Kulhi Boakibaa

Kulhi Boakibaa with a warm cup of black tea! That’s rather an unbeatable combination. Below is our version of our scrummy local fish cake. Feel free to swap the canned tuna for valhomas; or you can go for a mix of both. Also, we baked ours in an oven, but you can do that on the stovetop too. If you are using the stove, keep the heat on low and cook until the top of the mixture becomes dry. Then flip and cook until the bottom is golden brown.

Makes: 12-15 boakibaa pieces.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup rice
• 2 cups water (for soaking the rice)
• 2 medium onions
• 1 & 2/3 limes
• ½ githeyo mirus (or to taste)
• 3 cans tuna (you can substitute with valhomas)
• ½ cup grated coconut
• ½ tsp. turmeric powder
• 2/3 tsp. grated ginger
• 2/3 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 15 curry leaves
• Oil (a little bit for preparing the baking tray)

Instructions:

1. Wash and drain the rice well. Then place it in a bowl along with the water and let it soak. You’ll have to soak it for a couple of hours at the least. But if you can manage it, let it soak overnight.
2. Prepare a tray by rubbing a bit of oil on the bottom and the sides. The tray we used for our boakibaa was a 7 inch by 11 inch one.
3. Preheat your oven at 200 degrees Celsius.
4. Discard the soaking water, and then grind the soaked rice. But don’t grind it too much. It should fall between not too coarse and not too smooth.
5. Slice the onions very thinly. It would be easier for you in the mixing stage if you quarter them before slicing.
6. Slice the githeyo mirus thinly too, and also mince the curry leaves.
7. In a bowl, mix together the sliced onions and githeyo mirus along with the juice of the limes. You’ll have to use your fingers to really squash and squeeze it until the onion slices become soft and release their juices.
8. Then add the tuna, coconut, turmeric, ginger, salt, curry leaves and mix well again by using your fingers. Have a taste to make sure you like the balance of ingredients, and make adjustments if you need to.
9. Now add the ground rice along with a little bit of water because the mixture needs to be wet; not watery though. We added around 6 tablespoons. But depending on how long you soaked the rice and the dryness of your mixture, you can add some more too. Mix again until everything it really well combined. We did do a little taste test here as well, just to make sure.
10. Pour the mixture into the tray you prepared before. Spread it evenly. You can also wet your fingers a little and use them to smooth the top by gently tapping it.
11. Place the tray in your preheated oven and bake until the top gets that nice boakibaa brown; also, when you insert a toothpick in the middle, it should come off clean. For us this took around 45 minutes but do note that different ovens cook differently. We had ours on the middle rack the whole time, but depending on your oven, you might have to move it to the top rack to get the top done and half way through switch to the bottom one to get the bottom cooked properly.