Every time I start catching up on posts and getting a few written at a time, I fall behind again! Luckily it hasn't gotten to the point where I forget the dishes I've made. I may not remember right off the bat exactly what I did, but the pictures always jog my memory. Most dishes I've made for this project have been memorable in some way, whether good or bad. And as I'm cooking and taking pictures, I'm usually thinking in my head what I'm going to write about each step...even if it does take me months to get there.
I cooked food for Sri Lanka back in the beginning of April. It's a simple dish; normally eaten for breakfast. Kiribath is basically a super thick rice porridge molded into a "cake" and served with various accompaniments, including curries or fish or, as I've done here, a type of sambal called lunumiris.
You start by simply cooking the rice in an abundance of water. Either the measurements were off in the recipe I used, or I should have used a different kind of rice, because my rice did not want to cook through. Sri Lankans generally use a special kind of rice called "kekelulu haal" but the recipe stated that jasmine rice was a good substitute, which is what I used. The rice is meant to get soft and mushy after the water cooks off, but I had to keep adding more and more water to get it anywhere near cooked.
After getting it at least somewhat mushy, it was time to add coconut milk. It started to break down a little more after this, as I stirred it fairly often to make sure the coconut didn't burn or curdle. It still didn't really break down the way it was supposed to, but I wasn't going to hover over it for 2 hours.
Once I got it to an okay consistency, it all got mushed into a springform pan so it would take on a "cake" shape. The plastic wrap keeps it from sticking to everything.
While my kiribath cooled and firmed up, I started on the lunumiris. I had originally planned on making it in my mortar and pestle, but I quickly found that stainless steel was not the best material for grinding up onions. It's definitely more useful for things like seeds and whole spices.
So I decided to just use my trusty food processor instead. I'm not sure if a sore forearm is worth trying to be authentic.
The onions are crushed together with chili flakes and lime juice, and traditionally dried fish. I simmered it in a skillet for a few minutes in order to get rid of some of the juice from the onion so it was more like a paste and less like a watery sauce. I usually only use sweet onions when cooking, and they can definitely let out a lot of juice when crushed. This is the same way I make green or red chili paste for Thai dishes as well.
Once everything was ready, I plopped a little of the sambal into the center. Mostly for looks, but also it was spicier than I thought it would be, so I didn't want to go slathering it on the entire thing.
To make this more of a dinner-type meal (remember this is typically eaten for breakfast) I decided to coat some tofu in a bit of the lunumiris and fry it so it got nice and crispy. It was a good contrast of textures and flavors. The kiribath itself had a mushy and almost gluey consistency, which is how it's supposed to be. But the crispy tofu balanced that out fairly well. The kiribath was also a bit bland in my opinion, but I assume the coconut milk sourced in Sri Lanka is probably much stronger and sweeter than the kind you can buy in grocery stores here. I generally try to use higher quality (Goya is not the best if you want a nice creamy, fatty, coconut milk, trust me) but even then it mostly just tasted like white rice. Luckily that's where the lunumiris picks up the slack. I'm all for adding a hot sauce or chili paste to anything that needs a little more oomph.
This isn't a meal I see myself making again, although I would gladly eat it if prepared with the correct kind of rice. I love rice pudding, and the savory rice porridge I made for Saudi Arabia was absolutely delicious. So I know if cooked properly, this could be a really delicious dish, especially for breakfast.
Comments