Sri Lankan Cooking à la St. Andrews

I’m on spring break at the moment and I’m doing what i do best- happily vegetate in front of my computer and catch up on that 250 odd film list of mine (making good progress might I add?) and doing un petit-peu de cooking as well.

I didn’t cook at all (except maybe the occasional omelet and mac+cheese out of a box) let alone go in the general direction of the kitchen before college which like many other things associated with it was a harsh reality check. Thus, I was in need of summoning up the best memories of watching other people cook in order to survive on something other than tuna melt paninis or egg and cress sandwiches and other bland mass-produced, pre-cooked, packaged things. Of course my apparent ability to retain details of other people cooking was might-I-say- surprisingly accurate and shockingly good. So cooking turned out to be one of the nicer life lessons this purgatory stage at university has taught moi, probably cause I inherited the cooking genes from my rather cuisine-savvy family. I don’t claim to like cooking, be good at cooking or never to complain about cooking, but the point is I haven’t completely and utterly screwed it up as seen on one of those epic sitcom-esque set fire to hair, smoking oven or burnt oven mit scenarios. Except for that one time involving a microwave and Tupperware with its lid firmly on (Life lesson number 5342- NEVER put Tupperware in the microwave period.)

Once in a way when the pasta gets dry and the fried rice (my staple) gets boring one needs to venture out and experiment with creating some good-old-fashioned-Sri Lankan- junk food of sorts: Kottu. I discovered Kottu quite late in life, don’t think I’d had it until I was maybe 13-14 and gosh do I love it or what. Anyhow, for those far and away where you don’t have the option of slowing down at a kottu joint and picking up a steaming newspaper wrapped parcel of a rather dodgy looking but scrumptious godamba roti jambalaya: creolized Kottu a la St. Andrews. Of course this is no where near the real thing and uses fish instead of whatever meat you might prefer seeing as I’m a pescatarian. And not being a professional or anything, I can’t do precise measurements and whatnot for quantities- just go by the look of it.

Ingredients:

A few (depends on how much you eat) plain flour Tortilla wraps cut up into bits

A small chopped red onion

A tiny bit of garlic

A chopped tomato

A few small Leeks/big spring onions chopped up (I use about 4)

A chopped up green chilli

2 eggs scrambled ’til dry

Half a can of tuna/ You could use any kind of meat really.

Oil/Margarine (whatever you prefer: I use margarine)

A couple of finely sliced carrot sticks (optional- mostly for colour)

Curry leaves (if available)

About a teaspoon of curry mix (more/less/not- doesn’t really matter, but I find it gives it a nice kick)

Chilli flakes

Salt (duh…)

Method:

Heat up the oil/margarine in a biggish pan or wok and add all the onion/garlic/tomato/leeks/chilli/carrot and allow it to cook for a little.

Add the shredded tortilla wraps and mix it all up well before adding the tuna/meat and scrambled eggs along with the curry mix. Keep mixing it up until its all well mixed and cooking together. Add a generous sprinkling of chilli flakes (if you like it spicy) and salt. Let it “fry” a little longer until the colour looks about right or you become impatient.

Serve on plate/bowl/whatever strikes your fancy and enjoy!