Country Life Vlogs

If you give the fruit that you call "bananas" to a Sri Lankan, he will most probably call it by the name of the variety because Sri Lanka is populated with enough banana varieties for each to be known distinctly. I was trying to show you the process from when the whole thing is cut down from the tree, but because of how big it was, the tree had broken from the middle and my brother had picked up the whole bunch. The variety I'm showing you today is known as "Plantain(Ambun)” and this is the best variety to make “banana milk" with. Although I use this same variety to make banana kawum with, the short variety that gets a yellow color when ripe is more suited for that. No matter what variety I use, my brother considers my cooking as gospel and enjoys it. Even though we call it banana kawum, this is the same food that is known as “Banana Piyos” and no matter how many food we cook, this particular dish is not an often made one in Sri Lanka. This banana kawum is dipped while still hot into a kithul treacle because that's when the most amount of treacle is absorbed in. I'll go to a relative of mine that lives in an area that makes kithul treacle and I'll show you how that is made as well. My grandmother has a habit of visiting my aunt every few days and I assumed she would be later to get back home, but luckily she made it in time. Grandma loves banana kawum as well. There is no other beverage that goes as well with banana kawum as much as a good cup of Sri Lankan black tea, and when you add some ginger to it, there is simply no comparison. The world renown "Ceylon tea" is tea that comes from Sri Lanka as well.

Hingurala(Dioscorea alata L) is a root vegetable that is found widely across Sri Lanka and true to its character, the Hingurala vine that was planted near the kitchen just spread all across the top of our kitchen roof. The Hiungurala vine starts to die around six or seven months and that means the root is getting matured and if you want to eat it a bit less matured , you have to dig up the root when the leaves of the wine are yellowish green. What you will see in this video is the variety of Hingurala called “Maha Hingurala" which grows much bigger than the regular variety and if you don't clean out the skin properly before eating it will make your mouth itch. My brother who has been the protector of the Hingurala vine that grew near the grinding stone by the possible trampling of passers-by, helped me dig it up as well. You all know that my brother will help finish any dish I make too. In different parts of Sri Lanka Hingurala is called by different regional names. This is the same thing as ‘Katu ala'. There is also a white root instead of the usual purple root and that one is called ‘Rajala'. The Rajala leaf and the Hingurala leaf are very similar. Among traditional Sri Lankan cuisine, types of root vegetables take a special place and there are more than one hundred varieties of strength building root vegetables that grow naturally in Sri Lanka. Our people are used to eating these mostly for breakfast and you can make a lot of different dishes from root vegetables. I boiled the roots in the morning with extra hot chilli sambol with added dry shrims and made cutlets from the leftovers in the evening. Although I considered making a separate dish and sending it to my Aunt’s house, I decided to send the raw root as it was too late in the afternoon to cook again.

Aloe vera gives a perfect "cooling effect" to the body in order to fight with the warm weather in these days. The climate at this time of the year in Sri Lanka is quite humid and warm. Usually it continues like this until the end of April, and as we don't get the regular 4 seasons like most other countries, this is the season of sunshine & blooming trees. We increase our intake of foods and beverages that "cool" our bodies in this season warm weather that blows hot wind no matter how many trees there are. It is widely accepted and practically demonstrated that certain foods have the ability to cool our bodies down, and it's beneficial to increase the intake of these foods during the warmer season. Aloe Vera is renowned here for this exact quality. The aloe vera plants I cultivated near the stream looked simply succulent. Due to the widespread use as a medication for burns, every house tends to have an aloe vera plant. This being the case, my brother who loves any food made with something picked from our garden didn't forget to remind me that the aloe vera plants have matured. I thought the best way to use the aloe vera right now is to make a delicious beverage to cool us down. Since there were some ripe pomelo fruits with the perfect pink insides that I love, I went ahead and made drink of pomelo(pummelo) & aloe vera, with added lemon juice as well. The combination of the sourness you get from natural pomelo pieces and the lemon are different, but they go well together to give off a unique taste.The sensation of biting into pieces of pomelo in the aloe vera juice is the same feeling you get from the flavoured bubbles in a bubble drink

Coconut roti(coconut wheat flour flat bread) is one of those exceptional mains that goes great for both breakfast AND dinner. You can make delicious coconut roti by using young, barely ripe coconuts, and this happens to be a favourite food of my brothers’. As he sometimes refuses to go to the store and get the necessary ingredients, I didn't let him know I'm making coconut roti for dinner although it's one of his favourites. No matter what though, my brother has a natural skill for choosing the best coconut to make roti with. Traditionally speaking, the coconut roti is accompanied by "lunu miris"(Red chilli sambol), which is made with salt, chili, onions, and scraped Maldive fish, with a bit of added lime juice. Although quite tasty and enhances the taste of the coconut roti, this mixture is often very spicy. Another great side dish to coconut roti is a well-seasoned chicken curry and as you can see, I've made this particular chicken curry by first dry-frying my spices until blackened. Blackening the spices gives the chicken curry a spectacularly appetizing look, and my brother simply loves it. Because she doesn't like to eat a lot of spicy foods anymore, I suggested her to eat the coconut roti with a banana. Fortunately we had bananas in the home. Since she doesn't eat a lot for dinner, one freshly made coconut roti with one or two bananas is enough to sustain her for the night. It's a tradition in Sri Lanka to eat coconut roti with bananas as well, and you can get coconut roti at most local restaurants with either lunu miris or bananas. Whatever is said and done, the freshly made coconut is an experience onto its own, and the taste that you get from the combination of wheat flour, coconut, and the searing done by the iron skillet with the whole pieces of burnt coconut makes the coconut roti a delicacy even on its own.

Not only we cannot wait until the papaya is ripe, the papaya curry and rice is one of all-time favorite breakfast combinations at our house. Well-seasoned with spices, you don't really need other curries to complement it as it's so good on its own as an accompaniment. Since my brother was complaining last week that he hasn't had cake in a while, I picked two raw papaya fruits to make my brothers' favorite fruit cake(Palathuru cake). While on the way home, I ran across some bird chilies that were well ripe. Just thinking of making a bird chili sambol along with the papaya curry made my mouth water. Both dishes came out exceptionally well. Even if I just made the bird chili sambol, the tradition at our house is to burn sardinella in the charcoal of the wood stove. The combination of this and the bird chili sambol is so good that it's too good to be described by words. When you say "fruit cake", most people are under the impression that you must use a lot of different fruits in the cake. Although that is the case, this cake is made only using stewed pieces of papaya. People from India call this "tutti frutti" and people in Sri Lanka simply call this "Palathuru kaali"(pieces of fruit) and not a lot of people know that it's made with papaya. One of my favorite part to do when making this cake is to add different food colorings to the stewed papaya pieces by letting them soak in sugar syrup mixed with different colors. When you leave them overnight, each color is nicely absorbed to the papaya, giving he cake a very nice look. Although different flavors are not added to the different colors, my brother always says he can taste each colored piece differently. However, my brother thinks whatever I make is delicious so this might not be a good indication of the taste. It's beautiful feeling when you cut into the fruit cake and see the pieces of different colored papaya and cashew nuts. The feeling you get when you bite into it is even better, especially when you pair it up with a good evening milk-tea!

I still remember when I was little, I was trying to split the mung beans (green gram) by putting them in the grinding stone, and my mother stopped me and told me that was not the way to split them but to crush them and if I need to split them I may do it with a glass bottle. According to her, this exerts less pressure on the mung beans and splits them properly, whereas the grinding stone crushes them excessively. That's the day I realized that the traditional methods are traditional because they work well and every technique has a good reason. I also remember how delicious my mother's split mung bean curry that day was. If my brother has rice with devilled prawns, green onion salad, and split mung bean curry, he cleans his plate out, every single time because the combination is so delicious. Today was a that kind of a day! I only realized that the winnowing fan I use has a hole in it and become old after I started using it to clean the splitted mung beans, and I remembered we bought a new winnowing fan last week from the village market. Since there was bael fruit on the tree, I decided to apply some to the new winnowing fan as applying bael and letting it dry out in the sun seals the winnowing fan out and takes care of any holes in it. I may have to do some patches in the old one too. So, I went with my brother to the bael tree to get some fruit for the task, and you know I can't resisting creating something delicious in the process. As my brother also likes unique and exotic creations, I made 'Pani Beli Kooru'(stewed bael fruit sticks) which is one of my own inventions and also made Grandma 'seeni beli'(boiled bael fruit with sugar) which is one of her favourites.

living cool life in village and enjoy the joys of simple village food.

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