I come back with a lovely guest post from my friend
Farwin Simaak of
Love and other spices. She's one of many friends I met through food blogging world. Though we live miles apart but we have a connection, our love of yummy foods, we have same passion in food photography and (of course) we love blogging. :) Every country has traditional dishes, and knowing that Farwin come from Sri Lanka, I offered her to do a guest post and this sweet lady said yes without a doubt. With all humility, I plead to her to cook something traditional from her country. After waiting in curiosity, I received her mail of the post in my mailbox ! She cooked a Sri Lankan dish,
Coconut Jaggery Crepes with Kithul Treacle. It's a Sri Lankan crepe with coconut filling. Sounds very interesting.
For more Sri Lankan recipes, please head over to her blog. Thank you for the post and beautiful photos, Farwin. This is lovely, indeed. Now, let's begin the journey to the first Sri Lankan cuisine on my blog.
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When Tika asked me to do a guest post on her site about a
traditional Sri Lankan dish, I was thrilled. I met the talented Tika in
Facebook and instantly drawn to her site. Her food photography is amazing
and her passion for it shines through each and every one of her
photographs. And this warm and generous lady has another blog dedicated
to food photography tips for aspiring newbies like us. Thanks Tika for this opportunity, I'm honored to be here.
Love and other Spices is my journal, where I document
my love for food and cooking, from the exotic Sri Lankan dishes to the
modern bakes and goodies. Although I had several traditional recipes in
mind, I wanted to feature this sweet dish I absolutely loved growing up.
A thin crepe roll filled with coconut, jaggery and
nut filling and served with treacle on the side. This is a breeze to whip
up and was a regular during our tea time snacks. I remember coming home
after playing outside with friends asking a snack to munch with my
tea. My mom or aunt would then hurry to the kitchen to crush the
jaggery, my granny would grate the coconuts and within minutes the
filling is made. While the coconut mix is coming together on the
stove, the batter for the crepe is whisked and a spoonful of batter is
swirled to coat a heated pan. Once the crepes are cooked on both sides
and dropped on to a plate, my job is to keep the filling and roll it
tight and stack it neatly to serve.
The treacle is served along side to drizzle on the
crepes, if you prefer a bit of extra sweetness. This is a completely sugar
free and healthy recipe if you can swap the white flour to whole wheat
flour.
"Kithul" jaggery and treacle are our natural
sweeteners. We use it in almost all our desserts."Kithul" is variety of
palm tree growing in the Asian tropics. The sweet sugary sap obtained by
tapping the young "Kithul" flowers are then used to make a unique and
aromatic syrup called 'Treacle' which is similar to maple syrup. The
treacle is heated up to make molds of caramelized treacle called
'Jaggery'. Coconut shells are used as molds,so the jaggery takes the
shape of half sphere. The hardened jaggery is then crushed,grated or
shaved for use.
If you don't have access to jaggery, you can use
brown sugar. Use about 1/3 of a cup in the beginning and increase
accordingly to suit your tastebuds. The Kithul treacle can be swapped for
any kind of treacle or syrup.
Coconut Jaggery Crepes with Kithul Treacle
Ingredients:
Batter
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
pinch of salt
Filling
1 cup fresh grated coconut
125 g grated jaggery
few pods of cardamoms crushed
pinch of salt
Chopped nuts of your choice(I have used pistachio and cashew nuts)
Treacle to serve
Method:
Measure the flour and sift it into
a bowl. In a separate bowl,whisk the milk and egg together. Mix the wet
ingredients with the flour and whisk till you get a clump free
batter. Add salt.
Heat a non stick pan and spray with some oil. Add about 3
tablespoons of batter to the pan and swirl it to coat the pan. Once the
crepe has been cooked flip onto the other side with a spatula and cook
till light brown spots appear. Remove from fire and repeat with the
remaining batter.
For the filling,heat the grated jaggery in a
saucepan over medium fire. Once the the jaggery starts to melt, add the
coconut and cook till the mixture comes together. Add the cardamoms, pinch
of salt and cook further for 5 minutes. Add the nuts and remove from
fire.
To assemble, lay the crepe and place the filling on a
side. Don't place the filling all the way up to the edges of pancake
lest it should fall from the sides. Roll the crepe tightly. Serve with
more nuts on top and with a drizzle of treacle.
