01x04 - Nuwara Eliya

[bunniefuu]

I'm leaving Sri Lanka's Cultural
Triangle and heading for the hills.

As a kid growing up in Sri Lanka
I used to love the train.

My uncle was a train driver and he'd
let me ride in the engine with him.

This all brings back
such magical memories.

And, you know,
the old trains haven't changed.

They even deliver the driver's
manifesto to the stationmaster

in exactly the same way.

Can I have one, please? One packet.

So nice to be in the trains again.

We're coming up to our station now

so off on the next part
of the adventure.

Today I'm visiting
the legendary tea fields of Ceylon.

First thing every morning,

an army of colourful ladies
march into the tea fields,

continuing a tradition that has
been going on exactly like this

for hundreds of years.

What makes a cup of Ceylon tea
better than most

is the way it's picked,

the incredible skill
and determination of these ladies.

But also being able to take
the bud and two leaves.

Machines basically take
a whole lot off the top.

But hand-picking produces
the best tea in the world.

And that's Ceylon tea.

These ladies pick


It's crucial to the ongoing success
of Ceylon tea

because hand-picking ensures
the leaves aren't bruised.

I've decided I'm going to come in
and try and pick some tea,

if I can make it to them.

Push my way through. [CHUCKLES]

Can I try and put this on my head?

At the moment,
there's not much in this thing.

But I can imagine that
after a few hours of picking

and then trying to throw it in there,
it would be pretty hard.

It's a very hard job,

but, you know, surrounded by this
beauty and these beautiful ladies,

I'd be here a little bit more,
I think.

Beautiful lady, that's you.
No, no.

[LAUGHS] Yeah. "No, no."

And speaks very good English,
so I'd better be careful what I say.

And for a real treat, I've been
invited into a tea picker's home.

Or, more accurately,
into her kitchen.

So this lady, who I've just met,
is a tea picker here.

And she's going to make some sambar,

which is the perfect
sort of hot, saucy soup.

A little bit of parippu, or dal soup.

[BOTH CHAT IN SINHALESE]

And dosai, which is my favourite.

First step, washing it.

You have to wash lentils
all the time.

Get the stones out.

Especially up here, you know,
you buy the lentils,

unscrupulous sellers
sometimes put a few rocks in them

to make it weigh a bit more.

Hello. Namaste.

What's your name?

[font color = #00FFFF]Indira Gandhi.
Indira Gandhi?

Whoa! Cool name.

[LAUGHS]

This is how you add salt
in Sri Lanka.

You buy rock salt
and you add water to it.

So the parippu, or lentil soup
with spices, goes onto the fire

and then the coconut milk is added.

Do you know how to do this?

The kitchen is central
to family life.

It's where ancient skills and recipes
are passed down.

And it's where Mum always asserts
her position in the family.

Do you cook? Yeah?

Good cook? You?

No? [LAUGHS]

You've always got to let
the mother cook.

Mother's always the boss
in these situations.

[SPEAKS IN SINHALESE]
Ah, so then she cooks.

OK, so when she heads off to work,
then she'll take over the kitchen.

It's probably the best time
because when Mum comes home,

she'll be checking it out and making
sure everything's seasoned properly.

[SPEAKS SINHALESE]

Ah, so it's the same.

So, her grandmother
was the same to her mother.

That older generation,
they were worse than Gordon Ramsay.

These ladies were tough
in the kitchen. Tough.

Hitting with spoons
and all kinds of stuff

to make sure they got
that flavour right.

And now for the dosai.

That is ground up white lentils
which are flavoured and fermented.

[SPEAKS SINHALESE]

Coconut oil. Give it a rub.

Next...

Very gently spread
from the centre outwards.

Now the big test.

Oh. Very nice.

Very nice. Everyone's looking.

[LAUGHS] Namaste.

Simple, beautiful meal.

Cooked by this lovely lady.

And being invited into their house
has been an absolute pleasure.

Tastes fantastic.

Nandri.

Welcome.

Dotted around Sri Lanka's rolling
green hills of the tea country

are factories such as Somerset,

owned and run by the Fernando family.

Younger son Dilhan
is an expert tea taster.

[INHALES NOISILY]

Is that right?
That's it. That's it.

What you do, it just fills...
[INHALES QUICKLY]

..fills your mouth
with all the beautiful flavours.

Now, there's a misconception, too.

It's not tannin, is it, that you get?
It's not.

They're the polyphenols in the tea,
which are in fact the anti-oxidants,

the good stuff,
the natural goodness in tea.

The more you listen to Dilhan,

the more it sounds like
he's talking about wine.

And you see
the appearance of the tea,

that is, the tea on the eye,
reflected exactly on the nose.

So you see a heavier,

a stronger flavour here,
more earthiness here,

whereas this is lighter.

Here you have more floral note.

And that, in turn,
reflected on the tongue.

So I guess you could say
it's the same as in wine.

What some people may not realise

is that tea is also
great to cook with.

I'm going to use tea to make
a prawn-infused mulligatawny soup

and serve it with grilled prawns,
as well.

Let's start.

Very simply, first thing I'm doing
is just adding some prawn shells.

I've peeled the prawns and I've got
them put aside for later on.

So I need to make a prawn stock.

Curry leaves,

garlic, a green chilli.

A hot red chilli.
A little bit of ginger.

And some onions in here, as well.

I'm just going to boil that up.
It will take about 20 minutes to do.

Mulligatawny is also
quite a simple soup.

It didn't have many vegetables,
but I'm going to add some.

So I've got some really nice
local carrots, an eggplant,

which I'm just going to chop fine.

Adds a bit of body
to the soup, as well.

It will make it taste really good.

Eggplants, these beautiful eggplants
from the markets.

Nice dice on this, as well.

Some chopped onion.

Now, for this soup I'm going to fry
off all of these ingredients.

A little bit of oil into the pan.
Some of these wonderful curry leaves.

And I'm also going to put tomato
into it.

Get the oil nice and hot.

Into this I'm putting
roasted fenugreek seeds.

A good dob of chilli powder.

It's a very peppery and hot soup,
so don't be scared.

A lot of ground black pepper.

Always good to grind
your black peppercorns.

Roasted cumin.

Roasted fennel.

Seeds, that is.

One whole red chilli.

Some beautiful saffron.

Just a little pinch.
It'll add colour.

That's also where that lovely colour
for mulligatawny comes from.

Some turmeric, to just give
the yellow colour a bit of a boost.

And, finally, a little bit
of coriander powder.

OK, now what I'm going to do,

I'm going to add my curry paste
into my stock.

And we'll have
a really nice spicy stock.

Okey-dokey.

So that flavour of prawn
and all the spices are there.

I'm keeping the pan.
I'm not emptying it.

And I'm not washing it.

I'm just going to add some more oil
and then fry off my vegetables.

Gently fry these. The tomato
will break down. That's the idea.

Seafood stocks don't need
a lot of time to cook.

You needn't cook them
like a meat stock, for ages.

Once it comes up to the boil, most of
the flavour's already come out of it.



So when it has boiled,
I'm going to turn it right down.

Now, the reason I'm turning it down
is, as it simmers,

the shells will sort of solidify and
set, and it will clarify the stock.

I'm just going to put a little bit
of finely chopped curry leaves.

Nice and fine.

Make sure the carrots and eggplant
are starting to cook really nicely.

Add the curry leaves.

OK. I'll taste my stock.

[WHISTLES] It's peppery.

Now, the next thing
is preparing the prawns.

Firstly, I want to skewer my prawns,
so I've peeled them.

I've deveined them.

And a prawn doesn't come straight.

It's bent, so what you need to do

is just put two or three marks
on the prawn

and it will straighten out.

And that way it'll go
onto your skewer well.

Prawns have a spike on their tail,
right here.

Right between the two little fins
at the back.

So it's always a good idea
just to pull that off.

That way when people put this
into their mouth, it won't hurt them.

I'm straining my stock.

Alrighty.
You can smell the prawns there.

My soup is pretty much done.

It's come up to the boil.
Carrots are nicely cooked.

A little bit of seasoning,

bring out all the flavours.

And one of these lovely little limes.

Squeezing all of that beautiful juice
out of it.

Clear up and I'm going to now dip
these prawns.

So, I've got some mayonnaise...

..some freshly chopped garlic.

I've also got some red chillies here
which I've roasted off

and I'm going to chop up.

That's going to add colour and
obviously a bit of a bite, as well.

And some lovely parsley.

Parsley. Parsley adds a colour to it.

Now my secret ingredient.

Obviously, tea.

I've got myself
some single estate tea

which means that the tea
was all grown in one area.

It means no blends,
not coming from anywhere else.

And to break tea down,

so that you can eat it,

rather than just drinking it,

you need to roast it a little bit,
so I'm just going to toast it.

Stir it around a bit,
and what happens is

it goes all crispy and crunchy,

and I'll turn it off
before it starts to burn.

And I'm going to add a little bit
here to my mix.

But I'll sprinkle a little bit on top

so that's really the star
at the end of the day.

Alright.

Now for the grilling of the prawns.

A little bit of oil.

Prawns don't have to be cooked
all the way through.

If they're fresh,

you can just cook them
till they're just translucent inside.

So, what you do is
you roll your prawn around.

Get it covered
in this beautiful mixture.

And you can imagine the flavours
that will go through this

with the garlic and the parsley,
and everything.

And then garnish it
with a little bit of tea.

Now my soup, which is looking lovely,
give it a good stir.

Make sure you get all those flavours
mixed together.

Put that in.

And my cucumber right in the front.

The dish is done,

but there's one more thing to do,

and that's finish it off
with a garnish.

And what would I do here
except use two leaves and a bud

from the bushes out there?

A lovely piece of tea.

Cinnamon is a spice
that finds its way

into almost every kitchen
in the world.

Well, did you know that 80% of it
is grown right here in Sri Lanka?

This is the first stage
of making a cinnamon stick.

You have to gently and evenly
scrape all the bark away.

The bark's useless.
It's not used for anything else.

But every other piece of this stick
will be used later down the track.

I'm going to have a shot.

What's incredible
about cinnamon production

is that it's so labour intensive.

Every step from stripping the outer
bark to cutting the inner bark

is done by hand.

The outer bark comes

and then all the little pieces
are shoved manually into this

to make a cinnamon stick like this.

And it really gives you
a little bit of respect

for the humble cinnamon stick.

With this amazing spice I'm going to
make wild boar curry, but with pork,

pol roti, which is coconut roti.

I'll get into it now.

It's always good to have pork
with a little fat.

It gives it some flavour,
nice and juicy, keeps it moist.

We're going to marinate it first.

It's important to marinate
to get all the flavours through,

'cause I'm not really
going to fry much.

Black pepper.
That's a black curry.

Whenever they mention black curry,

you can generally assume
that there's black pepper in it.

Chilli. Lots of it.

This is gonna be
one of those fiery dishes.

Now this is the interesting one

that's going to add
the sourness to it.

This is called goraka.

I'm going to put some cardamoms
in there to add the flavour.

Uluhal, or fenugreek seeds.

These have been roasted lightly.

Too much equals bitterness.

The other thing I'm going to use
is some roasted curry powder.

Salt. A fair bit of it.

And then this cinnamon.

Now, you know, I've talked about this

and how wonderful it is.

Let's use a fair bit of it.

I'm breaking it up so that
it goes through the whole mix.

Get your hands in there
and massage it together.

It's really important with this dish

to make sure that all those flavours
are evenly mixed through it.

Now, breaking a coconut.

Got it.

When you're doing this, too,

try not to get
any of the internal brown colour.

It just discolours your salads.

Doesn't really make the flavour
much different.

I love pol roti.

My dad used to make it all the time.

And it's so simple but such a hearty
little bit of bread.

Some atta flour,

which is like a raw wheat flour.

You can just make this plain
with a little bit of salt,

but I like to add quite a few
little ingredients to it.

Firstly, chopped green chilli.
Really finely chopped.

You don't want big chunks through it.

This onion needs to be chopped
quite fine.

The reason is
that when we roll this out,

and I'm not using a rolling pin
when I do it,

but when we roll this out,
if there's big chunks in it,

what's going to happen is that
they will end up breaking the dough.

And I'm going to add
a little bit more flavour

by putting in some finely chopped
curry leaves.

Now, put it all together.

Ghee is really good
because it softens the dough.

So a good dollop of that.

And, finally,
this freshly grated coconut.

Add water.

One last thing, too - salt.

Better to put salt now,
when you're mixing it through,

rather than to wait later on, because
it's going to be hard to infuse it.

Make sure that you work
the gluten strands

and make a really nice dough.

A dough that...you can see
it hasn't stuck to my hands.

And if you break it open

all of it's mixed through
really well.

Now, I'm just going to break it
into ba*ls,

and put it aside
and get this curry cooking.

Even ba*ls is always good.

That way you get the same sized roti
every time.

Alright, start cooking.

I'm going to fry a few ingredients
to go with the meat.

Starting off with chillies.

Doesn't have to be
as finely chopped this time.

Ginger. I'm just rough chopping
all of this.

The onions are just sliced.

Garlic. Lots of it.

And crushed.

So to assist with the crushing,
just a good spoonful of salt.

And then with the back of your knife
just pull it towards you.

And the salt works with the garlic

and just really crushes it up well

and you have a really nice
garlic paste.

Look behind me.
It's starting to close in.

We're up in the mountains
and the mist is coming through.

So I'm going to knock this over
really quickly.

Lots of ghee.
Get it really nice and hot.

And then some curry leaves.

Some of this lovely pandan,
which will give you a great aroma.

Now...and it smells so good.

So good.

Fry off all these onions.

Comes and goes, doesn't it?
It's amazing.

It's really just mist.

Because we're so high
in the mountains in the tea fields

looks green and beautiful one minute
and then next minute it's gone,

but you've seen a fair bit
of the waterfall now

so concentrate on my cooking.

When you cook meat,
you normally think,

"Well, I should brown the meat off."

But by putting this curry
into a marinade,

or putting this pork into a marinade,

it's coated itself.

And really what we're going to do now

is just boil it.

I just need to mix
all those flavours through.

There's a lot of chilli in here,
guys. A lot of chilli.

That's what you need, OK?

And then water just to cover.

High heat.

Boil it until it just starts
to thicken, then turn it down.

It'll take, again,
depending on the heat of your stove,

between 10 to 25 minutes probably.

Put a little bit of ghee on it.

Rub it around.

You can see the ba*ls now
are beautiful and soft.

So just with your hand

spread them out.

Nice and evenly so that you get it
all the way around the pan.

And now this lovely roti's
going to go on.

Just reshape it when you put it on.

Perfect.

Alright.

Going to serve it up.

We're in the tea fields

so I'm going to do a little bit
of tea sprinkling.

Serve my carrot salad.

My roti.

I can smell that coconut coming out
of them, too. It's so yummy.

Stick that on there.

And I'll put a little bit
more coconut.

Now, the heat from the roti
will melt the oil through

and make it even more delectable.

Next...

It's just thickened up so much.

Pour it in.

I've got a hearty pork curry
from the region.

Sweet carrots,
a roti that's still hot and steaming

with beautiful fresh coconut
on top of it.

It's all I really need.

One beer and I'm probably sorted
for the week.

Next time on My Sri Lanka,

I head back to the coast
where the buffalo roam.

Oh! [LAUGHS]

Nah.

I finally learn the secret
to cooking hoppers...

Swirl it.

..and meet a group of kids
who will steal your heart away.