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Margate

24 hours in Margate

January 31, 2017

A Sri Lankan Christmas takes commitment and dedica

A Sri Lankan Christmas takes commitment and dedication. It's not an undertaking to be made on a whim. ⁣
I made a Sri Lankan Christmas cake a few years ago. I paused. And now I have decided to make one again this year.

Most Sri Lankan families will have their own Christmas cake recipe.

Like many Sri Lankan mums, my mum always made a Sri Lankan Christmas cake. Our recipe is taken from the great Charmaine Solomon. It's the recipe my mum used and the one I have turned to.

Making a Sri Lankan Christmas cake was a ritual started in November, that saw us into December when we'd finally get the chance to sink our greedy teeth into the long-awaited cake. Nibbling at the icing, picking off the marzipan and then wolfing down the cake.

A Sri Lankan Christmas cake is special and not like any other fruit cake I know.

Our Christmas cake is moist and packed full of fruits - raisins, sultanas, glace cherries, candied peel, dried pineapple and papaya, preserved ginger and chow chow (found in Sri Lankan grocers). Bursting with the cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and cloves. Laced with liberal doses of alcohol. And of course cashew nuts. Lots and lots of cashew nuts!

It is rich. The sort of richness that only 12 egg yolks can yield.

I'm just at the very start of making this year's Christmas cake, and it was the subject of this week's newsletter.

If you're interested in knowing more about the tradition of making a Sri Lankan Christmas cake, come join my newsletter community.

There's a link in my bio - or drop me a DM.

I'd love to see you there! ❤️

#srilankanchristmascake #srilankanrecipes #recipedeveloper #londonfoodphotographer #foodphotography #foodstylist #heritagefood #srilankancakes #srilankanfood #charmainsolomon

Now Halloween is done it feels like we are full pe

Now Halloween is done it feels like we are full pelt towards Christmas at breakneck speed.⁣
In this week's newsletter talked about our family's countdown to Christmas which is purposefully delayed until mid-December.

My readers received a curated gift guide of small businesses founded by Sri Lankans or people deeply inspired by Sri Lanka.

Gift recommendations ranged from exquisite crafts, candles, stylish kitchenware which I hope will make their way into people's stocking!

I featured my dear friend Rosh founder @hop_roll.

Rosh sells hopper kits that will guarantee you the perfect hopper, and cocktails kits featuring @ceylonarrack.

If you're not familiar with arrack, it's a Sri Lankan spirit made from distilled coconut sap it's 🫶🏾

This Christmas my cocktail of choice will be @ceylonarrack, ginger ale and a squeeze of lime!🍹🎄

#londonfoodphotographer #srilankanfoodie #srilankancuisine #beveragephotogrpaher #foodwriter #recipecreator #drinksphotographer #foodstylist #ceylonarrack

When did Halloween become a thing? ⁣ I wrote abo

When did Halloween become a thing? ⁣
I wrote about this to my newsletter community.

I remember when Halloween first fell into my consciousness. It was the early 80s and we were just about to watch ET.

We watched a scratchy, glitchy pirate copy at a friend’s house on their big clunky VHS player. A big deal. This movie was going to be huge! Bigger than Star Wars.

What stuck in my mind wasn't the chopper bike chases, ET in the closet, or a very young Drew Barrymore. It was that they got pizza delivered and Halloween!

Kids, out in the evening, all dressed up, not dressed up as ghosts, ghouls or witches. But as whatever they wanted to be, going door to door, getting buckets of sweets!

My next big encounter with Halloween was in the early 2000s in San Francisco visiting friends.

I fought the jet lag and went around with my friend and her two daughters, door to door, picking up fistfuls of sweets (or candy).

Wow. Houses decked out in giant cobwebs, gargantuan spiders, graveyards erected in the front lawn, and sound systems belched out gruesome sounds. This was Halloween!

If you are out tonight, trick or treating and if you don’t want to waste that mound of orange flesh, I have some recipes on my website that are comforting, not ghastly!

A quick and easy curried pumpkin soup to keep you warm as the nights draw in. Serve with some nice crusty bread slathered with butter. Or for something more substantial, try my pumpkin and green bean curry.

DM me if you want my recipes or even better join the newsletter community - and great recipes and writing will drop into your inbox!

Happy Halloween folks! 🎃

#pumpkinrecipes, #halloween #srilankanrecipes #londonfoodphotographer #recipedeveloper

In our house, we love cauliflower cheese. It was

In our house, we love cauliflower cheese. It was a staple on the table when we took our kids to see their Irish grandparents. Grannies cauliflower cheese was stomach filler and food of comfort and joy.⁣
There’s a brilliant traditional Sri Lankan recipe, that’s perfect for a spare head of cauliflower you might have lurking in your vegetable box.

It’s a spicy, stir-fried cauliflower recipe that will transform your head of cauliflower into something magnificently delicious.

A cauliflower mallung is easy to make. The spices cling to the crevices of each cauliflower floret giving this dish real depth of flavour.

When heading back home to visit my parents, a vegetable mallung was always laid on. The mallung added freshness and bite and helped cut through the rich, spiceladen meat dishes my parents loved to cook.

There are variations of this recipe from across Sri Lanka and India: Mallung, mallum, thoran, poriyal are dry vegetable curries, stir-fried in spices with onion and laced with coconut.

One or two mallungs are often served with a meal which can be as simple as the dry vegetable curry, dhal, rice or roti and perhaps a sambol.

Often made with green leafy vegetables - kale, and cabbage this recipe works brilliantly with cauliflower, broccoli, and believe it or not, Brussels sprouts. Finley slice the sprouts with a mandolin and I assure you, any sprout hater will become a sprout lover when they taste sprouts cooked the Sri Lankan way!

A mallung is a versatile recipe. Think of it as your curry best friend. A winning dish to have up your sleeve!

Subscribe to my newsletter and be the first to get more recipes like this.

DM me/drop a comment and I’ll send you a link to the recipe. 👇🏾

#recipedeveloper #contentcreator #londonfoodphotographer #foodstylist #srilankancusisine

I’ve written about Shonda Rhimes and her book ‘A Year of Yes’. ⁣
I read the book ago and it’s message still resonates with me.

Shonda was known for saying no to things. Her family and friends stopped inviting her to do things because they knew she wouldn’t go.

This was a wake-up call - what had she missed? When she dug deep, she realised it was more about confronting her fears.
Shonda vowed to say yes to things that scared her. And say yes to more of the right things.

The result was life-changing.

When an opportunity came my way, I pushed past the self-doubt, fear and imposter syndrome and grabbed the opportunity with a big fat YES!

I’ve collaborated with Hi!! Magazine (@hi_online_lk). It's Sri Lanka's glossy luxury lifestyle magazine for the island community and the diaspora. It celebrates Sri Lankan culture, fashion, travel and food. It's an honour to be in their pages!

Over the summer I headed into the kitchen where I was in full recipe creation mode: researching and developing new recipes, cooking, testing, re-testing, writing and photographing these delicious dishes.

Some dishes are more traditional with a twist on an authentic recipe - think slow-cooked jaggery beef rib. Others are more traditional. My jackfruit biryani is a vegan crowd-pleaser. It's a great recipe for a gathering of friends that will please those that eat meat and those that don't. And some, are more fusion-style recipes such as jaggery meringues.

I hope you are excited and I have whetted your appetite.

Join my mailing list and the recipes drop into your inbox. DM me or drop a comment - I'll send you the link.

#srilankanrecipes #londonfoodphotographer #recipedeveloper #foodcontentcreator #londonfoodstylist

Supper clubs are a thing, a scene, a food movement

Supper clubs are a thing, a scene, a food movement. Supper clubs are where you find great people cooking great food.

I got to know Sohini, host of the @smokeandlime supper clubs.

We initially met for dinner at a small Peruvian restaurant in the Elephant & Castle, in a nondescript building, where the Formica tables wore paper tablecloths, a giant TV blasted South American football and they served the best ceviche you’ll find South of the Thames.

At the end of May, I ventured down Walworth Road to experience one of Sohini’s supper clubs.

Smoke and Lime is cosy. Eight of us gathered around Sohini’s dining table where we were treated to a feast of home-cooked Bengali cuisine.

Sohini’s has pioneered a no-waste kitchen. She uses every scrap of every ingredient in her cooking. Cauliflower leaves are transformed into cauliflower pate. She’s a genius at turning local ingredients into delicacies - you have to try her rhubarb pickle.

The two stand-out dishes were the whole deep-fried sea bass and dhal with shaved fennel.

The star of the evening was the puchkas. Flavour bombs, mouthfuls of intense joy. I first tasted these in Darjeeling Express, small round pastry shells filled with spiced chickpeas and potatoes, dipped into a tamarind chaat sauce. Hot, sour, sweet flavours burst in your mouth as you gobble your puchka whole.

Now I have experienced the Smoke and Lime supper club, I’m ready to try more.

What are your favourite supper clubs?

#londonfoodphotographer #supperclublondon #srilankanfoodphotographer #londonfoodwriter #foodwriter #londonfoodie #foodstories

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Ranji Thangiah

Food writer, recipe creator and photographer

I'm Ranji! I am a food photographer, recipe creator, lover of Sri Lankan food which I want to share with you.

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