Rambutan, by Cynthia Shanmugalingam (who was raised in the UK by Sri-Lankan immigrants), has been touted as the most exciting Sri Lankan cookbook in a long while. I’ve previously really enjoyed cooking Sri Lankan food from the book Ceylon Cookery (including a very interesting cucumber curry), so a newer, acclaimed cookbook with pretty pictures for every dish is worth exploring – let’s take a look!

Originally, I had intended to just make a healthy Coconut Dal with Kale, but an opportunity to cook for my housemates and our downstairs neighbor presented itself and I was soon folding Paratha and seasoning beef strips. The recipes in this book are fairly simple, besides the fact that you might have to chase down fresh curry leaves (hint: Market Basket in Somerville has them cheap and fresh, otherwise, go to an Indian grocer and ask) and pandan leaves. I’ve never seen pandan leaves anywhere, but the internet says you can experiment with substituting vanilla bean. I used 1 scraped/spent vanilla bean pod in place of 2 pandan leaves and this seemed plenty strong.

Cooking Notes: Chop the kale before adding it to the dal. There will be a lot of kale if you weigh it dry. I definitely recommend adding roasted sweet potato. As suggested, drain 80% (or even 90%) of the water from the dal – the kale will still cook in the mostly-dry lentils and the result have a better consistency. Don’t forget to season the dal at the end; it will need salt. I recommend watching videos online of ways to fold paratha (it’s easier to make these than one might expect – make extra!) For the beef – get the cast iron as hot as it will go (I put it in the oven on max temp.) Finally, I forgot to add the lime and dried chiles to the dal at serving, and the lemongrass to the beef – don’t forget this stuff!

Overall, I found the dal to be a bit less impressive than I would like for serving guests. The beef and paratha were better, although I agree with the recipe’s suggestion: try to find a nice enough cut so that there is no chewy fat in the strips – the flatiron steak had this flaw. For now, based on two cooking experiences, I will avoid relying on this cookbook for a big dinner party. If I’m going to do a South Asian regional dinner party, I feel like I can get a more reliable and impressive flavor with the suggested menus in Julie Sahni’s Indian cookbooks. Nonetheless, I look forward to trying some of the black curries and fruit curries in Rambutan to see if the other recipes are a bit more striking.

Joe’s Ratings: 5/6.5/6.5 (Dal/Paratha/Beef)

Difficulty Ratings: 5/4/3.5