Recipe Sri Lankan curry powder

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Hi All

(RECIPE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE)

I've recently been back in contact with an old friend and got talking about how amazing her mum's cooking is. The family are Sri Lankan and mum does catering for weddings etc. Many memories of Sunday lunch there and taking home enough food for feed us for the week. So, I got thinking to experiment while stuck at home (I usually complain I don't have enough time). So with a store cupboard of spices, lentils, tinned jack fruit coconut milk and dried coconut, and my weekly veg delivery I have nearly everything I need. I can use tinned fish if I can't get fresh (For future reference, this typed during Covid-19 lock-down so there is restricted shopping/produce.) The only thing I'm really missing is padan leaves, which I will look for when things are back to normal).

So, to start I asked advice and here is the lowdown:

For meat/chicken:
Mostly coriander, then half of that should be cumin. Then smaller amounts of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom (Green. Seeds) and fenugreek. Roast for a long time.

For veg:
Same ingredients but no roasting

Fish curry is completely different, no recipe given. (I've asked for details)

For all meats you should start but frying onions, ginger garlic and mustard seed. Also add tomato. End with coconut milk.

It's the coriander and cumin that's important then you choose how much of everything else to add.

A hotter curry powder, which is like above but added chilli is from northern Sri Lanka and is called Jaffna curry powder. (Jaffna is a city).

I did not know this when I made my first Sri Lankan curry power and used the same roasted blend for fish and vegetable dishes, I''ll jut have to cook more Sri Lankan food!


So, curry powder number one. Roasted curry powder. Although this is roasted (and according to the information above should not be used for vegetable curry), this was recommended by The Flavour Blender for an apple curry. It was delicious. Recipe to follow.

2 TBSP Coriander Seeds​
1.5 TBSP Cumin Seeds​
1 TBSP Black Peppercorns​
1 TBSP Uncooked Rice​
1/2 TBSP Black Mustard Seeds​
1 1/2 TSP Cloves​
1 TSP Green Cardamom Seeds​
1 TSP Fennel Seeds (heaped)​
 
Last edited:
Thanks for sharing, I'm curry mad. Here's what I do, I make my own Garam masala which is very good but what I do is this to perfect it. I went food shopping with my friend butcher (Gary, but known to everyone as butcher) about every month or so. He took me to a Sri Lankan guy on Lincoln rd here. The smells were amazing. I asked what his most popular seller was, he showed me his own s.l Garam masala. I bought a bag of it. I mix it 50/50 with my own. It lifted mine another notch up. I think mine is pretty much perfect. I must go and buy some more. I'll put a pic up later.

Russ
 
39516
 
Hi All

(RECIPE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE)

I've recently been back in contact with an old friend and got talking about how amazing her mum's cooking is. The family are Sri Lankan and mum does catering for weddings etc. Many memories of Sunday lunch there and taking home enough food for feed us for the week. So, I got thinking to experiment while stuck at home (I usually complain I don't have enough time). So with a store cupboard of spices, lentils, tinned jack fruit coconut milk and dried coconut, and my weekly veg delivery I have nearly everything I need. I can use tinned fish if I can't get fresh (For future reference, this typed during Covid-19 lock-down so there is restricted shopping/produce.) The only thing I'm really missing is padan leaves, which I will look for when things are back to normal).

So, to start I asked advice and here is the lowdown:

For meat/chicken:
Mostly coriander, then half of that should be cumin. Then smaller amounts of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom (Green. Seeds) and fenugreek. Roast for a long time.

For veg:
Same ingredients but no roasting

Fish curry is completely different, no recipe given. (I've asked for details)

For all meats you should start but frying onions, ginger garlic and mustard seed. Also add tomato. End with coconut milk.

It's the coriander and cumin that's important then you choose how much of everything else to add.

A hotter curry powder, which is like above but added chilli is from northern Sri Lanka and is called Jaffna curry powder. (Jaffna is a city).

I did not know this when I made my first Sri Lankan curry power and used the same roasted blend for fish and vegetable dishes, I''ll jut have to cook more Sri Lankan food!


So, curry powder number one. Roasted curry powder. Although this is roasted (and according to the information above should not be used for vegetable curry), this was recommended by The Flavour Blender for an apple curry. It was delicious. Recipe to follow.

2 TBSP Coriander Seeds​
1.5 TBSP Cumin Seeds​
1 TBSP Black Peppercorns​
1 TBSP Uncooked Rice​
1/2 TBSP Black Mustard Seeds​
1 1/2 TSP Cloves​
1 TSP Green Cardamom Seeds​
1 TSP Fennel Seeds (heaped)​
I can only dream of fish curry at the moment. 😍
 
Hi All

(RECIPE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE)

I've recently been back in contact with an old friend and got talking about how amazing her mum's cooking is. The family are Sri Lankan and mum does catering for weddings etc. Many memories of Sunday lunch there and taking home enough food for feed us for the week. So, I got thinking to experiment while stuck at home (I usually complain I don't have enough time). So with a store cupboard of spices, lentils, tinned jack fruit coconut milk and dried coconut, and my weekly veg delivery I have nearly everything I need. I can use tinned fish if I can't get fresh (For future reference, this typed during Covid-19 lock-down so there is restricted shopping/produce.) The only thing I'm really missing is padan leaves, which I will look for when things are back to normal).

So, to start I asked advice and here is the lowdown:

For meat/chicken:
Mostly coriander, then half of that should be cumin. Then smaller amounts of cinnamon, cloves, cardamom (Green. Seeds) and fenugreek. Roast for a long time.

For veg:
Same ingredients but no roasting

Fish curry is completely different, no recipe given. (I've asked for details)

For all meats you should start but frying onions, ginger garlic and mustard seed. Also add tomato. End with coconut milk.

It's the coriander and cumin that's important then you choose how much of everything else to add.

A hotter curry powder, which is like above but added chilli is from northern Sri Lanka and is called Jaffna curry powder. (Jaffna is a city).

I did not know this when I made my first Sri Lankan curry power and used the same roasted blend for fish and vegetable dishes, I''ll jut have to cook more Sri Lankan food!


So, curry powder number one. Roasted curry powder. Although this is roasted (and according to the information above should not be used for vegetable curry), this was recommended by The Flavour Blender for an apple curry. It was delicious. Recipe to follow.

2 TBSP Coriander Seeds​
1.5 TBSP Cumin Seeds​
1 TBSP Black Peppercorns​
1 TBSP Uncooked Rice​
1/2 TBSP Black Mustard Seeds​
1 1/2 TSP Cloves​
1 TSP Green Cardamom Seeds​
1 TSP Fennel Seeds (heaped)​

Any particular type of rice?
 
So, curry powder number one. Roasted curry powder. Although this is roasted (and according to the information above should not be used for vegetable curry)

Maybe its specific to Sri Lanka that the spices aren't roasted for veg dishes. But I'm sure its common elsewhere. I often roast spices for vegetable curry. Given that a vast proportion of the Indian population is vegetarian it seems very unlikely that they only use unroasted spices.

I reckon that curry is the way to go right now. After all, almost anything can be curried! And we need the chilli input to up our endorphins. This is a proven effect of eating chilli.
 
Any particular type of rice?
That's something I need to ask next. Looking on wikipedia there are several types of rice used that I'm not familiar with. There are also lots of recipes for rice with spices and coconut, but after making the curry powder and cooking the fish and the apple curry I'm afraid that this time I just cooked some basmati rice with turmeric and the rest of the coconut milk.
 
That's something I need to ask next. Looking on wikipedia there are several types of rice used that I'm not familiar with. There are also lots of recipes for rice with spices and coconut, but after making the curry powder and cooking the fish and the apple curry I'm afraid that this time I just cooked some basmati rice with turmeric and the rest of the coconut milk.

Daughter put me onto jasmine rice, it's now my fave.

Russ
 
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