01x07 - Galle

[bunniefuu]

[LIGHT CHATTER AND LAUGHTER]

PETER KURUVITA: If you ever
get the chance to visit Sri Lanka

one city you must visit is Galle.

It's ancient, beautiful

and its mix of food and culture

is more diverse than anywhere else
on the island.

Just outside the old Dutch fort

there's a daily ritual
that's been going on for centuries.

Very interesting way
to be putting a net in.

But the work that goes into it

and the meticulous way
that all the nets are folded

is amazing.

[CHANTING]

This tug of w*r with the sea
is a game of hit and miss.

Some days the fishermen win
and there's plenty for all.

Other days, well,
it's a heap of hard work

for not much at all.

Amazing. No sonar on that boat.

No depth finder. No fish finder.

Let's hope we catch some fish too.
I'm sure we will.

I can't imagine,
with this much net out,

that you wouldn't be catching fish.

I just want it to come in soon.

[GROANS]

Our fishing net stretches
for hundreds of metres.

You'd think the fish
wouldn't have a hope.

Seabirds promise a good catch...

..but today is one of the bad days.

Look at the beach.
Look how many people there are.

I'm sure everyone's going to want
a little bit of this.

Not much at all.

[SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE]

OK. [SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE]

He's basically saying that there's
lots of wrecks in here in the water

and that the way they have to drop
the nets also makes it hard.

And I'm imagining that where those
wrecks are are probably reefs

and all the fish
are hiding under there

and these guys can't get to them.

Lucky fish. Unlucky fishermen.

[MEN SPEAK IN LOCAL LANGUAGE]

That was an incredible experience.

I've got blisters on my hands.
Just dried my shirt out.

And that net was really
not that full, was it?

But inside there was some cuttlefish.

And that sort of inspired me
to cook a dish with squid.

Now, cuttlefish and calamari
are very different

but you can use this curry
for both of them.

So we've got these
lovely squid, calamari.

Cleaning them is quite simple.

You just pull the head out

and pretty much everything inside
comes out.

Then take the wing
and just cut around it.

Now, here in Sri Lanka they don't
actually remove the skin or the wing.

But I think it looks a lot nicer
when you've got a good contrast -

the white colour of the fish.

And then inside
is the little cartilage.

That's pretty much
all you have to do.

And then just set them aside.

So what I'm going to do
is keep the head,

and basically, just the tentacles.

So just below the eyes.

And then just push it.

And inside is the ball,
which is its beak or its mouth.

Now the simple part
of just portioning them.

Chop all these guys up.

Hard work's done. The rest of
the curry's really simple.

So my chatti comes in use again.

Just pour all my squid in there.

Now, it's a fish dish, it's going to
be a little bit sour and it's black,

so there's two ingredients
that sort of signify that

and that is black pepper...

..goraka,

which is that wonderful souring agent
that gives an earthy flavour

but also an acid tone which you need
in this dish to balance it.

Mine's going in whole

because I don't want that sour
flavour to go all the way through.

I just want little hints of it
through there.

A little bit of turmeric.

This is not a yellow curry
but the turmeric will add flavour

rather than, you know, anything else.

Some cumin powder. Unroasted.

Chilli powder. Plenty.

Some roasted curry powder.
Now, this is the little secret.

This is a meat curry powder
that's going into this.

Uluhal, or fenugreek seeds.

And a little bit of coriander.

It's not necessary to have a lot.
Just a little bit.

So mix that up really well.

Doing this basically means

that you're getting
all those flavours in there,

inside it, around it and through it.

No frying in this at all.

Curry leaves. Get some nice ones.

A nice, decent-sized onion.

I've got a few green chillies here.

I found a few red chillies as well
so I'm going to throw one in.

You're not really going to see
the colour contrast in there

but you certainly will feel the heat,
which is what we're after anyway.

Some garlic.

Lots of garlic.

I really like garlic in this one.

Salt.

Give it one more stir.

It's nice when you smell something

and you get that mouth-watering
sort of sensation

at the back of your mouth,
that sourness comes through.

So, just adding all this to it.

Second extract of coconut.

Covered - it'd probably take
about 8 to 10 minutes

from beginning to end.

As it came up to the boil,
I've just stirred it a few times,

the sauce has thickened.

Looks really nice.

Now it's ready to serve.

And I'm just going to serve it
on a big, wide plate

because this is the dish

that I want as the star.

The red chilli stayed red,
the green chilli stayed green,

that's all because none of it
was cooked for too long.

And, I guess, the next thing
is just the flavour.

Lovely rings.

Nice little bounce to them.

It's got a great bite to it.

It's not chewy, though. It's crunchy.

That means it's cooked just right.

It's got a heat to it too.

It'll bring a few beads of sweat
on your head.

But the combination of flavours
is really nice.

I'm tasting everything.

But the great part is, at the end,

that subtle cuttlefish or squid
flavour is still winning through.

And that's so important
in cooking a dish -

that you do remember
the hero ingredient.

Your main ingredient, the thing
that you've paid all that money for,

needs to come through at the end.

And I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Sri Lanka is an island
packed with gems and spices

that sits in the centre of the world.

Traders from Europe,
the Middle East, Africa and Asia

have been coming here
since the beginning of time.

The port of preference
was usually Galle.

Galle Fort was like
an ancient United Nations.

Today I'm catching up
with an old friend

who's moved to Sri Lanka from the UK.

Juliet Coombe is a journo
who came here on assignment,

fell in love, converted to Islam
and married a local.

OK, come on, Peter, I want to show
you something. This is special.

Juliet takes walking tours
around the fort.

Hello. How are you?
Hi, guys.

Her friends own this home but
she shows their garden to visitors

because it reflects the fort history
through its flowers.

OK, the interesting thing
about the gardens in the fort

is that they are really almost like
the archaeology or the history

of the people who lived here.

So British brought roses.

You find things from the Dutch -
the tulips.

And you'll find a whole range
of plants here.

And there's always food
in the gardens -

pomegranates, curry leaves...

Every garden... If you don't have
fresh curry leaves...

My husband practically
left England on the spot.

He said to my father,
"Where's your curry leaf plant?"

My father said,
"What are you talking about?

"We don't have curry leaf plants in
Pimlico."

"Well, I'll buy you one."
Yep.

Are you feeling hungry?
Yes, I am.

You look hungry.

What do you fancy?

We've got lots of
exciting things here.

Anything spicy.
Oh, anything spicy.

Do they have seeni sambol bread?

Yeah, my favourite one is when
they wrap it all up in honey

and you get your hands sticky.

And my children love it.

[SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE]

This is Law Court Square
and the amazing thing about this...

Oh, my goodness.
A bit of live action.

The amazing thing about this

is it has some of the oldest trees
in the fort.

The fort itself
is about 408 years old.

This tree is really special.

If you come over here,
it's really special.

You've got Hindu, Tamil,
the actual shrine.

And you also have a little Buddha
from 1812.

If you come here...
Oh, this one here.

Right on the left-hand side,

it's actually become
part of the tree.

And we also see Muslims coming here.

So people like Kataragama
come together.

And when you see that
within the tree itself

it's almost like an umbrella
for the different religions.

The nice thing is, it means
that everyone is equal.

And, at the end of the day,
we are all equal.

Over the centuries, Galle Fort
has had so many influences

that finding an appropriate recipe
to represent the culture

was quite a challenge.

I'm cooking a
Mediterranean-influenced

Galle-Fort-style dish.

It's got all kinds of flavours in it

and I'm using a wonderful piece
of mackerel

that I found at the markets today.

It's just beautiful. It's very oily.

It has great flavour
but needs to be eaten fresh.

If it's not fresh, what happens
is the oils come out of it

and it starts to sort of
sour the flavour.

Very expensive, this fish, compared
to others found at the market.

But there's a reason for that.

It is a wonderfully delectable fish
with great flavours and big flakes.

Now, I'm doing,
like, a beetroot salad.

I've pre-prepared the beetroot
because it takes about an hour.

To add flavour,
to enhance the flavour,

I'm using sugar, some cumin,
a little bit of vinegar

and some Sri Lankan cinnamon.

And I'll just let it cool
in the water.

And we'll prepare that later.

The whole idea of this dish,
with lots of the things that I do,

preparation's first.

So, got all these lovely dishes.

Pomegranate. Easy to clean.

Just remove the skin.

Take out all the seeds.

The fish is wonderful.

But I'm going to crust it as well.

Now, basil leaves are huge.

A little bit of mint.

Some parsley.

Just rolling it inside
the leaf of basil

and then chiffonnading it.

Chiffonnading is like a fine shred.

And the last bit I'm putting into it
is fresh rocket.

Very large.

So I'm just tearing the leaves off
and I'm discarding the centre stalk.

And then just, again,
chiffonnading them nice and fine

and mixing them all together.

Beautiful, fresh, aromatic
collection of herbs.

Now, breadfruit chips are quite easy.

You can do this with cassava

or pretty much

any kind of root vegetable.

Sweet potatoes are nice as well.

And then slice them

as thin as you possibly can.

I'm going to put them
into a pot of water

to get rid of the stickiness,

that little gum that comes out of it,

but also to keep them nice and white.

Another thing to do

to stop it going brown

is just to add a bit of lime to it,

a little bit of acid.

And that'll keep it nice and white.

Now, I'm going to make the
Mediterranean sort of feel to this.

And that's going to be
this wonderful buffalo curd.

Still has a lovely
jelly wobble to it.

Now, that's going to be mixed...

..with salt and pepper.

Again, think colour here.

This is the white colour

which is going to contrast so well
with the beetroot.

And that's really it,
because I've got lots of flavours.

It's made a lovely sauce.

And you need to get
a really smooth and rich cream.

Goat's curd is available in Australia

and around the world

probably a bit more
than this buffalo curd.

Now, the dressing.

I'm going to use garlic
with a little bit of salt.

Just crushed.

Mix it all together.

Some sugar.

Some black pepper.

Some vinegar.

A little bit of olive oil into this.

We're also going to add
some toasted cumin seeds,

because it's a really nice flavour
and also texture.

And once they're ready just pour them
into your salad dressing.

The next thing is
to prepare the fish.

Seasoned lightly.

Salt.

Pepper.

Little bit of chilli -

because we are in Sri Lanka.

Can't not have chilli, can we?

The pan's hot enough.

It's sizzling. But it's not smoking.

The only thing I have to do
is make my breadfruit chips.

My oil's been on for a while.

So now I'm going to make
my beetroot salad.

These banana chillies.

Green chilli.

Some onion.

A little bit of raw garlic.

Some of these herbs.

Beetroot.

And I'm going to add roasted cumin.

Powder this time.

And some salt and pepper.

Mix that around.

Everything's sort of coming together
well at the same time.

Chips are just about ready.

I'm going to put them into
one of my all-purpose chattis.

All the moisture has come out
of the breadfruit now

so they've gone nice and brown
and crisp.

I could hear them.
They just rattle in the pan.

I also need the oil
for that other ingredient

to make this a Sri Lankan dish,
which is pappadum.

Put my pappadum in.

So I'm just going to make
my salt, chilli and pepper mix

to go with these.

It's good to get this just after
they've come out of the fryer

so there's still a little bit
of oil on them.

And that way your mix will stick.

Now, I talked about using the herbs
as a crust.

So I'm adding the herb crust
to it now,

which means the fish gets one final
turn with the herbs on top of it.

To add some flavour, some lime juice.

And that'll just de-glaze the pan,

bring all the flavours together

and make a bit of a herb sauce
to go with it.

As the fish sits here the juices
from the fish will come out.

And that really is
all the sauce you need

because I've got a great salad
as well.

So, I'm now ready to plate up.

Adding my Sri Lankan ingredient
to my salad.

My yoghurt sauce now comes into play.

I'm just going to make
a nice splodge.

My beetroot goes into that,
giving it texture, colour, flavour.

Now I'm going to dress it.

That way, none of the colours
will run.

And my fish.

And then my pomegranate,
which will just make people talk.

So the finishing touch

will be to serve it

with a bowl of these chips,

which people can just dip

into their yoghurt

or possibly just eat with the beer.

Very nice.

I've been wandering around
the streets of Galle here

looking for street food.

You really need to look hard here.

That tiny little blue and white
and corrugated iron hut

is selling all kinds of stuff -
parata and a cup of tea.

And I'm not sure what else
so I'm going to go have a look

and see what I can get
for my evening tea.

[SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE]

And one tea. Milk tea.

The skill here,

I still haven't been able to master,

but the flavour I just chase
all the time.

A very simple roti folded
into a triangle,

chilli paste,

an egg,

and just fold it together.

It's just juicy. Just love this food.

It tastes so good.

And when you drink the tea with it

it heats up in your mouth
and the sugar cools it down,

so it's really nice.

In Sri Lanka this snack food
is known as 'short eats'.

The variety is incredible.

And cooking them,
well, there are a few tricks.

There's one short eat
that I really wanted to do

because my faithful assistant here

who's travelled the whole trip
with me, Bubbi, or Shamil,

has always been caught sneaking off
to have one of these.

And it's called a what,
what are we cooking today?

It's an egg roll.
An egg roll.

Sounds simple. And it is.
But it tastes so good.

OK, Bubbi, so let's make
the batter first.

Can you remember what goes in it?
Yes.

First, flour. And four eggs.
Yeah.

And milk.

The fish is just steamed
with salt and pepper.

I've also got some boiled potatoes.

And I'm just going to
chop those roughly.

Cook them through with the skin on.

It's important

because there's no water that's
actually gone into the potato

and it still holds
that nice, dry waxiness.

You can see that
it's a lovely potato.

Tasty. Waxy.

And then some fish,
which I'll just break up.

It's just still quite hot actually.
I've just finished cooking it.

How's that batter going, mister?

Looks good.

Now, I always put a few drops of oil
into the batter

and that just gives it
a little bit more elasticity.

What I've done with this

is made a lovely combination
of the tuna and the potato.

The measurements would be the same.
So, 50-50 potato and fish.

So, into this mixture
I'm adding salt and pepper.

Seasoning it up now.

So that's ready to go.
What's the next step, Bubbi?

We'll first do the tempering.
Get all the flavours into it.

So, temperadu, or to temper things,

don't be scared about
using a lot of oil.

It's really nice because you're
putting a fair bit of ingredients in.

So just finely dicing up some onion

and some garlic.

And we'll put that in.

It's really getting a lot of colour
into that as well.

Do you need curry leaves now?
Yep.

Ready?
Yep.

OK. So now we're just
going to combine them.

Put it into there.

And what I'm going to do,
while he's doing that,

is heat this pan up and start
getting ready for my pancakes.

I hope the mixture's right.
I'm sure it is.

While we're making the pancakes,

we're going to get ready for the next
and final stage prior to cooking.

And that is the crumbing of it.

So if you can make me an egg wash.

So that's two eggs, some water
whisked together.

Pancake looks good.

So, the way I'd normally
batter something

would be to put it into flour,
then an egg wash and then crumbs.

But here in Galle Fort,
who am I to argue,

the egg wash is made with flour.

So let's see how it goes.

He knows.

OK, Bubbi's just going to cut
these eggs in half for me.

I've peeled them already.

Just cut them in half length-ways

so that you've got half an egg
per person.

Pancakes on a bench.

And then just a little bit of the
mixture, place it into the centre.

Next is place the egg on top.

And then the idea is

just to fold it over.

Now, I'm assuming,

seeing I've never made these before,

that a little bit of egg wash

would help a lot to hold it together

and keeping that fold on the top.

And let's crumb them now, Bubbi.

So just make sure
when you're doing it

that you get all
the corners nicely covered

and you make
a very, very nice parcel.

Lots of oil for this.
And cook it with the fold down.

And, really, because everything
in there's cooked,

now what you want to do is just get
the crumbs nice and golden brown

and it'll be ready to eat.

Shall we try one?
Yeah.

The test. The taste test.

Look at that. The egg through it.

All the flavours through it.

Bubbi, have you ever made
one of these before?

No, this is first time.

I want you to try it
and you can be the judge

because you are the man
who always goes out for these.

Mm. Good.

[BOTH SPEAK LOCAL LANGUAGE]

Galle Fort offers many things.

But something you're about to see now
is truly unbelievable.

Whoo!

Amazing.

And he's alive.

I'm supposed to have a go as well
but there's no bloody way.

Next time on My Sri Lanka,
I head to the east coast.

Kept quiet for so many years,

this magic coastline
is finally open for visitors.

And what a place to visit.