A White Chicken Curry to Soothe, Heal, and Offer Sanctuary for a Hungry Soul

I was at a talk about Tamil food. Tamil rather than just Sri Lankan. Tamil food stretches far across the globe; following waves of migration, slavery voyages, communities that have had to flee war, and communities that have had to survive in war.  This, most definitely, will be the subject of another post for another time.

At this talk, I sat behind a lady from Mumbai. She had arrived in the UK for her master’s and is now working as a copy editor for an online tech magazine. Once we’d got past the introductions, what do you do, why are you here, our conversation took a tangent to food. 

She’d been back to Mumbai and returned with her suitcase packed with condiments to last her until the next time she could return and refill. I told her about Tooting, with its South Asian restaurants that will take you from the mountains of Pashtun to the southern beaches of Sri Lanka. Our grocery stores with walls of sambols, chutneys, curry pastes, and more. Worth a trip to ease the pangs of homesickness. Let’s face it, Pataks doesn’t quite hit the spot.

Everest Curry King provided the food. This is the Lewisham-based Sri Lankan restaurant made famous by restaurant critic Jay Rayner. There is always reverential murmuring about Everest, especially from those who knew Everest BJR (before Jay Rayner).

I loaded my plate with sticky devilled prawns, sprats (deep-fried anchovies), and a vadai (a deep-fried lentil fritter) or two (perhaps three). The food was, as expected, hot. Punchy for me. The vadais were laced with fresh green chillies, seeds included. All of this was too hot for my newly made friend, who threw back chai after every bite.

Our food has a reputation for being hot. Searingly hot. In my mother’s faded, worn cookbook the Ceylon Daily News’s, patched together with duct tape, is a God-fearing recipe that asks for thirty red chillies. I have yet to make it.

Not all of our curries are cooked to make you break out in a sweat. Though this can be handy in Sri Lanka, as that sweat will eventually cool you down.

This white chicken curry is made with coconut milk, which absorbs the flavour from the spices into its thick, creamy gravy. This is the sort of curry that will soothe, heal, and offer sanctuary for a hungry soul.