Serves: 2 to 3
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Fried rice is big in Sri Lanka; a hybrid Sri Lankan-Chinese food, and it tastes as brilliant as you’d expect from two powerhouse cuisines coming together. This recipe is inspired by my cousin’s wife, Dharma, who made me some delicious fried rice for lunch one day when I went to visit her on her farm.
Like the busy working woman who taught me it, this recipe is intended to get you some of the highs of a Sri Lankan lunch as quickly as possible. This recipe is cooked fast, using cooked crabmeat (ideally the freshest you can get). You want the rice, on the other hand, to ideally be a day old, but I have included instructions if you need to cook it fresh.
Because crab curry is traditionally cooked in the north and east of Sri Lanka with murungai-ilai (moringa leaves), which have a slightly bitter taste, this recipe uses arugula to add some pep and freshness.
INGREDIENTS
for the Sri Lankan curry powder: ¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons75 grams of tamarind block, soaked in 60 ml warm water
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon SL curry powder
2 handfuls arugula leaves, chopped
⅞ cup
