‘Rasa Athi Guna Sapiri Avurudu Kevili’: Healthy take on Avurudu Kevili by Chef Publis

Friday, 22 April 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Celebrating 210 years of history and colonial heritage, Mount Lavinia Hotel has been a forerunner in Sri Lankan cuisine and continues to promote our own culinary heritage. Prior to the recently celebrated Sinhala and Tamil New Year, a workshop for chefs was held at Mount Lavinia Hotel, bringing to limelight the use of natural ingredients and healthy preparations of ‘Avurudu Kevili’. The workshop was conducted by none other than Mount Lavinia Hotel’s own Master Chef Publis Silva and endorsed by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board.

Taking into consideration the increasing trend towards being healthy and the focus on organic food, Chef Publis demonstrated three items; ‘Naran Kevum’, ‘Finger Helapa’ and the innovative ‘Pera (Guava) Kevum’. He introduced methods of transforming the much loved sweet-meats into ones that are health-friendly while sustaining its taste, thus departing from the common assumption of Avurudhu Kevili being sweet, oily and generally unhealthy.

For instance, one of the items showcased at the workshop, the ‘Pera Kevum’, is made with semolina and sesame, and uses dried and powdered guava for flavouring and the skin of watermelon to obtain the colour green.

“Today, most of the food we consume are unhealthy because we use artificial additives to make them taste better. We should understand that food should not be only about taste. We in Sri Lanka are blessed with an abundance of natural vegetation and fruit which we can use as ingredients for our creations,” commented Chef Publis. He further added that this workshop was mainly conducted to raise awareness among young chefs about the numerous ways and methods available to them to prepare delicious and healthy dishes for the festive season.

The event attracted over 30 chefs from hotels across the island, who enthusiastically raised questions on the ‘correct’ way of making kevili. They also brought forward concerns regarding traditional methods of cooking, health aspects, innovation in culinary and many others issues. It was announced that this was only the first step to a series of similar workshops, as part of Mount Lavinia Hotel’s CSR efforts to promote Sri Lankan cuisine focusing on the use of natural ingredients and healthier cooking methods.