Sri Lankan recipes for those who love spices and coconut milk

(Please click on the title to view the sub link on recipes)
Sri Lanka boasts to a variety of spices that gives aroma and flavour when added to curries, may it been cooked over an open fire on a clay pot or a funky stainless kitchen in a large hotel.


Spices



Here are some spicy details :





Cinnamon
Cinnamon is the dried bark of various laurel trees in the cinnamomun family. Cinnamon sticks are made from long pieces of bark that are rolled, pressed and dried. True Cinnamon is native to Sri Lanka. It has a strong, sweet and woody fragrance. Cinnamon is used in cakes, cookies, and desserts throughout the world. It is also used in savory chicken and lamb dishes from the Middle East. In American cooking, Cinnamon is often paired with apples and used in other fruit and cereal dishes. Stick Cinnamon is used in pickling and for flavouring hot beverages.

Cardamom
Cardamom is the seed of a tropical fruit in the ginger family known as Elettaria Cardamomum. The seeds are found in ovalshaped fruit pods that are between 1/4 and 1 inch long. It has an intense, pungent, sweet flavor. A small amount of Cardamom will add a tempting flavour to coffee cake, Danish pastry, specialty breads and apple pie. Try Cardamom the Arabic way and add a little to your ground coffee before brewing, then sweeten and top with cream.

Cloves
Cloves are the rich, brown, dried, unopened flower buds of Syzygium Aromaticum, an evergreen tree in the myrtle family. The name comes from the French "clou" meaning nail. They have a strong, pungent aroma and tastes rather sweet. Traditionally, cloves have been used in spice cookies and cakes.

Saffron
Saffron is the stigma of Crocus Sativus, a flowering plant in the crocus family. In its pure form, saffron is a mass of compressed, threadlike, dark orange strands. It has a spicy, pungent and bitter flavour with a sharp and penetrating odor. Saffron is traditionally used in French bouillabaisse, Spanish paella, Milanese risotto and many Middle Eastern dishes.

MustardBlack mustard seed is very pungent and acrid. It is used whole, powdered or finely ground, in everything from pickles and chutneys to meat, fish and vegetable dishes.

Lemon Grass


A vital ingredient in Sri Lankan, Thai and Mexican cooking to flavour meat and fish.

Nutmeg


The fruits of the nutmeg tree have single-seed berries which produce two different spices, mace and nutmeg. They greatly improve the flavour of a curry dish.

Chillis


Ripe chillis may be cream, yellow, orange or even purple-black and are easy to dry in the sun or in a slow oven.




Almost all the recipes listed require fresh produce to bring out the flavour and keep the cooking time to a minimum to maintain the nourishment of the vegetable or the meat.
Use a pressure cooker to save energy as well as ruduce the cooking time by 3/4. This is a wonderful device to cook red meat curries and the lentils.

Enjoy!