As we find ourselves spending more time cooking some of you have asked for some Sri Lankan recipes for inspiration. So, over the coming weeks the team will be sharing some of our family recipes with you.

We hope that you’ll enjoy them as much as we will enjoy sharing them with you.
We would also love to see your dishes – please send us your pictures and or tag us @srilankabespoke.london on Instagram.

RICE & CURRY

In kitchens across this small island, old recipes and food customs are as strong as ever and rice and curry is one of the greatest culinary traditions that pervades every part of Sri Lankan life. Importantly what lies within rice and curry is the joy with which the food is cooked and the love with which it is served that leaves and indelible impression on your heart.

AUNTY RANI’S CHICKEN CURRY

My dear aunty was my greatest inspiration for Sri Lankan cooking. Originally from Trincomalee in the North East of Sri Lanka, she was forced to abandon her home with her family due to heavy Tamil Tiger occupation during the civil war.  She moved with her husband and my grandparents to a Catholic town named Kandana in Colombo.

It was from this new home, that my aunty flew to UK to live with my husband and I for a year following the birth of our first child. She sadly died too early in 2013, but was an incredibly warm and loving lady with whom I shared many special moments. She was instrumental in preparing a variety of different foods for my son and my husband and I. She had a deep understanding of Sri Lankan ingredients, flavours and their cultural significance and she lovingly shared some of her recipes with me.

One of my clear favourites was her chicken curry. My aunty didn’t rely on exact measures and her words to me when I pressed for them were ‘add and taste’. I found this quite tricky and for recipe purposes I have added more exact measures, but be careful to adjust the chilli quantities if needed as this recipe is hot!

Enjoy!
Althea

CURRY POWDER 

Curry Powder is the key to many Sri Lankan dishes and roasted curry powder is the blend used for all meat curries and unroasted for vegetables. Many Sri Lankan households prepare curry powder using whole ingredients by hand using pestle and mortars. Aroma’s fill homes and each house in a village will make a slightly different blend.

Many also visit their local grinding mills which are small home ‘factories’ usually with one to two machines. You can literally smell the wonderful aromas a street away!

 

FROM OUR FAMILY TO YOURS

The Sri Lanka Bespoke Team are sharing our family recipes each week. Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive all our recipes