Spice of life in Sri Lanka

FOR many people getting out the kitchen for a couple of weeks is the sweetest part of a holiday — well away from the tyranny of having to cook every day. Of course, I love eating out but I also love to cook particularly when I am in a place where the food and culture is different.

I’m intrigued by food markets and always seem to gravitate towards the nearest one wherever I wander. I particularly love to learn about strange-looking ingredients and plague stall holders with questions, desperately searching around for someone with a few words of English to translate and give me cooking instructions on how to prepare and cook unfamiliar produce. On a recent trip to Sri Lanka I found a soul-sister in Skye Gyngell who cooks such beautiful food at Petersham Nurseries Café in Richmond. She had been in Galle for the Literary Festival and stayed on for a few days. We were guests at the Beach House near Tangella. It’s right on a coconut palm-edged beach with waves lapping gently while you to sleep.

I woke early on the first morning and strolled out into the beach to find local fishermen hauling in their coconut string nets from the shore — the whole procedure takes about an hour and half. First, the narrow Orru boat, having returned after a nights fishing, sails as close to the shore as possible. Two of the locals swim out and catch the ropes at the two sides of the net. They gradually pull the ropes inching the net in a little further with each new wave.

When it is within a couple of yards of the shore, the fishermen on the narrow boat dive into the water and help to pull the ropes — I counted 13 or 14 men on each side. They read the waves with deadly accuracy and eventually haul the horseshoe shaped net in onto the beach. We bought a beautiful seer fish and a kilo of white bait and headed for the kitchen to chat to the local chefs. We tossed ideas back and forth and then summoned a tuc tuc to take us to the local market. The covered market just off the main street in Tangalle was a lively, colourful affair with lots of banter and haggling.

Markets are the very best place to really get a glimpse of local food culture. There were lots of familiar fruit and vegetables but tons of exciting produce that we vaguely recognised but I certainly didn’t know what to do with. Our tuc tuc driver turned interpreter extracted recipes and advice from the stallholders and their extended family. We bought bitter gourd, a green knobbly vegetable, wing beans, pandanus leaves, slim purple and cream aubergines, a fine pumpkin and two greens we’d never come across before and of course lots of onions, garlic, ginger and chillies, and fresh curry leaves, the base of so many Sri Lankan dishes.

When we returned to the kitchen we had a chat with Suresh and Sasira and decided on our menu. They salted and deep fried the white bait and fresh anchovies until crispy.

We decided to cook the seer fish whole. When it was gutted, we slashed the skin, filled the slits with chopped garlic and ginger and the cavity with fresh curry leaves and baked it in the oven with coconut gravy. We served it with aubergine pahi — a Sri Lankan favourite.

The greens were identified as kankun or morning glory and gatukola (good for the brain). The gatukola was chopped and added to some freshly-grated coconut to make a sambal. The morning glory was soaked in salted water to purify it and then tossed quickly in a wok with lots of ginger and garlic — delicious. The strange looking bitter gourds were thinly sliced, soaked in brine for about 30 minutes, drained, dried and fried and then made into another delicious sambal.

Here are some of the dishes Skye and I cooked with lots of guidance from Suresh and Sasira, the brilliant Beach House chefs.