If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you might notice that with this posting, I’ve revived the old format for notes on my continuing adventures in home cooking. During my own personal “Lost Years”, from May 2019 through the very recent past, I let a lot of things slide, this blog very much among them.
For this initial entry under the revived format, I made a dish representative of a cuisine that was literally foreign territory for me. I’ve never been to Sri Lanka,* and while the country is represented here in DC on the menus of several of my favourite Indian restaurants, there’s no stand-alone dining spot specializing in Sri Lankan food.
I got this recipe from a website called 30Seconds Food, where it was titled “Amazing Sri Lankan Deviled Chicken Recipe Is a 20-Minute Wonder“. As you can see, the recipe isn’t complicated, but it requires a lot of chopping and slicing of chicken, broccolini, onions, garlic, ginger, jalapeno pepper, and lime.**
It took me two tries to get it right. The first time through, I made the chicken breast bite-sized pieces too big and overcooked the broccolini, but the result was good enough to make me want to give it another try.
The second time around was the charm.
Rating
★ Disaster. Inedible. Poisoned the cat.
★★ OK, but once is enough.
★★★ Mixed results. Something went wrong, but might try this again.
★★★★ Good, but lacks that special something.
★★★★★ Excellent. Goes into my “This is a winner” file.
*Formerly known as Ceylon and now officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. That name may change soon, since the country’s economy has collapsed and the government is unable to afford to import food, fuel, and medicines. Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debts in May, which total over $51billion. Over the weekend, the home of the prime minister set on fire by demonstrators, and protesters broke through police barriers and charged into the president’s official residence. The president then announced he would step down on 13 July.
**As with a lot of recipes, this one grossly underestimated the time it took to prepare the dish. It seems as if cooking instructions often assume that prep time for ingredients doesn’t count, or that those onions and chile peppers will slice themselves, that limes come pre-zested and pre-juiced, and that spices are stored in pre-measured teaspoon and tablespoon portions.
Unless you’re working in the kitchens of Hogwarts, mise en place can’t be created by magic, and recipes should reflect that.
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