Curry Favours: A super spicy Sri Lankan curry with a Singapore touch
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CNA Lifestyle
Back-scratch Favours: A super spicy Sri Lankan curry with a Singapore touch
Think yous know all your curries? CNA Lifestyle's new series looks at some ethnic curries that are well-loved in Singapore homes. This week, we taste a unique Sri Lankan curry that was born out of "necessity and agony".
Ramona Perera moved from Sri Lanka to Singapore xx years ago simply has never lost her honey for spice. (Photo: Joyee Koo)
30 Apr 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 09 Jul 2022 10:22PM)
Twenty years agone, when Ramona Perera moved from Colombo to Singapore at the age of 16, there weren't any Sri Lankan eateries or supermarkets here.
Coming from a country where "yous have curry on the table at breakfast, lunch and dinner", she craved the comforting curries she'd grown up with – and soon realised that the merely way she would get to enjoy them was to make them herself.
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Although her parents didn't melt, Ramona knew her manner around the kitchen, having watched her grandmother whip upwardly bags dishes at home for family and guests.
"We would sit on the floor, and she'd be cooking, and we'd be helping her," recalled the senior business concern clearing manager who's now married with ii children.
Her earliest kitchen retentiveness is of watching her grandmother make pittu – tiny, chewy balls made with roasted rice flour, "1 of my favourite things to swallow with curry". "Since she used to cook such expert nutrient, I wanted to cook proficient food," she said.
Moving to Singapore with her parents and younger sis, information technology was out of "necessity and desperation" that she started to strop her cooking skills, Ramona confessed with a express joy. "Until very recently, there wasn't a Sri Lankan eatery in Singapore, so whenever you craved (Sri Lankan nutrient), y'all had to melt it yourself."
She brought Sri Lankan curry powder in her suitcase, a spice alloy more intense in flavor than the Indian curry powders normally institute here.
Using information technology to whip up familiar curries paired with dhal and vegetable stir-fries gave her and her family a comforting taste of home.
Over the years, she perfected her techniques and came up with dishes of her own, including a potent Sri Lankan beef curry.
With its thick gravy, arable back-scratch leaves and intense heat, the dish is the perfect accompaniment to rice or lightly toasted breadstuff.
"Information technology's actually my own recipe, because I've had to use the ingredients that are available here in Singapore," she said.
She usually relies on visiting friends and relatives to bring her Sri Lankan curry powder – her favourite is Jaffna curry powder, named for a region in Sri Lanka – and blends it with the Indian curry powders available in supermarkets here.
She uses the mixture to marinate cubed beef, along with saffron and chilli powder; then adds the beefiness to fried onions and garlic, besides as an abundance of spices – cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, back-scratch leaves and green chilli – before adding a skilful glug of coconut milk.
"Sri Lankan curries typically contain coconut milk, which Indian curries don't," she explained. Another unique ingredient is cinnamon, giving the curries an earthier flavour.
And what's more, Sri Lankan curries are besides a lot spicier than Indian curries," she said. "I use a lot of black pepper and chilli powder."
A curry dish like this one, which could also be made with lamb, is typically eaten with dhal and politician sambol, a coconut enjoy made with fresh grated kokosnoot, chillies, shallots, tomatoes and lime juice, she said.
These are enjoyed with rice or bread at any meal you like, even – or perhaps peculiarly – breakfast.
And for Ramona, "Information technology kind of feels like you're back dwelling – for a while, at to the lowest degree."
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/sri-lanka-curry-singapore-food-250061
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