Sweet or Spicy! or both? of course all from Papayas | Traditional Me

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!