Exotic mix: Sri Lankan style chicken curry

17 Jul 2024

I love playing with spices, and an exotic spice mix unknown to me is always a cool (hot) kitchen challenge. Let’s try our hand at a Sri Lankan curry mix.

It’s a good idea to own a simple grinder and to keep your cupboards stocked with the basics of the spices that rounded the Cape from the East and remain a part of our cooking traditions today: cumin, coriander, cinnamon, fennel, turmeric, cloves and all the rest.

These are essential to many spice mixes all over the world, so instead of buying a given spice mix, you can quickly measure the individual components into a grinder and in minutes you’ll have your own freshly ground spice mix.

The way I see it, these spices came to us from parts of the world that we might never visit, but the spices are here, so there’s no reason why we shouldn’t try to get a taste of those eastern cuisines in our own kitchens.

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I’d never given much thought to a Sri Lankan spice mix until this week. It’s heavy with coriander seeds and cumin seeds, with black peppercorns also playing a prominent role. There’s also fennel, cassia, fenugreek, cloves, cardamom, turmeric and black mustard seeds. There’s chilli too, and instead of Sri Lanka’s nai miris (aka cobra or snake bite chilli) we can be forgiven for using whatever other red chillies we can find.

If you wish to be authentic, employ a heavy hand with the chilli; really ramp it up. Chilli is all over Sri Lankan cuisine, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a Sri Lankan who tears up and says “oooh, no, that’s too hot for me” at the thought of lots of chilli in a dish.

(Serves 4)

Tony’s Sri Lankan chicken curry

Ingredients

8 chicken portions (thighs and drumsticks)

Coconut oil, about 3 or 4 Tbsp when melted

For the spice mix:

Hard seeds:

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

½ tsp black peppercorns

Powders:

1 tsp ground cardamom

1 tsp turmeric

2 tsp paprika

Masala

3 Tbsp coconut oil

4 cardamom pods, bruised

4 cloves

3 dried chillies

1 piece of cassia bark

10 curry leaves

2 onions, finely chopped

4 cm piece of fresh ginger, grated

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 small red chillies, chopped

1 tsp salt

400 ml coconut cream

Garnish:

Desiccated coconut

Method

Toast the cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and black peppercorns in a dry pan.

Grind to a fine powder and mix with the ground turmeric, paprika, and cardamom powder.

Sprinkle the spice mix over the chicken and set to one side.

Melt the coconut oil in a broad pan. Add the whole cardamom pods, cloves, dried red chillies, cassia bark and curry leaves.

Fry gently for a minute. Add the diced onion and cook until golden.

Stir in the garlic, ginger and chopped chillies and simmer for a few minutes. Season with salt to taste.

Now add the chicken portions and coat all over with the multitude of spices in the pot. Add the coconut cream, bring to a bubble, put the lid on and cook on a gentle heat for 40 to 50 minutes.

Sprinkle with desiccated coconut and serve with steamed rice. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.

This dish is photographed on a plate by Mervyn Gers Ceramics.

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