Any travelling experience for us tends to involve food and when we landed in Unawatuna in December 2018 we were delighted to find that one of the restaurants we visited did cooking classes. This restaurant was an extension of the families home and the whole family were involved in cooking, serving and generally making sure that diners had a lovely time. The menu was limited but delicious so we signed up for a class the following day.
The wonderful spices
Where Was The Class
The restaurant was Wasantha's Cuisine & Cookery and it is located on Yaddehimula Road, Unawatuna and is only a short walk away from the beach. You can reach them by WhatsApp
+94 77 288 6761 and that seems to be their preferred way of contacting them. Wasantha's daughters speak really good English and they really are a lovely family. So welcoming. We had a few meals there during our stay as well as the cooking class.
What Is The Class Itinerary
- Trip to the market to buy produce
- Cooking class with Wasantha and her daughter
- Eating the gorgeous food we cooked
The Market
The first part of the cooking class was a trip to the market. Traditional Sri Lankan curries are served with 3 or 4 different curries and rice so we had to choose our ingredients. A Tuk Tuk was sent to pick us up from our hotel and took us to the market in Galle.
What a market, rows and rows of wonderful produce, all fresh and some I didn't recognise at all. We got to choose our vegetables and then we choose some chicken and had a good look round the market.
Back in the Tuk Tuk we headed for the restaurant
The Market Scales
Wonderful produce
The Class
Wasantha explained carefully how she made her spices and that each family had their own variation on their spice mix. She then proceeded to show us how to cut up the vegetables and meat for the curries.
She took each step really slowly and explained things through her daughter carefully.
She had an amazing machine that scraped out the insides of the coconuts to make the coconut milk and that was Chris's job to get all the gorgeous white flakey coconut out from its shell.
She showed us how to make the coconut milk that she'd then use for the rice and before long we had an array of curries all ready to eat.
The Coconut Machine
Our wonderful teacher
Chris paying attention
The Food
The food was delicious. The curries varied in spice and temperature and all were delicious. The coconut rice was superb and Chris asked her for the recipes which she had in a little notebook, all handwritten. We took pictures on our phone as I was really keen to make the rice again.
The whole experience was lovely. An afternoon spent with this caring family who welcomed us into their home and shared their cooking with us. I particularly loved the pans that Wasantha used as they looked like they'd been used for generations.
Mmmm this tasted so good
Our finished curries
I would definitely recommend this cooking class if you're in the Unawatuna area of Sri Lanka.
It didn't cost that much at all around £15 for both Chris and I which was a complete bargain.
And we're done, time to eat!
