Cornish Pastries (Spicy Sri Lankan Pastries) !!

As soon you heard of pastries, it’s more difficult than eating a pastry for anyone who think of making it. First of all I really didn’t have a simple clue how I’m going to make it.  Have seen pastry dough’s has to roll, fold and again roll to get the  certain thickness and crispiness. 

As I’m going to demonstrate how I made the traditional Cornish pastry dough is simply fast and easy to make.  The traditional Cornish pastries were started making from Cornwall district in Britain. And the genuine Cornish Pastry has a distinctive “D” shape and crisp on one side. Someone may call it, beef patties or pastry. Since traditionally it’s made with beef  (minced or steak) and potatoes. Since I’m going to make my own way of Cornish Pastry, I would rather call it, Spicy Sri Lankan Pastries. 

Preheat the oven to 350` for 12-15 minutes

Ingredients:

For Dough:

• 500g of flour
• 250g of butter or margarine
• Pinch of salt
• ¼ cup of water

• 01 beaten egg to grease pastries to get the nice crisp & shine on of the pastries. 

For Filling:

• 400g of corn beef (Can be use minced meat too)
• 02 big size potatoes (Cut into small cubes and half boil)
• 02 big size carrots (Cut into small cubes and half boil)
• Half a tin of green peas
• Some spinach & mushrooms
• 1/2 a cup of chopped or diced onions
• Finely chopped garlic
• 01 chopped tomatoes 
• Finely chopped green chilies 
• Salt, pepper & chili powder
• Few tsp of soya sauce

Instructions for making of Dough:

• Pour the flour in a large bowl and season it with a pinch of salt. 
• Add the butter or margarine to flour and make small crumb pieces. Until you make them nice and fine crumbs.
• Now, finally add water little by little make the crumbs into a nice dough. Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces. Leave it for one hour.

Instructions for making of Filling:

• Season the corn beef with spices and soya sauce. Add the diced onions, garlic, tomatoes and green chilies into the same beef mixture.
• Heat the pan with some oil and add the beef mixture and cook them nicely.
• Then add half boiled potatoes, carrots, green peas & rest of the vegetables. 
• Leave the mixture aside to cool.

Making of Pastry:

• Roll each dough ball to the thickness of 2mm.
• Take some filling and place in the middle of the rolled dough. Apply some beaten egg around the  dough, except for the filling area. 
• Fold the pastry, makes the design of your own.
• I’m going to fold it and twist the ends and join the both ends. 
• Finally, drizzle some olive oil on the pastries. Apply some beaten egg too. 
• Keep the pastries on oven until it gets a nice golden color.

Enjoy the meal !!!

Seeni Sambol (Sweet Onion Relish) ..

100% Sri Lankan food anyone would love to taste. As soon as it sounds, “Seeni” mean sugar. It’s a sambol combination of sweet, sour & spicy.  It’s easy to make can keep it for a while. I remember when I was schooling, my mother used to make me seeni sambol sandwiches. Not only that, there are seeni sambol buns or else can serve it with rice or bread. Especially with yellow rice or lump rice.  

The traditional seeni sambol we add dry Maldivian fish. But, if for vegetarians can be used except for dry Maldivian fish. I remember sometimes, my father loves to make this dish with dry cuttlefish or small dry fish (sprats). One more thing he used to say, it’s always good to use small onions (Shallots) for seeni sambol more than big Bombay onions. He believes it has more taste and the flavor. I have tried both,  it truly has quite a different taste.

I will be making this seeni sambol quite differently, since I would love to share the same with you all.  
Let’s start making “Seeni Sambol”

Ingredients:

• Nicely diced 04 Bombay onions or 1kg of shallots
• 1/2 a cup of tamarind juice (if not vinegar)
• 02 tbs of chili flakes
• 02 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tsp of saffron powder
• 01 sticks of cinnamon
• 10 – 15 cloves & cardamoms 
• 02 stings of curry leaves
• 02 tbs of sugar 
• Salt

As I said I love making “Seeni Sambol” with a bit of Maldivian fish or some dry fish. So I’ll be using, Maldivian fish about 300gs, since I couldn’t find any other dried fish this time. 

Also, I’ll be using 200gs of raisins to add a bit of a flavor.

Instructions:

• Add the diced onions in a large bowl and seasoned with tamarind juice, chili flakes, chili powder, saffron & salt.
• Then heat some oil in a deep pan on a very low flame. 
• Then, add cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves & curry leaves. Fry them a little.
• As I'm adding Maldivian fish into my seeni sambol, now it's time to add it. Just before onions. Since it has to fry a little bit. 
• Add the seasoned onion mixture into pan. 
• When the sambol is nicely blended, add raisins and sugar.
• Stir well and cook for a while until the onions turns into a nice dark color. 
• Turn off the flame when the sambol is cooked properly. 
• Leave the seeni sambol aside for a few minutes.
• Then it may contain on the jars (air tight), can be used for a long time. 
• Always keep it in a refrigerator. 

Try some seeni sambol with toasted bread for breakfast. Hope you all will love it !!!

Home made Pizza with a Sri Lankan twist!!!

I have tried several pizza recipes, but I couldn’t find a proper pizza dough recipe for a long time. Some recipes dough gets so hard, if not some may very chewy or sticky. After hunting for so many pizza dough recipes I did come up with my own, which I started practicing for a long time. I made pizza with the same dough several times. My husband seems to be so fond of my home made pizza. Not just because, I made them, I think he loves the thin crust and pizza filling I’m using. May be a little bit of LOVE I add to make it … ;)

I usually do not follow any standard guides to make food. I have my own way of doing it. Therefore, I won't use the same Italian pizza filling for my pizza, it may look more Asian twisted pizza. 

I’m a instagram freak. I have shared a few images of home made pizza in my profile. After awhile I started getting calls and comments asking for the dough recipe. So finally I thought of sharing in public, as you all may would like to share what I experienced. Here we go, let’s starts rolling … :)

Ingredients:

For dough: (Makes two large pizza's)

• 600g (4 cups) plain flour
• 375ml (1 1/2 cups) warm water
• 2 tsp of dried yeast
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt
• 60ml (1/4 cup) olive oil, plus extra for brushing

For filling: (In my Asian twisted way)

• Any meat. (Chicken, Beef, Fish or Sausages)
• 1/2 a cup of chopped or diced onions
• Finely chopped garlics
• 01 chopped tomatoes 
• Finely chopped green chilies 
• Salt, pepper & chili powder (If necessary saffron powder)
• Few tsp of soya sauce

For dressing:

• 1/2 a cup of tomato puree
• 250g of mushrooms (Cut the mushrooms side ways and half boiled them)
• Olives & grated cheese 

Instructions: 
Preheat the oven for 275c.

Making the dough:

• In a small cup, add yeast & sugar finally, add 2tbs of warm water, mix it and leave it to active the yeast. 
• Add the flour, salt in a large bowl, make a small hole in the middle, then add the yeast mixture, olive oil & rest of the warm water. Mix it until it makes a nice dough. 
• Cover the dough with a clean white cloth, leave aside for 1 hour. 

Making the filling:

• Heat the pan with some oil or butter. 
• Add all the ingredients under filling mixture. Finally add salt, pepper and the rest of the spices as you prefer. 

• After one hour, roll up the dough and divided the dough into two separate portions. 
• Roll the dough, in a pizza tray and keep in the oven for 3 Sec until dough gets bit bake. (Should bake half way).
• Once the dough is done half way, turn the dough upside down and grease the dough with tomato puree or some other sauce or topping you prefer. 
• Then add the filling on top of it,  then half boiled mushrooms and olives, finally covered with cheese. 
• Again, put the pizza into the oven for a few minutes, until the cheese gets melted.  

Serve yourself with a glass of coke!!