01x06 - Weligama

[bunniefuu]

PETER KURUVITA: When you visit
Sri Lanka's south coast,

you'll notice these guys,
the stick fishermen.

This style of surf fishing
is unique to Sri Lanka

and has been going on like this
for centuries.

Today, they've kindly granted me
the permission to borrow a stick,

so the pressure's on
to make a good go of it.

So far, so good.

Certainly doesn't feel stable.

I'm kind of caught.

Alright!

No one man owns any stick
in particular,

but various villages
control certain areas.

When we used to drive down this way,

my dad, we always tried to buy
these hooks off these guys,

but they never sold them to us,
they never showed us the secret.

So I do truly feel very, very lucky.

Oh! Now I'd be even luckier if I
could catch one of these suckers.

As the schools of herring
patrol the surf hunting shrimp,

we stick fishermen run tiny
silver lures through the schools.

Sounds easy, but there's a technique.

I just need one fish. Come on.

Now, if I was in Fiji,

I'd get one of the old fishermen
to say a prayer for me.

I'm just saying a prayer just to
try and stay on this bloody stick.

There they are, there's heaps!
Come on!

Whoa!

Yes! Got one.

[LAUGHS]

Ah, yes, I've got a bit of cred
with the lads on the sticks now.

Well, what an experience that was.

I'm still a bit...little bit sore,

but, uh, the prize is great -
these fantastic herrings.

And I'm just going to do a simple
dish here by the seaside

of crispy fried herrings
with a lovely salad.

First thing you've got to do
is clean these little fish.

I keep the heads on these
'cause they're tasty,

and because we're frying them crisp,
it's going to be lovely.

Then all you have to do
is just cut the belly

and then grab the gills.

And the whole lot
will come out in one go.

Very simple.

Wash them off, and that's it.

I'm just gonna get some oil on, and
I'm having a go at a wood fire.

Hard to control the heat

and we're working with hot oil.

So be very, very careful.

If this does catch fire,
I'm just running, alright?

While that gets hot,
I'm going to prepare my salad.

Just have onions...

Funny thing about smoke - no matter
which way you set yourself,

it follows you.

I'm slicing these onions really thin
but leaving them large.

Crush them up and put them
into the bowl.

Lots of chillies.

Make it nice and hot.

But the green chilli gives it
that great flavour, as well.

I'm still so exhilarated by that
fishing excursion I just did.

You know, my dad just always tried to
get those hooks -

I said it while I was out there -
and they just never sold them to us.

And now to have the opportunity

to actually go out there
and catch a fish - amazing.

OK, lots of chillies.

Some tomatoes, and slice them.

They'll look nice through the salad.

Sort of cross-section.

Lime.

A cucumber.

Into that I'm putting some pepper...

..and some salt.

Nice and fresh, but just to add
a little bit of Sri Lanka to it,

I'm adding some Maldive fish,
as well.

It adds a really nice flavour.

It's been pounded,
ground really nicely,

so little flakes,
which make it beautiful.

Now, with the fish, what I'm going
to do is give them a bit of flavour.

Some salt into that.

And I've got this roasted curry
powder that Nanna made me.

It's a combination
of all these beautiful spices,

and it'll give it
a wonderful flavour, as well.

Lots of black pepper.

And I'm going to put a little bit
of flour, just to crisp them up.

Mix that up together.

Be gentle with the fish, too,
so that they don't get damaged,

but cover them up
with all these great flavours.

Little bit of lime, as well,
to add acidity.

And check the oil.

Great thing about this fish
is you can eat it all -

the head, the bones, the tail.

And that's why you need
to get it nice and crisp.

Got the fire going really hard now.

I don't want it to soak up any oil.

I want it to be crisp and the flesh
inside to be nice and white.

But, more importantly, see that?
They're hard now.

They crackle when I put them
into the pot.

This is my plate for the day.

And my salad now
is really well marinated.

It's gone through beautifully.

OK. My garnish is going
to be some fried garlic.

I love garlic this way. You can eat
lots of it. It's good for you.

So just to get the oil
and the flavours inside,

I've just broken them up
and left the skins on.

I'm just going to crush them.

Chillies and smashed garlic.

When you're cooking chillies,
you don't want to burn them.

Garlic is ready.

A little bit of salt.

Stir it around.

Alright. Here comes the end.

Yum!

What I've got is...

..hot, sour, crunchy, fresh...

..and light.

Nothing more you could ask for
in a place like this. Maybe a beer.

A short distance east
of our stick fishermen

is Hambantota.

Like most of Sri Lanka, Hambantota
has a fantastic vegie market,

and Saturday morning is the best time
to buy your supplies.

[HONKS HORN]

I'm at the jackfruit stand.

This beautiful fruit is probably
Sri Lanka's favourite food.

It comes in many different ways.

When it's ripe,
you eat it like a fruit.

When it's green like this,
it gets chopped up

and you make it into
a 'malum', or a salad.

The seeds themselves
are also fantastic to eat.

In the early days, it was the best
wood to make furniture from,

but now, because it feeds the nation,

you are not allowed
to cut the trees down,

so very important.

I'm not gonna cook it today,
but I will later on.

What I am going to cook is something
that everyone can get their hands on.

[HORN HONKS]

Let's get cooking.
I've got heaps of food here.

I'm gonna cook a beetroot curry
and a snake bean curry.

This curry looks so good.

It should be an accompaniment with
lots and lots of your curries,

and beetroot is such
a versatile vegetable.

OK, it's about
half a kilo of beetroot.

So once all your beetroots
are chopped,

I'm gonna add onion,
chopped up really nice and fine,

some garlic, some chilli.

Pandan.

And some curry leaves.

Now, into this, chilli.
I like it hot.

Some coriander powder.

Of course, a bit of salt.

And mix that up well.

Add some cinnamon.

Beautiful little bunch of cinnamon
that I picked up in the market here.

I'm just going to start cooking it,
it's quite easy.

Ghee. I love my ghee.

While that's heating, I'm going to
start on the next stage,

which is my snake beans.

Just break them into
little pieces like that.

The beans are snapping. I like it.

So, see how I'm preparing one thing
while the other one's happening?

Curries, you can cook
quite a few at a time.

This just needs to cook until the
onions go a little bit translucent.

Alright, the beetroot mixture with
all the spices goes into it.

And add my other two ingredients,
which really make this.

First is sugar. Sweeten it.

And then next is vinegar.

Let that go for a little bit longer.
I'll get onto my beans.

So chilli. This one
doesn't need as much chilli.

Some coriander.

Some fennel seeds.

Some turmeric for colour and flavour,
some fenugreek seeds.

And some cumin powder.

I'll do the Sri Lankan thing,
add a little bit more chilli.

And, of course, salt.

And that, basically,
just gets added together,

and I'll cook it in a second.

OK, now, I've got the second extract
of coconut.

Now, that goes in, and I'm going to
swap, 'cause that'll take probably...

Don't know, maybe 15 to 20 minutes,
but you've got to keep testing it,

got to keep testing, make sure that
the beetroot's cooked through.

Next, I'm gonna use some oil.

OK, so chilli.

Onion, which I'll just
chop up finely.

[HORN HONKS]
Little bit of garlic.

See, I remember that sound
from years ago.

You'd wait for that sound,
and once you heard it,

you'd come running out

and hope that someone
will buy you an ice-cream.

Preferably your dad.

With this one, you can see I've
basically put everything in together

so it's just going to be flash-fried.

There's not gonna be a huge amount
of frying of onions

or anything like that.

I also need curry leaves.

Curry leaves fried.

You just want to get everything
to caramelise and fry around.

Now, with this one,
I'm basically stir-frying it

and I'm not gonna boil it
for too long,

so I want to try and get
the beans half-cooked.

Because after that, I don't really
want to take it any further

once I add the coconut cream.

I don't like to cook the vegetables
too much.

It's nice that they hold their colour
and they look really good.

But we're at a stage now where,
you know, 10 minutes later

I've got two curries well on the way.

The beetroot has reduced right down.

Don't forget that we still have the
first extract of coconut to go.

So that'll kind of
bring it all together.

OK, we're nearly done.

I'll bring that back to the boil,
let it all get together,

reduce it down a little bit.

It's ready to serve.

In a situation like this,
with the beach close by,

it'd be a really nice, light lunch
with lots and lots of flavours.

Down here on the south coast,
tourists flood in

for the usual sun, sand
and indulgence.

Surfing just hasn't taken off yet.

Last time I was here,
I met the local crew.

They are really talented surfers,
but, between them,

they only have a few old boards.

The fact is, decent boards are just
too expensive and hard to find.

Oi, Jatu!

How are you?
Good, man. How are you?

I brought you boys some presents.

Nice.

I hope these ones are a bit better.
[LAUGHS]

Yeah, cheers. Thanks, man.
[font color = #00FFFF]Thank you.

No worries. A pleasure.

I hope it won't be too much longer

before Sri Lanka has a vibrant
surf industry.

In the meantime,
all the more waves for us.

Serious surf etiquette
is yet to kick in here.

It's kind of like surfing's
friendly frontier.

So as the sun sets over Wijaya Beach,

I'm going to cook
the ultimate seafood barbie,

of crabs in
ginger-chilli-shallot sauce,

marinated prawns in curd

and fish fillet
in black pepper sauce.

Now, I've been looking
around the markets

and I've found heaps of great food.

I'm gonna start by making
lots and lots of sauces for it.

First one's
ginger-chilli-shallot sauce.

Start with some sugar,
because I don't have mirin.

And water. Sugar, water, some wine.

Which is kind of hard to get in
Sri Lanka, so it's nice to have.

Put all your liquids in first,
it's important,

because you've got
lots of solids there,

and they need to be chopped up.

I'm going to use just red chillies
quite sparingly.

Shallots, spring onions -
whatever you want to call them.

Garlic, about 10 cloves.
A really nice, good flavour.

Sesame oil. You've got to be careful
with sesame oil.

Sesame oil is one of those
really strong flavours.

It just needs a slight hint.

Soya sauce.

Sweet chilli sauce.

And the sugar will actually help
caramelise this.

And all I'm doing with this sauce
is blending it.

Now, what I'm going to do...

In Australia, we use mud crabs,

but I came across these fantastic
blue swimmer crabs.

Fresh and just wonderful.

Small - they're a little bit fiddly.

People don't like to play
with fiddly food,

but I think when you're eating crabs,
it's alright.

Steam the whole dish.

The sauce is ready,
I'll just add it to the crabs,

put a lid on and it's out of the way.

So now these beautiful tiger prawns
that I picked up at the market today.

We're going to use some dried chilli.

Some curry leaves, which will give
a really good flavour later on.

Some ginger.

A little bit of fish sauce will give
that saltiness to it that you need.

And some oyster sauce to sort of bind
it and make it lovely and delectable,

and, also, when you cook it, it will
caramelise a little bit, too.

And some green onions.

Don't just put it on straightaway.

Roll it around in it all
and then put it aside,

and later on, I'm going to introduce
the curd to it,

so it'll finish it off really nicely.

Butter.

A black pepper sauce, you don't want
to be frying anything.

You want everything to be cooking
together

and all the flavours
coming out of it.

So some ginger,
a little bit of fish sauce.

Some sugar.

Garlic.

Lots of garlic.

Soya sauce.

And, again, a little bit
of oyster sauce.

But the main ingredient...

..obviously, is the black pepper.

The black pepper needs to be added in
fair amounts,

and then curry leaves.

And this sauce now, really,
just needs to bubble up.

What'll happen is the butter
will sort of separate.

It'll boil up,
cook it all beautifully.

The idea with this sauce is to slowly
bring it to the boil,

let it all macerate together,

and within probably 20 minutes,

we'll have a really nice sauce.

I'm gonna barbecue this beautiful
spangled, or red throat, emperor.

So little bit of oil on my barbecue.

Let the heat come up,
let the fish cook,

let it seal on one side before
you even think about moving it.

Next thing I have to do
is put my prawns on.

Now, they're wonderfully marinated
and ready to go.

I'll place them on one at a time.

My next stage...

..for the prawns.

Look at that yoghurt. Beautiful.

Little salt. It's got a bit of salt
in it, but add a bit more.

Some large chopped shallots.

Some green chilli.

And, of course, some garlic.

And then stick my prawns in.

And give them a good roll around.

My black pepper sauce has reduced
right down...

..to this lovely, thick sauce.

The crab, serve them so that they're
all hanging out of the plate,

looking really nice.

My black pepper sauce is caramelised
and really tasty.

And that's going over the fish.

Lots of sauce and juices
coming out of it.

And I think that, with some rice
or maybe some salad,

would be absolutely perfect.

Next time on My Sri Lanka,

I visit the ancient walled city
of Galle.

It's a magical place where
European and Sri Lankan cultures

have blended into a perfect feast.