Sri Lankan Mallum (or Mallung) is a dish typically made with stir-fried greens (or cabbage) and grated coconut.
While traveling for 10 weeks in Sri Lanka, I was served and learned how to cook half a dozen varieties of Mallum. Many involved local leafy greens that were kind of a cross between kale and spinach, and often sort of like collard greens. When I got back to Germany, I experimented with recreating the leafy greens mallum, and found that arugula worked quite well. It’s especially great for using up arugula in the fridge that’s no longer fresh enough for a salad or is too bitter to be eaten raw. Kind of like cooking with spinach, when cooked, the arugula will get a lot smaller and you’ll end up with less that you expected!
This is the recipe that I used for my third travel-inspired vegan cookbook, The Lotus and the Artichoke – SRI LANKA. I called it Rocket Greens Curry. Curry perhaps isn’t really the best word. Mallums are mallums, just like chutneys are chutneys, even if we might want to call it a sauce.
You can serve this dish as one of many with a Sri Lankan meal, or as a starter – kind of a warm salad.
I make it when I have lots of greens to use up, or if I’m serving dal curry, beetroot curry, and Jackfruit Curry, and rice. The four curries together are four different colors, which provides a stunning visual element to the meal. If I’m ambitious and make more dishes to go with the meal, I go for Deviled Chickpeas or Soymeats Curry. The play of different colors, shapes, textures, and unique flavors always impresses dinner guests.
Rocket Curry
Rucola-Kokos-Pfanne
2 Portionen / Dauer 20 Min.
- 4 Tassen (125 g) frischer Rucola klein geschnitten
- 1/2 Tasse (45 g) frisch geraspelte Kokosnuss oder 1/3 Tasse (30 g) getrocknete Kokosraspel
- 6–8 Cherrytomaten halbiert oder 1 mittelgroße (80 g) Tomate gehackt
- 1 EL Pflanzen- oder Kokosöl
- 1/2 TL Senfsamen gemahlen
- 1/2 TL Currypulver
- 1/4 TL schwarzer Pfeffer gemahlen
- 1 EL Zitronensaft
- 1 TL Agavensirup oder Zucker (Palmzucker oder Kokosblütenzucker)
- 1/4–1/2 TL Meersalz
- In einem großen Topf oder einer Pfanne Öl auf mittlerer Flamme erhitzen.
- Gemahlene Senfsamen, Currypulver und schwarzen Pfeffer hineingeben. Rucola hinzufügen. 2 bis 3 Min. anbraten, bis der Rucola zu schrumpfen beginnt.
- Kokosraspel, gehackte Tomaten, Zitronensaft, Agavensirup (oder Zucker) und Salz einrühren. Halb abgedeckt unter regelmäßigem Rühren 5 bis 7 Min. schmoren. Rucola nicht zerkochen.
- Mit Reis oder Brot servieren.
Variationen:
Anderes Grünzeug: Statt Rucola frischen gehackten Spinat, Mangold, Grün- oder Schwarzkohl verwenden. Garzeit nach Bedarf anpassen.