the skin on. In my case I removed the skin.

The first step is easy enough. Put all the ingredients except the mustard seeds and coconut in a pot. Do not put too much water. If you have too much water at the end this can be saved by using coconut cream or coconut milk powder. Cover and bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer (12 - 20).

While this is going on you can prepare the mustard. This is how I did it. I first put my seeds into the grinder attachment of my Sumeet (which is a really good, heavy duty Indian liquidizer/grinder) and ground until I had a kind of fine powder. You can probably do this in any spice grinder, or if you don't have one you can use a mortar and pestle or a 'miris gala'. Sadly to release the flavour that you need for this curry this powder is not enough. I put my powder into a granite mortar, added about a teaspoon of water (water is really important), and ground until I had a smooth paste.

You need 1 teaspoon of this paste. Save any extra paste that you may have, you can put it in sandwiches or any where else that you would use mustard. You must have a granite/stone mortar. It won't work with a wooden one. Believe me, I have tried!

Once your pumpkin is just about (al dente) cooked mix the mustard into the coconut milk and then into the pumpkin curry. If you use coconut cream from a can use about 1/2 cup adding some water, if necessary. If you use coconut milk powder it is best to pour out extra water that you might have in the pot and mix the milk powder with this water. Pumpkin is very watery, so the curry tends to become too liquidy very quickly. If you use fresh coconut milk then it will probably be a bit liquid, but on the other hand you've gained on the taste. Do not cover the curry. Bring to the boil and it is ready to serve.

Seeni Sambol - Sri Lankan sweet onion sambol

To make your new year table complete here is my seeni sambol recipe. The longer you cook it, the better it gets. It also freezes well so it makes sense to make more than you need to heat up later. In fact it sometimes tastes better when you reheat it! I bet it can also be canned or put in a jar. It's best to make it at least the day before you need it so that the flavours can intensify.

Preparation time: Minimum 2 hours (up to 4 hours); makes 4 cups 

Ingredients:

1 kg	Red onions, Big onions or Bombay onions (depending on where you live and how old you are!)
250 g	Shallots (Rathu lunu, small red onions)
1/4 cup	Oil
3 sprigs	Curry leaves
2 inches	Rampe leaves (pandan leaves)
200 g	Tomatoes, diced
1 tbsp.	Garlic pulp
1 tbsp.	Ginger pulp
1 bulb	Lemon grass (sera)
3	Chilies
2 tsp.	Chili powder (you can put more or less depending on your taste)
2 tsp.	Salt
10	Cardamoms, bruised
10	Cloves
4 inches	Cinnamon (Sri Lankan)
2 tbsp.	Tamarind pulp
1 tbsp.	Lemon or lime juice
1/4 cup	Sugar
250 g	Maldive fish (makes it non-vegetarian but more traditional)

Method:
This is quite easy to make. The most trouble you will have is with getting the ingredients (if you don't usually cook Sri Lankan food and don't live in Sri Lanka) and cutting the onions. The part I hate the most is peeling and cutting the onions. I cry, my nose runs, my glasses get sticky, and the kitchen stinks!! To reduce the pain I use a kitchen machine to do the actual cutting. The difference between a refined seeni sambol and a regular one is how fine your onions are cut. The finer the better.

Above you can see what I mean by red onions and shallots. European shallots are much larger than Sri Lankan ones and thus easier to cut and clean. If you want to make your life easy you can just use the bigger onions (so 1.25 kg). If you want more taste you can use a ratio of 1:1. 

Make sure you have prepared all your spices before you continue. Bruise the lemon grass and the cardamoms (i.e. hit them with a rolling pin so that they release their flavour). 

Cinnamon, ginger, green chilies, garlic, lemon grass

Cinnamon (again!), cloves, chili powder, cardamom

The amount of chili you use will depend on your taste. (I cut my green chilies into large pieces so that they can be picked out). The best cinnamon to use is Sri Lankan. It is still rolled by hand and gives the best flavour. As you might notice some of my spices are frozen i.e. lemon grass, chilies, rampe and curry leaves. 

Red onions, rampe, curry leaves

I find that they keep best frozen. Curry leaves are okay dried but freezing really retains the flavour of the leaves much better. I don't like using pre-pulped garlic and ginger. It tastes weird, so I grate mine fresh each time.

Once you have everything ready heat the oil over moderately high heat and once the oil is hot fry the curry leaves, rampe and a handful of chopped onions. Once the onions are soft you can add the rest of the onions and then the tomatoes, garlic, ginger, lemon grass, chilies, chili powder, salt,  cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon and tamarind. 

In Sri Lanka this dish is not traditionally vegetarian. Usually people add a type of dried fish called Maldive fish. It is very hard and used to be only available as a hard block. I remember my mother chipping off pieces of the rock hard fish with a nut cracker while watching the sun go down over the hills. Knives couldn't get through it and electric grinders would break. Sri Lankan's usually pound it in this primitive pounder (Vangediya).  

Nowadays you can buy it pre-pounded in Sri Lanka. It's hard to get anywhere other than a Sri Lankan store and even they might not carry it. But if you like fish add this to your sambol now.

Stir everything together and cook over a low flame forever. 

I cooked mine for 1.5 hours. After which I put up the heat and cooked off all the moisture. Be careful to stir to prevent burning. For some reason this took around 30 minutes, but I was in the kitchen anyways! Now it's time to add the sugar and lemon juice. Stir them well. After that I let it cook on low heat for another 15 - 20 minutes, got bored, put the cooker off and went to bed. Of course you could cook it for less.

This morning I picked out all the inedible spices like the rampe, cinnamon, lemon grass, and put it in a bowl to serve with milk rice for new year. 

Actually looks darker than this!

You can eat seeni sambol with anything. It goes exceptionally well with milk rice. Another much loved way to eat it is in seeni sambol buns. Just make a regular bread dough and stuff this inside. We also use it to fill sandwiches with thickly spread butter. Plus you can eat it as a side with rice and curry. Try it, you'll love it!

Sri Lankan Milk Rice

The new year is almost upon us. As in many Sri Lankan households we celebrate new year with a traditional meal of milk rice, seeni sambol and pani (and untraditionally with red lentil curry!). Took me forever to figure out how to make milk rice correctly. It should be relatively simple, but I could never get it just right. One Sri Lankan new year my aunty Rosie was standing by and showed me how to make it properly. So it is for all of you who have been struggling and for those of you who want to try a new type of milk rice. For all you Germans out there, you can eat this with Zimtzucker just like normal German milk rice (note that it is not as liquid as the German variety).

Preparation time: 1 hour; serves 6 

Ingredients:

2 cups	Rice (raw rice)
3 cups	Water
1 tsp.	Sugar
2 tsp.	Salt
4	Cardamom pods
40 g	Butter (or 3 tbsp. ghee)
2 cups	Coconut milk

Method:
First of all, the cups above are American cups (around 240 ml). If you use a rice cooker cup then use 3 cups rice, 4.5 cups water and 2 cups coconut milk.

Wash the rice until the water runs clear. I usually wash it around 4 times. I cannot be bothered washing it more than that, so my water does not usually run clear! Drain the rice and put it in a pan so that it has enough room to expand. Go for at least 4 times the volume of the rice.

Bruise the cardamom pods (i.e. hit them with rolling pin or pound a couple of times in a mortar). You just want to make sure they are open. I have recollection of just biting them open many, many years ago! Add the water, sugar, salt, butter and cardamom pods to your pan. Put the lid on (very, very important that you have a lid that fits well so that no steam escapes) and cook on high until the water boils.

In the mean time prepare your coconut milk. I used coconut milk powder to produce my milk. 8 heaped tablespoons made up to 2 cups of liquid with warm water gave me the milkyness that I needed. If you use canned coconut milk you might want to water it down a bit. All depends on how creamy and coconuty you want your rice. The really thick one that I can get I would put half coconut cream and half water. The coconut milk in the brown can I would not dilute. Then heat up your coconut milk either in the microwave or in a pan. Bring it to the boil.

Once the water boils, stir, reduce the heat to the minimum, add the hot coconut milk and then close the lid. Allow the rice to cook for a further 20 minutes.

Once it is cooked turn it out onto a plate. The traditional thing to do would be to flatten it with a banana leaf, I just used a piece of foil and used a chopping board to flatten the top. Then cut the rice into diamond shapes (I'm not very good at this part!). You can only really do this shaping when the rice is hot. If you try to do it later it will not form into stable lumps. I've tried heating up the rice later and forming it but that does not work very well. You can serve it with a multiple of things. I'll post seeni sambol (onion sambol with a bit of sugar) soon but you can also eat it with hakuru, pol pani, or curry.

Coffee aroma reindeer tealight holder

This project started out with someone wanting to make a garland for their bedroom for Christmas (it was not me!). I got roped into it because I am gullible when it comes to children wanting to do crafts! It turned into a pretty tea light holder that yesterday turned into one with a coffee aroma. Perfect for gloomy winter days.

You will need:

1 A4 sheet of coloured paper (or letter size if you are in the USA. Your garland will be a bit shorter.)
1 metal lid from a jam jar
Strong glue (we used Uhu)
Transparent, non-flammable paper (about 1/2 an A4 sheet)
A thin tipped black felt tipped pen
5 - 6 white jewels and one red one
2 handfuls of coffee beans
A tealight

Method:

We started with the reindeer and found him (and a few other friends) at this website https://www.woojr.com/christmas-paper-chains/christmas-paper-chains/ . We printed out this template and followed the instructions to make the garland (the instructions are on the template) using brown paper. Cutting it was rather fiddly so we took turns to cut it out. If you want something quicker you should consider the snow man or the Christmas tree.

After the garland was cut out I was deserted! The reason being that the garland was too short to go across the door and there was no way that my child was going to cut out a second one (very low attention span!). I did not want to trash the reindeer because they looked so cute.

Using a thin black felt tip pen I gave the reindeer some eyes and then stuck on the jewels for the noses. I was constantly visited by my daughter so that she could give me advice, which is why one of the reindeer has a red nose (Rudolf of course!).

I then rummaged around in our box of jam jars to find a lid that was the right size to wrap the reindeer around. I also found a piece of transparent paper left over from making tiny origami lampshades for a string of fairy lights.

I measured the circumference of the lid and cut out a rectangle from the transparent paper that was a centimeter longer than the circumference and as wide as the reindeer were tall. Then I stuck the reindeer to the transparent paper and the transparent paper to the rim of the lid (the inside of the lid upwards). If you want a sturdy construction you might use a glue gun to secure the paper to the lid.

Finally, we put a handful of coffee beans in the lid and settled a tea light on top of them. Now we have a wonderful coffee smelling tea light holder!!

You can use any of the templates above and any coloured paper, be creative! We'd love to see your products.