I am happy to announce the launch of my travel article apps on GPSmyCity and an app giveaway of one of my articles, valid this week only until August 7th. Please download the GPSmyCity master app first to access the free upgrade for my article and check out what additional features GPSmyCity offers to what is already out there.
To celebrate this launch, I am sharing a delightful cookie recipe of my mother – her delicious jaggery chip coconut cookies. So, do try out this cookie while you check out GPSmyCity and the free travel article app.
This week’s recipe is the last of the five recipes sent in by Trevor Martil. I am bringing this recipe, together with some lovely music from Senegal, to Fiesta Friday.
Today’s featured musician is Youssou N’Dour. The first clip is from an 80s concert of Le Super Etoile de Dakar.
The next clip is a music video (1994) composed by Youssou N’Dour, Neneh Cherry, Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp.
Hope you enjoyed the songs and do send me your feedback if you try out the recipe given below! 🙂
This week’s recipe is from Trevor Martil, who shares another of his mother’s favourite recipes – a dessert she named ‘surprise delight.’ I am bringing this recipe together with some lovely songs, from a country I visited three years ago, to Fiesta Friday.
While there were several highlights of my trip, the most inspiring was the visit to Robben Island. And yes, I was also introduced to some south African music while there. Today’s music features some of the South African music that I enjoyed starting with Mama Afrika – Miriam Makeba.
The other clip for today is from the Soweto Gospel Choir.
Hope you enjoyed the music and do send me your feedback if you try out the recipe given below! 🙂
Today, I wish to re-post a delicious chocolate cake recipe of my mother that I had posted last year.
Today’s music features Arabic pop. The first clip is a song, by Samira Said and Cheb Mami, that has special meaning to me. Sometimes when I am stuck in my writing process, I turn to music to clear my head and focus. The type of music that helps me at one time does not necessarily help at another time so I usually experiment with a few before I come across the right one for the particular writing. One of the times I faced a writing block was during the writing of my master’s thesis. After several non-productive days and many music listening hours later, I found myself listening to an online Arabic pop radio stream. From the moment, this song came on, I felt very much energized and focused and soon started working on my writing. This was the song that pulled me through the subsequent weeks of thesis writing and as such, I retain a fondness for it.
The next clip is a recent release of Diana Haddad, another Arabic pop singer that I used to listen to.
Today’s recipe is another of my baking experiments. My favourite aspect of cooking is baking. Ever since I tried out Kitchen Cici’s delicious rosemary cheese bread, I have started experimenting with breads. I had originally intended to make pineapple muffins but I guess people at home were kind of tired of my weekly experimental muffins so I decided to switch to bread which I also enjoy making. I adapted Jamie Oliver’s basic bread recipe to include pineapple and cloves. It turned out great so I am sharing it here at the Fiesta Friday. I will not be posting as much over the next twelve months as I did the previous year mainly because I will be away from home. However, I do have some recipes that I am yet to transcribe and post so will try to share at least one each month.
The music feature today is on raï. The first clip is an excerpt of a concert (1990) by Chaba Fadela and Cheb Sahraoui.
The next clip is a recent release of Cheb Khaled, whose song Didi was my introduction to raï music.
Hope you enjoy the music and this delicious bread!
Pineapple – 1, medium or small (depending on how much pineapple you want in your bread)
Method:
Take a ¼ cup of the water and add the yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar and pinch of salt. Let the yeast mix rest for about 5 – 10 mins and turn frothy.
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and stir in ½ tsp of ground cloves.
Add the yeast mix to the flour and mix. Gradually add the remaining water little at a time till the flour-yeast mix becomes a soft dough that is not sticky. Knead the dough for at least 5 mins.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover. Let the dough rest for about 30 mins or till it has doubled.
In the meantime, roughly puree the chopped pineapple. (I used it chopped as I rather like to taste fruit chunks in my baked stuff but my mother’s feedback was that it would have been much better as a spread)
Add the pineapple puree and the remaining sugar to a saucepan and warm it over low heat for couple of mins (At this point, I also added a pinch of cloves but my mother feels that it is better not to add the cloves to the pineapple puree but rather directly to the dough). Do not over-heat or cook the pineapple as it will take away its taste. Remove from heat and let it cool.
When the dough has risen, transfer it to a floured surface and punch it down (I like this part).
Roll out the dough and spread the sweetened pineapple puree over the surface. Roll in the dough starting from one end.
Transfer the rolled dough with filling into the lightly greased baking tray and form the shape you want it to be (I like circular loaves). Brush the surface with warm sugar syrup.
Bake the bread at 170⁰C for around 30 mins. The time will vary according to your oven.
Let it cool for at least 15 mins before slicing and serving with some margarine.
I have been trying out different muffins over the last few months and I was in the mood of trying out some experimental muffins. I wanted to create some muffins which had a strong leaning towards a Sri Lankan dish. While thinking about using different local non-wheat flours, inspiration struck. I do very much like the delicacy – mothaham or kolukkattai, that my mother makes during special festivals like the ongoing Navarathri festival. I decided to try out the muffin version of this steamed dish and it turned out a cross between a muffin and a crumble. I am sharing it at both my brother’s birthday today as well as bringing some over to Fiesta Friday tomorrow.
The music selection for today focuses on some lovely Persian music. The first group featured here is the Chemirani Zarb Trio, a classical percussion group. I first heard their music when they visited Sri Lanka to perform at the WOMAD concert 2005. The clip I share here is one of their performances at another WOMAD concert.
While searching for Chemirani Trio clips on youTube, I came across a few other Persian groups that I liked. The second clip is a music video by the folk group Zâr Ensemble, formerly known as the Ensemble Shanbehzadeh.
The last clip is a beautiful one by classical singer Homayoun Shajarian and instrumentalist and composer, Tahmoures Pournazeri.
Hope you enjoyed the lovely music as much as I did! As usual, please do share which clip you liked more.
I wanted to bake a special cake today to celebrate the birthday of a close friend undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and glaucoma. As there was a ripe mango in the fridge, I decided on a mango cake. Thinking of the spice that I could mix with mango in a cake, I decided to try saffron as I had recently tried out kesari in my muffin loaf and had also enjoyed the Cornish saffron bread that I had baked a couple of months back. Therefore, while both my exotic muffin loaf and this mango saffron cake look outwardly similar, the taste is different. Of course, on this special day, I wish to feature a very special singer – K.S.Chitra whose birthday coincidentally happens to be today as well. One of my favourite singers, Chitra has won six Indian national awards during her 35 years of playback singing as well as was awarded the Padma Shri in 2005. She has had extensive training in Carnatic music.
As I had already shared her first award-winning movie song in the post featuring music composer Ilayarajaa, I will share a beautiful song clip from her devotional song album, Krishnapriya (2005).
The second clip is a lullaby she sang for the Craft (Center for research in assisted reproduction and fetal therapy) hospital and research center. The center shares this song for downloading from their website with the message, “For our emotionally stressed women and men we hereby give a small gift- A Lullaby of hope that will go straight to your hearts- soothe you and transcend you virtually to the wonderful world of parenthood.” Chitra lost her eight-year old daughter in 2011 and resumed her singing with this track.
The last song clip is her award-winning movie song from Cheran’s movie Autograph (2004) featuring actress Sneha and the Comaganin Raaga Priya orchestra. The music was composed by Bharadwaj and performed by the special blind orchestra while the lyrics was written by P.Vijay (who also won an award that year) and sung by Chitra. The clip I chose to share here has roughly translated subtitles (courtesy of YouTube user Antony Rajabala).
Hope you enjoyed today’s music by one of my favourite singers and the lovely cake!
The recipe for today has been sent in by Trevor Martil and I am sharing it at Fiesta Friday. I shared his mother’s savoury rice dish recipe last week.
I also felt like sharing some lovely Hindi movie music today from movies released within this decade but set in decades past. The first clip is from V.V.Chopra’s movie Parineeta (translation: The married woman, 2005), an adaptation of a 1914 Bengali novella starring Vidya Balan and Saif Ali Khan. The music was composed by Shantanu Moitra and the playback singers of this song are Sonu Nigam and Shreyal Ghoshal.
The second clip is from Anurag Basu’s movie Barfi! (2012), starring Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz. Set in the 70s, the music was composed by Pritam and this particular song has been sung by Shafqat Amanat Ali.
The last clip is from V.Motwane’s movie Lootera (translation: Robber, 2013), set in the 50s and based on O.Henry’s 1907 short story ‘The last leaf,’ starring Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha. The music for this song has been composed and sung by Amit Trivedi.
Hope you enjoyed the lovely songs and do let me know if you try out this recipe!
I had tried to get hold of some of the Sri Lankan Burgher cuisine recipes for some time now. While some of the dishes such as lamprais, frikkadels and some kinds of specialty cakes around Christmas time are very popular and are recreated by cafes and bakeries around the country, I was more interested in the home-cooking of Burgher families. Besides Refinceyaa who shared her aunt’s recipe for capsicum with eggs on this blog, I had also asked Trevor Martil who is another of my former colleagues. He recently sent me some of his mother’s favourite recipes. Today’s recipe is one such dish, which Trevor’s mother calls ‘savoury rice with a difference.’ This rice recipe (providing both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options) is what I am sharing at Fiesta Friday together with some special music clips.
The special song clip for today is a rendition, by Amitabh Bachchan, of renowned poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s beautiful Bengali poem Ekla Cholo Re written in 1905. This song is from Sujoy Ghosh’s acclaimed Hindi movie Kahaani (translation: Story, 2012) starring Vidya Balan. Translation of the lyrics can be found on Wikipedia.
The next song clip is from Aamir Khan’s talk show Satyamev Jayate (translation: Truth alone prevails). Composed by Ram Sampath for the lyrics written by Swanand Kirkire, Meenal Jain sings the beautiful Hindi song ‘Sakhi’ at the end of the episode on domestic violence. I think I must have watched all the episodes of the first season in 2012.
Hope you enjoyed the songs and do let me know if you tried out the recipe today!
Ever since I baked my first batch of muffins last month, I have been in a muffin phase. Some of the favourites at home so far has been Joanne’s strawberry buttermilk (I used buttermilk instead of yoghurt) and Rhonda’s apricot almond muffins. It is rambuttan and mangosteen season here in Sri Lanka now and there were a few of the fruits leftover at home when I decided to try baking some muffins with them. As I had used up the entire pack of muffin cups and did not want to wait till I bought a fresh set, I simply decided to use a regular pan and make a muffin loaf. So, today, I am sharing at the Fiesta Friday my adaptation of Rhonda’s strawberry oatmeal muffins with some exotic (at least where muffins are concerned) ingredients. I am also taking this over to Saucy Saturdays #51, hosted by The Flavor Bender, La Petit Chef, Mid-Life Croissant, Take Two Tapas.
Today’s featured musician is Shankar Mahadevan. A musician that I admire, Shankar Mahadevan was midway in his software engineering career before deciding to change careers and focus on his passion for music. Trained in Carnatic and Hindustani music, he released his first solo album Breathless (1998). The album includes a song called Breathless, sung without a break in the lyrics from start to finish, which was very popular on Sri Lankan television. The hugely popular album opened up many opportunities for Shankar Mahadevan. Eventually, he started the online Indian classical music academy – Shankar Mahadevan Academy in 2010.
Shankar Mahadevan is the vocalist of ‘Remember Shakti.’ For those who haven’t heard of this group, they are a five member lovely fusion group initially started as ‘Shakti’ by John McLaughlin and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain in the 70s. The group was revived in the late 90s with some new members – U.Srinivas (one of my favourite musicians), V.Selvaganesh (son of Grammy award-winning musician V.Vinayakram – one of the original members of Shakti) and Shankar Mahadevan, replacing three of the original members. My first clip for today is therefore an excerpt from a Remember Shakti concert: a beautiful fusion performance of the classical piece ‘Giriraja Sudha,’ composed by 18th century musician – Tyagarajar – considered one of the most influential Carnatic composers.
Shankar Mahadevan is also part of the successful trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, who became popular in the Hindi movie music composing field in the late 90s. The second music clip for today is from Aamir Khan’s beautiful directorial debut movie Taare Zameen Par (translation: Like stars on earth, 2007) with music composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and sung by Shankar Mahadevan. This touching song won Shankar Mahadevan a national award.
He was introduced to the Tamil cinema playback singing platform by A.R.Rahman in 1997. The last clip is a lovely, upbeat folk tune composed by A.R.Rahman for the movie Mudhalvan (1999), starring Arjun and Manisha Koirala, and sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Kavita Krishnamurthy.
Hope you enjoyed Shankar Mahadevan’s music as much as I did! Happy July 4th to all my American blogging friends!
Rambuttan – 4, chopped (can add more, I just used what I had in hand)
Mangosteen – 1 or 2, chopped (can add more)
Cashew nuts – a handful, chopped
Raisins – a little for sprinkling
Kesari powder – pinch (optional)
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 190⁰C.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the instant oats and sugar to the flour bowl and keep aside.
Chop up the rambuttan and mangosteen. Add a pinch of kesari powder to the fruits in a separate bowl. Add the chopped cashewnuts and raisins to the fruit bowl.
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, oil and vanilla essence.
Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture. Mix it just enough to ensure that none of the flour mix is left dry. Almost all the muffin recipes that I have seen stress the point that one should be swift over this mixing and not be concerned over lumps in the batter.
Fold in the fruit and nut mixture.
Transfer the muffin batter to the muffin tray or a normal baking pan. Bake for around 20 mins – the time will vary depending on your oven.
