World Cooking – Sri Lanka

List Item: Cook something from every countryCountry: Sri Lanka
Progress: 114/193

Like I said when I posted about Fiji, it has been way too long since I last made something from the Indian subcontinent. Last time it was Pakistan when I made a slightly ill-fated attempt at making dessert. It was nice enough, but nowhere close to what it should have been. Given that I am on a ‘coming towards the end of lockdown’ diet I am not making dessert this time, although it would be more likely that I would have tried to make hoppers… if I knew I could pull them off.

The main influence in Sri Lankan cuisine is, somewhat unsurprisingly, South Indian food. This not only makes total sense seeing how they are across the water from each other, but also because until 540 years ago they were directly connected by a land bridge that was destroyed by a cyclone. These ties would have had to shift entirely towards naval trade, but the food shows just how much they remained in tact.

So much of the food you see in Sri Lankan recipes online is for various types of curry and the foods that you would like to have with your curry. Roti, hoppers, sambal and many other delicious things. Being one of the big spice islands in the area, specifically for cinnamon, you are unlikely to find bland foods in a recipe book. As I knew I would end up making curry again, I wanted a protein in the curry that I had yet to make and still made sense for Sri Lanka. I think I achieved that.

Main: Polos Curry

One thing, when making this I misread the recipe when it came to the amount of salt. I managed to stop most of it going in, but it was still saltier than it should have been. I know now that the recipe from Olive asked for three-quarters a tablespoon of salt rather than three to four… so I am glad I only ended up with a bit more rather than so much it would have ruined the dish.

If I had ruined this dish completely, it would have been a crying shame because this jackfruit curry was delicious even with the extra salt (which I tried to combat with a bit of extra lime juice and coconut milk). I have never made anything with jackfruit, although have eaten it before both as a dessert and as a vegan pulled pork. Now that my local supermarket actually has jackfruit available in a can.

This sauce was gorgeous though. Gorgeous enough that I didn’t even think twice that I was (again) making curry for this challenge and (again) having a side of konjac rice so I can try and control the caloric intake. Curry is such a broad category of food that I am sure I could have made crossed off half of the countries using some sort of curry and had an incredibly eclectic mix.

No curry for next week. Like I am sure I could come up with an African country I haven’t ticked off and make a curry, but I think I owe my husband a bit more variety. Also, I just want to make something a bit different next time, even if I do wonder about how starchy it is going to end up being.