A Taste of Serendib: A Sri Lankan Cookbook - Softcover

Sri Lankan Tamil cooking is oriented around meat and fish; vegetable dishes are primarily meant to accompany a central meat dish. But many of the meat dishes here do work fine with vegetarian substitutes, such as seitan, tofu, and meat-simulators (such as the "Ground Meatless" from Morningstar Farms or the "Diced Chik" from Worthington). Also, if you freeze tofu, then thaw it and break it into pieces, it gives it a chewy texture; you can also deep-fry it, which is delicious but does make it soak up quite a lot of fat. An alternative to deep frying is to cut the tofu into rectangles or squares, lay them in an oiled pan in a single layer, then spray them lightly with spray oil and bake until golden brown. And of course, adding lentils or chickpeas to any vegetable dish is a good way to get added protein. They should work particularly well in the potato curry, for example.

Mary Anne Mohanraj teaches fiction at Vermont College and Roosevelt University. She is the author of two collections of literary writings, Silence and the Word and Torn Shapes of Desire, a Sri Lankan cookbook, A Taste of Serendib, and was the recipient of a 2006 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.