Here comes another savoury and spicy snack from Sri Lanka commonly known as patties. Fish versions tend to be the most popular, but they can be made with chicken or vegetables. You can find these anywhere in Sri Lanka, tea-time snacks, road trip snacks, street sellers or parties! I made these with my mum on a recent trip to England. We used canned pink salmon, but it would work well with canned mackeral, tuna or fresh fish.
More information
It's easier to use tinned fish, such as salmon, mackeral or tuna, but you can cook fresh fish as well.
For added flavour, if you have fresh spices, you can grind them in a pestle and mortar. This gives you a much richer blended flavour of spices in your patties. Remove the cardamom pods by smashing/cutting them open and only grind the seeds)
If you don't grind spices such as cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, remove these from the mixture along with the curry leaves and green chillies before adding to the patties.
When the dough is almost at the correct consistency and you need more water, its better to dip fingers into cold water rather than add more drops of water.
The approximate size of pastry circles was 8 cm
Patties tend to go well with a chillie sauce.
Ingredients
Pastry
250g flour
60-70g salted butter - cold
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg yolk
5-6 tbsp cold water (ideally ice cold)
filling
400g approx. tinned salmon (but you can use other fillings)
400g approx. potatoes
1 large onion/ 2 small onions
1-2 green chillies
sunflower oil
1/4 tsp chillie powder - (or more if you prefer it hotter)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tbps curry powder
a few curry leaves (optional)
1/4 tsp ginger
a few cloves of garlic (or 1/2 tsp of ginger garlic paste)
cinammon stick
2-3 cardamom pods
2 cloves (optional)
black pepper
sprinkling of lemon juice or lime
Filling
1. Boil the potatoes for 25-30 minutes, once soft, drain, and peel.
2. Mash the potaoes using a wooden spoon or masher.
3. Slice the onion very thinly, and mince the garlic and ginger.
4. We can add the cinnamon, cardamom and cloves as full peices for flavouring whilst cooking (but remove from the filling mixture before adding to patties). But for added flavour you can grind the cinnamon, cloves and cardamom in a pestle and mortar so that the flavours remain more intact. I haven't grinded any spices this time.
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5. Heat oil in a frying pan, add the onions, and sauté, adding the garlic, ginger, green chillies, curry leaves (optional) and mix.
6 Add the cinnamon stick, cardamom, cloves (either in grounded form or in fully peices) and mix well.
7. Add the chillie, turmeric and curry powders and mix well.
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8. Once the onions are golden, add the salmon (drain out oil/liquid from can) and mix, ensuring that the salmon is broken into smaller peices , adding a little bit of salt. (remember the canned fish may already contain salt).
9. Add the mashed potatoes, and black pepper and mix well. Check seasoning levels as required. The heat can be turned off once the potatoes are added in.
10. Sprinkle some lemon or lime juice on top, set aside and allow it to cool.
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Pastry
1. Seperate the egg white and yolk, we are going to use only the yolk.
2. Sieve the flour into a large bowl and add 1/4 tsp salted butter. Ideally, grate the butter into the bowl using a grater to prevent it from melting too fast. Mix the ingredients by rubbing in the butter well with fingers.
3. Beat the egg yolk. Then combine the egg yolk into the mixture little by little, and mix with fingers, forming a crumbly texture.
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4. Start adding the cold water a tablespoon at a time into the mixture, and start kneading well with fingers, until you get a nice firm dough.
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5. Next, place the dough on a lightly flour dusted surface and roll it out with a rolling pin, then fold the dough and roll again, repeating the folding and rolling process for about a minute maximum.
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6. Make a square or rectangular shape, cover the dough in cling film and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7. After 30 minutes, remove the dough from the fridge.
8.Using the rolling pin and a lightly flour dusted surface, roll out the dough until it is completely stretched out, and try to keep the thickness even, It shouldn't be thick, but fairly thin but not so thin that it breaks. (I thought I took a photo of this but it's not in my album!).
9. Cut out dough circles by using a knife and marker such as a cup or small plate. (or use a pastry cutter if you have one!). You can then roll out these circles to make them a bit bigger if you can.
10. Make a ball with the remaining peices of unused dough, roll it out again and use these to make more circles.
11. Place some filling in the centre without over-filling ( if you add too much it can be hard to close). If you used solid pieces of cinnamon, cloves and cardamom, now would be the time to remove these from the filling. We can also remove any pieces of green chillies. Apply some water with fingers around the edge of one side of the pastry circle , then fold over the other side to seal both sides together by pressing into the dough using fingers , forming a half moon shape. Press well with fingers to seal. Use a fork (lighted dusted in flour) to press along the edge of the half circle as shown in below photos. Repeat the fork marks on the other side of the patties as well. If needed, using a knife, press around the edges to shape the patties nicely.
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12. Heat an abundant amount of oil in a saucepan until hot, then reduce to medium.
13.Add the patties in batches (do not overcrowd the saucepan) and deep- fry them for a few minutes (5 min approx.) at a time until golden. Use a tablespoon to carefully turn them over half way through.
14. Remove the patties from the frying pan and drain out excess oil using paper towels.
Optional - baked version!
I decided to try a healthier version and bake half of them 😃. Beat an egg and lightly coat the pastries with the egg, and bake at 230 °C/446 F for around 30 mintues until nice and golden. But of course the deep-fried version does tend to give a much flakier and crispier crust.
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| baked! |
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| fried on the right |
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