Cookbook Club at Home: Rambutan

COOKBOOK CLUB at home

RAMBUTAN BY CYNTHIA SHANMUGALINGAM

A club for lovers of good food, good cookbooks and good company

Free to join at boroughmarket. org . uk /cookbook- club

COOKBOOK CLUB at home

ANGELA CLUTTON

The Borough Market Cookbook Club is breaking out of the Market gates and into members’ homes.

Since March 2016, we have been gathering together at the Market to share a love of good food, good cookbooks and good company. Friendships have been forged, shopping and cooking tips swapped, and encouragement given over literally thousands of dishes that Cookbook Club members have cooked at home and brought along to share with others.

Those events, which it’s been my absolute privilege to host, have been special for the strong sense of community that runs through their very core. But, we know that not everyone is able to come along. And so as members, you now have the opportunity to create your own Borough Market Cookbook Club events at home, and in your own communities.

As with the Market events, I will choose a cookbook to be the focus of each month’s Borough Market Cookbook Club at Home gatherings. These will be a mix of new books and old faithfuls; ones you know well, and amazing discoveries yet to be made. Each month’s online pack will include a simple guide to hosting, a synopsis of the book and its author, and (where possible) a couple of recipes.

One of the many exciting aspects of doing this is that every single event, wherever it takes place, will have its own distinct personality. We don’t want anyone to feel the need to emulate the Cookbook Club events you might have been to at the Market, but we also hope that some of their core features will apply: that people will bring along food to share from the chosen cookbook, and that the emphasis will be on exchanging thoughts, experiences and opinions on cooking from the book. The Cookbook Club has always been about the joy of cooking and sharing – it has never been a cooking competition!

That sense of exchange will happen with the wider Borough Market Cookbook Club, too. We want you to share on social media the build-up to your event and what happens at it. Your Cookbook Club at Home stories, photos, videos, tips, culinary triumphs (or even disasters..!) – we want them all.

The Borough Market Cookbook Club at Home is a great way to gather together friends and family. Whether they’re experienced cooks or novices, all they need in common is a love of food. New friends will be made as food does what food always does, and the Borough Market Cookbook Club does what it always has: brings people together.

Read on for a guide to how these events might run, whether you’re hosting or attending.

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beginner’s guide

THE BOOK. The Borough Market Cookbook Club will nominate a book to be the focus of each month’s event. The schedule of books will be chosen a few months in advance to give you plenty of time to select an event and plan your gathering.

They will always be books that are easily available to buy via high street or online booksellers, borrow from libraries, or view through the ckbk online cookbook resource (which members have limited free trial access to).

PLANNING. Your event could take place any time in the calendar month that the cookbook has been chosen for. Any day, any time of day. You will need to think carefully about where to host (for example, at home or in a local venue). Decide on how many people to invite, and who. Let them know what the cookbook is. Give them the event date and time. And send them the link to this guide.

Make sure you ask about any allergies or dietary requirements so that no one goes hungry or risks eating something they shouldn’t.

Decide if you want people to cook different things from the book or if a crossover of dishes is fine. Decide whether you want them to let you know in advance what they’re bringing, or just turn up with it and surprise you. We strongly encourage people to choose a dish that is safe to serve at room temperature, and to bring their dish ready to serve.

Will people bring their own drinks? What about plates, cutlery, glasses – and the washing up!?!

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SHOPPING. One of the joys of the Cookbook Club events at Borough Market has been hearing about members’ favourite places to shop and their exploits in tracking down ingredients. We want to encourage that joy for these ‘at Home’ events, too. If you can, make the shopping as much as part of the Cookbook Club experience as the cooking or the event itself. That could mean coming to Borough, visiting your local food market, or seeking out small independent shops.

COOKING. Take care to prepare your food in a hygienic environment. The dish you make is for the consumption of others, so be sure to maintain the highest standards of cleanliness throughout its preparation.

THE EVENT. Cookbook Club events work best when people feel relaxed enough to be honest about how their dish went and what they think of the book. Try really hard not to judge each other (or each other’s food) and listen to what people think. Give everyone space to talk and share their views. Not everyone will agree – and that’s okay!

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THE DISCUSSION. Here are some possible topics for discussion, to get you started: How familiar were you with the writer? Did you know about them or own any of their books before coming along to this event? Were there plenty of dishes in the book you wanted to cook? What else (if anything) have you made from it? How does it compare to other cookbooks you might know and love? What dishes have you tried at the event that you might now want to try out at home? Will you buy or keep the book? Has your opinion of the book changed over the course of the event, from eating the food and hearing other people’s experiences?

SHARING. Please take lots of pictures and videos while you’re shopping, cooking and attending the Cookbook Club at Home events. Then share them via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and make sure you tag us @boroughmarket .

IF YOU CAN, MAKE THE SHOPPING AS MUCH AS PART OF THE COOKBOOK CLUB EXPERIENCE AS THE COOKING OR THE EVENT ITSELF. THAT COULD MEAN COMING TO BOROUGH, VISITING YOUR LOCAL FOOD MARKET, OR SEEKING OUT INDEPENDENT SHOPS

Rambutan by Cynthia Shanmugalingan (Bloomsbury)

RAMBUTAN

BY CYNTHIA SHANMUGALINGAN

An introduction

Very few cookbooks appear completely out of the blue, like Rambutan did. It’s not often these days that a publisher will commission a cookbook from someone who doesn’t run a successful restaurant, appear on a TV show, write a popular column or blog, or have a massive social media following. Cynthia Shanmugalingam had none of those things. What she did have was a stack of amazing recipes and a compelling story. For most people, the Rambutan cookbook, published in 2022, was our first glimpse into Cynthia’s world – and what a joy it is to spend time there.

Cynthia grew up in Coventry, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants. Her mother’s side of the family were, she says, food mad – a whirl of shopping, prep and cooking. “While they’re having lunch, they’re already thinking about dinner,” says Cynthia. It was food that helped her connect with her roots and communicate with her Tamil-speaking relatives on the family’s annual visits to the island.

In 2013, after starting a career as an economist, she founded Kitchenette, the UK’s first food incubator, which sought out people who had good ideas for food businesses but lacked the experience or connections to make them a reality. Helping chefs open their own restaurants planted a seed in Cynthia, who came to the conclusion that she wanted to do the same. After running successful pop-ups at Darjeeling Express and Quo Vadis, she found investors and was looking for premises. Then

Covid hit and the world shut down. Writing Rambutan filled the void.

In it, Cynthia immerses us in her family, in the immigrant experience, in the rich, complex culture of Sri Lanka. Her writing is warm and funny but doesn’t shy away from the harsher realities of life. “It has been a very joyful experience, reconnecting with Sri Lankan people and Sri Lankan food and my memories of it,” she explained last year on the Borough Talks podcast . “It’s full of melancholy as well, and sadness, and raging at Sri Lanka’s maddening injustices. I think that’s just the experience of being Sri Lankan, especially a Sri Lankan Tamil and an immigrant. I hoped that by talking about that stuff it would make the book fun and engaging but also give people a real sense of the island and my relationship to it.”

The recipes take their lead from the regional cooking of the north of the island, while accounting for the availability of ingredients in the UK. They are, says their author, “part Sri Lankan, part London, part Cynthia”. They offer a lovely mix of vegetarian, vegan, meat and fish; of simplicity and complexity; of coconut milk and curry leaves.

After immersing yourself in her recipes, you now have the opportunity to enjoy Cynthia’s cooking. The Rambutan restaurant opened in March on Borough Market’s gorgeous Stoney Street. If it’s even half as good as the book of the same name, you’re in for a treat.

COCONUT DAL WITH KALE

Serves 4

In war or other times of national crisis, dal is rationed out by the Sri Lankan government as one of life’s essentials. Cooked with lemongrass and, if you can get it, pandan leaf (which adds a warm, vanilla flavour) as well as coconut milk, turmeric, curry leaves, garlic and lime, this dal is distinctively light and restorative, and is worlds away from its Indian counterparts like black dal makhani made with cream, or tarka dal made with butter. There is no other dal quite like it, and I encourage you to try adding roasted squash or pumpkin or roasted sweet potato. This one is one of the ways my mum would cook it when she was too short on time to make a separate kale curry. She’d simply stir the leaves in very close to the end of cooking so they retained their bright green flavour and nutrients.

Ingredients

For the dal

300g red split lentils or toor lentils

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved

lengthways

1 lemongrass stalk, bruised

1½ tsp salt, or to taste

½ tsp Sri Lankan curry powder

4cm piece of pandan leaf (optional)

1 tsp ground turmeric

100ml coconut milk

3-4 small handfuls of kale (approx 200g)

½ lime

1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)

For the temper

1 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil

1 small red onion, peeled and finely sliced

10 fresh curry leaves

½ tsp mustard seeds

½ tsp cumin seeds

Method

Heat the oven to 240C. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion, leek and a pinch of flaky sea salt and cook for 4-5 mins until softened but not coloured, stirring frequently.

Pour the lentils into a saucepan and rinse loosely under the tap then drain well. Cover the lentils with water until they’re submerged by about 5cm. Add the garlic, lemongrass, salt, curry powder and pandan leaf, if using. Bring to a boil over a medium-high heat.

Skim off any scum and turn the heat down, so the lentils are simmering. Add the turmeric and simmer for 12-15 mins until the lentils are tender. There’s no need to stir here, you can basically forget about them except to check they’re not bubbling too vigorously.

Drain off about 80 per cent of the liquid. You don’t want it to be too wet and soupy because you’re adding coconut milk.

Stir in coconut milk and kale and allow to simmer gently for 2-3 mins until the kale is bright green. Take out a little kale to try; it shouldn’t taste raw but should be soft with a firm bite. Remove from the heat and transfer to your serving bowl.

In a small frying pan, make the temper. Heat the oil over a medium-high heat (careful, it will splutter). When hot, add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally for 3-5 mins until it starts to turn golden brown. Add the curry leaves, mustard seeds and cumin seeds and cook for a couple of minutes until the curry leaves are bright green. Be careful not to burn the spices!

Pour the whole temper, oil included, onto the cooked dal. Squeeze lime over it and sprinkle over the chilli flakes, if using, just before serving.

Recipe from Rambutan by Cynthia Shanmugalingam (Bloomsbury)

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Sri Lankan curry powder

Spice Mountain Coconut milk

Raya

Kale

Elsey & Bent

SRI LANKAN TURMERIC OMELETTE

Serves 1-2

This is a favourite breakfast dish; one my mum cooks when she’s taking orders for breakfast at the weekends from her grandson, Thierry, who may be only six but knows what’s up. You can have it on its own with something fresh like a little dill, lime and watercress salad, perhaps with some soft white bread, too. It’s very easy and quick: just softened onions, a little garlic, curry leaves, turmeric and green chillies. Don’t skimp on seasoning, with plenty of salt, black pepper and cumin – an amazing mix called milagai seeraham in Tamil.

Ingredients

A pinch of cumin seeds

A pinch of black peppercorns

3 large organic or free-range eggs

¾ tsp ground turmeric

2 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil

½ red onion, peeled and finely sliced (or 2-3 spring onions, chopped into 2cm pieces)

1-2 green chillies, sliced

1 clove of garlic, peeled and sliced

7-8 fresh curry leaves

Method

For the pepper-cumin salt, toast the cumin seeds and peppercorns in a small dry frying pan over a medium heat for 1-2 mins until fragrant. Transfer to a bowl to cool, then blitz in a spice grinder or mini food processor until fine and keep aside for later. In a bowl, whisk the eggs together with the salt and turmeric until frothy. Set aside.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan around 20-25cm wide over a medium heat. Add the onion (or spring onions), green chillies, garlic and curry leaves. Allow to cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes, so that the onion softens; don’t allow it to crisp, and don’t cook past the point that the chillies and curry leaves are still bright green.

Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan, wait 30 seconds for the oil to get hot, and then pour in the eggs. Keep cooking over a medium heat and use a spatula to pull the edges in as they set, tilting the pan to spread the uncooked egg around. Continue this motion of pulling the edges in and tilting all around the pan, until the omelette is almost set, which will take around 2-3 mins.

Fold in half and serve, dusting generously with pepper-cumin and a little extra salt.

Recipe from Rambutan by Cynthia Shanmugalingam (Bloomsbury)

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Eggs

Wild Beef

Garlic

Le Marché du Quartier

Chillies

Turnips

PICKLED PORK CURRY

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut or vegetable oil

2 onions, peeled and diced

20 fresh curry leaves

4cm fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved

450g pork ribs or pork shoulder, diced into

2-3cm chunks

2 tbsp pickled pork curry spice mix (see below)

125ml apple cider or white wine vinegar

1 tsp granulated sugar

2 lemongrass stalks

5cm piece of pandan leaf (optional)

1½ tsp salt, or to taste

50ml coconut milk

For the pickled pork curry spice mix

2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

5cm piece of cinnamon stick

½ tsp fenugreek seeds

½ tsp chilli powder

Method

Make the spice mix by placing a small dry frying pan over a medium heat. Add all the spices and cook, stirring occasionally for 2-3 mins, until fragrant. Transfer to a bowl to cool, then blitz in a spice grinder or mini food processor until fine.

Place a large saucepan or wok over a medium-high heat, add the oil and fry the diced onions for 4-5 mins, until soft. Add the curry leaves, ginger and garlic. After 2-3 mins, when the garlic is starting to brown, add the pork, 2 tbsp of spice mix, the vinegar, sugar, lemongrass and pandan leaf, if using. Pour in enough water to just cover the pork, and sprinkle over the salt. Bring to a gentle boil and then turn the heat to low and leave to cook, partially covered with a lid, for 2-3 hours.

When the meat is very soft and you can slice a piece with a spoon, stir in the coconut milk and cook through for 3-4 mins. Taste and if you think it needs it, add a teaspoon more vinegar.

Recipe from Rambutan by Cynthia Shanmugalingam (Bloomsbury)

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Pork

Ginger Pig

Apple cider vinegar

Ted’s Veg

Lemongrass

Raya