What a Gravy it was

There are so many different curries in Sri Lankan food - some are mild and creamy, while others can be scathing and yet others spicy enough for the tongue to start dancing, but so aromatic that it's hard to resist. The poor novice I was, it was a daunting task to figure out how to cook these different dishes.

I remember I used to sneak calls to my mom's home and get instructions from her kind and comely maid, Shiranthi. Shiranthi is such a gentle creature and never allowed her ability to cook superbly ever make me feel small. She understood my predicament and was full of empathy. She asked me to master one curry - the kiri hodda, which translates as milk gravy.

Sri Lankan food, like Thai food, is mostly coconut based. This kiri hodda is made entirely of thick coconut milk. Into this, an onion or two is chopped, couple of green chilies is sliced, a sprig of curry leaves and 3 inches or so of pandan leaf is added with salt to taste and a quarter teaspoon of fenugreek. This is allowed to boil and thicken. (Do visit http://www.bojoon.com/ for the exact measurements and recipe.) The important thing to remember is that it must be continuously stirred. There's an old Sinhala idiom which states that the result of an unstirred kiri hodda and an un-punished child is the same - they both end up spoilt.

Indeed, if the kiri hodda is not stirred, the coconut milk separates and curdles and become a lumpy mess. It is easy enough to leave this gravy alone as it looks very innocent as it sits quietly on the fire, but if proper attention is not paid, the curdling happens almost suddenly.

This milky white gravy is fantastic with the Sri Lankan rice-based dish, pittu. Pittu is a little bit like cous cous - soft and grainy, but made out of rice flour and finely grated fresh coconut, is steamed into a cylindrical shape. (Do visit http://www.bojoon.com/ for the exact measurements and recipe.) The pittu is drenched with kiri hoddi and mixed with a fiery sambol like lunu miris (a near liquid paste of salt and chili mixed into well crushed shallots and drizzled generously with lime) or katta sambol (lunu miris mixed with sun-dried fish flakes called maldive fish). The maldive fish absorbs the moisture of the sambol, making this a drier mixture than lunu miris. (Do visit http://www.bojoon.com/ for the exact measurements and recipe.)

However, this kiri hodda in its pure form is good only to eat pittu - for nearly everything else, it's too bland. Yet the beauty of the kiri hodda is that with the addition of few more ingredients, it gets more and more interesting. For instance, with just a pinch or so of turmeric, this becomes yellow and is good even with string-hoppers - another rice-based dish of Sri Lankan cuisine. (Do visit http://www.bojoon.com/ for the recipe.) Chop a tomato and perhaps add a 3 inch or so cinnamon stick, this becomes great even to sop up bread.

Or add a couple of potatoes and allow the potatoes to boil with the hodda, but instead of adding the thick coconut milk, first add a diluted cup of coconut milk and then after the potato boils add a cup or so of thick coconut milk - one of the best potato curries you are ever going to taste - light and creamy, great with just about anything. You could easily replace potatoes with just about any vegetable - you can add beans, carrot, drumstick (a long, hardy bean-like vegetable), tomatoes... just about anything. (Do visit http://www.bojoon.com/ for these coconut milk recipes.) The thing you need to take care is to remove from fire the minute the vegetable becomes tender and still retain its texture and color. This not only ensures that the curry taste great, but is still with its natural nutrient value.

If you want to, you can kick in a bit of life to these very mild curries by adding a teaspoon or so of roasted curry powder and some chili powder after the thick coconut milk has been added. However, as I was to discover, curry powders are not something you can just take for granted. Curry powders were another experience for me. It took me a while to figure out how to manipulate curry powders to give me their best and until then my poor mom-in-law had to endure my very creamy and very mild curries and that's not what Sri Lankan food is about.

A proper Sri Lankan meal is a multitude of flavors and textures that has the taste buds purring with delight and at the same time dancing with flames, enjoying the soft textures of cooked curries while at the same time biting into crunchy freshness of sambols and the like.

No wonder my poor mom-in-law is scarred for life when it comes to my cooking!!!