Sri Lankan · Dessert
Wattalappam
- Intermediate
- 20 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, richness that coats and comforts, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 250 g kithul jaggery, chopped
- 400 ml thick coconut milk
- 60 ml water
- 30 g cashew nuts, halved
- 5 eggs
- 0.5 tsp ground cardamom
- 0.25 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- an eighth tsp ground cloves
- 0.25 tsp salt
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
Steaming: basket, leaf and lidStraining & passing through a sieveChilling to firm: the fridge as binderThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: egg · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Melt the jaggery with the water over low heat until it is a smooth dark syrup with no grains left on the spoon, then take it off and let it cool to blood heat.
- Whisk the eggs with the salt and spices just until no strings of white remain; do not aerate them.
- Stir the coconut milk into the cooled jaggery, pour that onto the eggs in a thin stream while whisking, then strain into a heatproof dish.
- Cover tightly with foil and steam over water that is barely shivering until the edge is set and the centre wobbles as one piece when nudged.
- Scatter over the cashews, cool, then chill until firm enough to slice.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes
- It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
- It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
- It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
- The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
- It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.
Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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