Tuesday, March 19, 2024

 

Meat Dishes - An Introduction



Meat was not consumed in great amounts in Jaffna. Usual non vegetarian dish was seafood - mostly fish as this was available in plenty and fresh. Meat was consumed as a special treat in average families on special occasions. Meat was expensive and ordinary families could not afford this ‘luxury'.

Even in meat, chicken was very expensive as they were home raised for eggs (there were no chicken farms those days) and was consumed a few times in a year by average families. Mutton would have been consumed on little more occasions. Beef was consumed by few people and pork was not sold within city limits.

Now the situation has changed a lot even though there is a price increase generally.

Spicy Garnish for meat dishes:

To add a high spicy flavour sometimes additional spices are included in the curries. These spices are roasted and ground into a powder form and added to the curry when cooked. Just like the garnish in vegetarian dishes, this is a flavour enhancer to the meat dishes. A similar version called Garam masala is used by some people and India.

Ingredients:

Cinnamon 1 inch long piece
Cloves 5
Cardamon 2 pods
Fennel seeds 1 teaspoon

Method:

Dry roast all the ingredients in a frying pan until fennel seeds turn golden. Remove from pan Remove the seeds from the cardamon pods and discard the covering. Grind all these spices and seeds from Cardamon pods into a fine powder. Add all the powder after the onions has been sautéed before adding the meat. This portion of powder is sufficient for a leg of lamb or two chicken or similar quantities of pork or beef. Since these spices lose their fragrance, it is better to prepare this spicy mixture just before the curry is made.

Please click on the menu to access the meat dishes you like to try.