My Love for Southern Sri Lankan Cuisine + A Cashew Curry Recipe

Written by Theja G A

When we migrate to another place, especially to another country, we mainly miss two things. One is our close ones and the other thing is our native food, by that I mean food practices and food culture. Of course, I missed both of those.

But with my interests and skills, I was able to recover the needs relevant to food somewhat. I was really adventurous with different food recipes in different parts of my country when I lived there.

Though Sri Lanka is a tiny island, we have a rich and elegant food culture and a vast diversity of raw ingredients. As a tropical country, there are different kinds of fruits, vegetables, green leaves and the world’s best spices. We have recipes for making one item in different ways and tastes. As well as the same fruit in different ways at different stages of it’s development.

Let me give one example. A jackfruit tree is grown freely in any part of the country and without the need for pesticide. We can make a young jackfruit curry with an amazing taste by adding several spices. You can’t recognise the difference between a chicken curry and young jackfruit curry. If not a curry, we can finely chop the same thing, mix it with very few spices and grated coconut and turn it into a moisturised texture with a mouth-watering smell.

With matured jackfruit, we can steam roughly chopped pieces with a little salt and if we add grated coconut crushed with a few spices into the same pot, it gives another taste. In addition to this, we can also make a creamy curry that we often eat with rice. Jackfruit seeds are another tasty thing that can be prepared in different ways. Ripped jackfruit can be eaten as a sweet fruit.

These are all very nutritious and amazing recipes coming from generations. The other important factor is how we can balance the tastes and health benefits with the way we add ingredients and quantities.

We have a feel for food as it passes into our stomach through the throat, these few inches in our mouth decide our appetite and taste and motivate us to have a proper quantity. Therefore it is very important to know how we keep ourselves and others healthy, nutritious and satisfied. That is why we should always carefully consider our food culture and practices.

We need to develop our cooking skills without getting bored. We can do it as a hobby but not as a duty. In some countries cooking food is considered as a task only belonging to women. That’s why there is a conventional saying in our society ‘A woman’s knowledge doesn’t go beyond the length of a stirring spoon’, my opinion is this is not correct. Cooking is an art that always can bond one to another. 

If we can give genuine respect to that task, it would help us to bring a women’s role out of social stereotypes. Through this process, she would make her family and loved ones happy. It is very important.

As a gender trainer, researcher and activist back in my country, I always believed a housewife deserves to have proper recognition, visibility and equal respect in society. She is the person who can bring up a healthy generation and food is a main factor in this process.

After we moved to West Yorkshire, I met several lovely people and they started to love the food that I made. We were asylum seekers at the time, it is different from people who moved to the UK with other visa categories. We had very limited financial capacity. It was difficult to access more nourishing food. Our cooking capacity and skills are very important to keep our family members healthy and without disappointment in this kind of situation. Another thing is, we can find shops which are established by people from different regions of the world. 

I have an interesting story to tell. 

One of my friends is J. We used to meet each other once a month and spend our time at a café or enjoy a meal at one of our homes. In 2020 we were both stuck in our homes because of the pandemic. When the rules were eased, she invited me to go for an outing. Though she loves my food I didn’t want to keep her inside my home and offer a meal after a long imprisonment! But I knew how much she liked my food and how nice it is to give her some nice food for a change. I decided to cook some fresh food, pack it and hand it over, so she could enjoy that food with her family. The menu I finalised was rice, cashew curry, devilled chicken and a fried mixture of thinly chopped and fried potatoes, onion and papadum. 

She was surprised and so happy when I gave her the food parcel and even said she couldn’t wait to go home and enjoy with her family. 

In the evening I received a text from her husband. He thanked me for my food and said that  J hated cashews before but after she had my cashew curry, now it has become her favourite dish. He asked ‘how did you cook cashews so soft? I can’t imagine.’

The funniest thing in this story, I didn’t know my friend’s food preferences after four years of friendship!

However, now I know what I need to prepare for my beloved friend. I am really happy that I changed her into a cashew lover.

So, I will share the recipe for cashew curry with you all.

Theja’s Cashew Curry Recipe

Ingredients

• 250g of split cashews
• 1/2 of a red onion medium size (finely chopped)
• I number of green chilli (spit into two)
• 1/2 tsp of turmeric
• 1 tbsp of curry powder
• 1 tsp of ground mustard
• 1 inch long cinnamon
• salt as per your taste
• 2 cups of thin coconut milk
• 1 cup of thick coconut milk
• curry leaves and a piece of a pandan leave

Soak cashews in water that added 1/4 of baking soda for 3 hours. After 3 hours wash it properly and place it in a pot. add all ingredients except thick coconut milk. Cook it on a low-medium flame. Stir occasionally. After the thin coconut milk is reduced to half check that cashews are soft enough. If not so add little more water. After the cashews become soft somewhat, add thick coconut milk. Then cook until becomes a thick gravy.

Enjoy!

This dish is enough for 6 people. I gave this recipe as you can find all the ingredients from Asian supermarkets.

Theja is one of our Trustees, who joined CVoS Board in 2024. She worked as an NGO worker, activist, and freelance journalist in Sri Lanka. She is now a writer and a published author. Coming from the South of Sri Lanka, her upbringing has deeply influenced her perspective and work. She is also a member of the Sanctuary Food Network established by Calderdale Council.