Did someone say, Sri-Lankan cook along?!

By Dilani Perera

That’s right, you heard correctly! Following along from our first ever virtual cook along, Gecko Sri Lanka are back with our second cook along on Saturday 10th April 2021. This time we’re hoping to cook a Sri Lankan favourite with you, Kotthu Roti!

Kotthu Roti is one of the most popular dishes in Sri Lanka, usually eaten for dinner or as a cheeky midnight snack! It consists of a special type of Sri Lankan flat bread called godhamba roti, mixed with a selection of vegetables and a classic Sri Lankan curry. During the cook along, we’ll show you how to make a classic Sri Lankan chicken curry, the key ingredient for your Kotthu Roti. For those of you that are vegetarian, most of the ingredients used for the chicken curry are transferrable and can be used with a vegetarian alternative.

We hope to once again bring a taste of Sri Lanka to your very own kitchen.

How to prepare for the session

Below is a list of ingredients and equipment that you’ll need on the day:

Chicken Curry

Serves  4

Equipment

1 Large Saucepan 

Pestle and Mortar 

Chopping board ( for Chicken)

Ingredients

1kg                                 Chicken Thighs (Ideally on the bone and with skin)

3 Cloves                          Garlic (FInely chopped)

2 cm cube                      Ginger (FInely chopped) 

4 pods                            Cardamom

4                                      Cloves

1 Large                            Onion (chopped)

1                                      Tomato (chopped) 

2 large Tbs                       Vinegar

2 Tbs                                Curry Powder

1.5 Tbs                              Chilli Powder

0.5 Tsp                              Turmeric 

2 Tbs                                 Coconut Milk

1 Tbs                                 Lime juice

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Kotthu Roti

Serves 4

Equipment

1 Large Wok

1 Chopping board 

Grater

Ingredients

3 Cloves                     Garlic (finely chopped)

2cm cube                  Ginger (finely chopped)

3                                Carrots

1                                Leek

2                                Eggs

8                               Plain Tortilla Wraps

100g                        Cheddar cheese (grated)

4                               Spring Onions

Donations

Our event is free to attend, but donations of any size are greatly appreciated. Please visit our JustGiving page to donate. Any proceeds generated go towards our chosen charity. In previous years we’ve donated to a variety of different causes including, a school for children with special needs, production of solar lanterns and helping in the supply of prosthetic limbs. Our last donation was made to, Tea Leaf Trust an organisation delivering high quality educational programmes to young people and children from the tea estates in Sri Lanka. Please visit our Instagram page, @geckosrilanka, to read more about Tea Leaf Trust.

How to attend

The virtual event will take place on Saturday 10th April at 5pm. Please register by clicking here, after which you will be sent a Zoom link for the event.

We can’t wait to see you all!

Click here to sign up

The Gecko Team

Come cook with us!

Written by Nilmini Herath

Hello Gecko community,

I hope you are all keeping as well as you can during this challenging time. Like many others, some of us have been trying to refine our cooking skills during this period and we’re excited to share this with you. Over the coming months, we’ll be hosting some Sri Lankan inspired food-related events and posts bringing together the collective culinary wisdom of our community to enjoy from the safety and comfort of your home.

Please join us on 20th February 2021 for the first of these ventures: a virtual cookalong with Niki and Abi, who’ll be guiding us through how to make two fool-proof but delicious dishes, pol roti (coconut flatbread) and tandoori chicken, which can be modified to accommodate all kinds of dietary restrictions by using paneer, tofu or fish instead. 

Whether you’re familiar with South Asian food and looking to up your cooking game or you’re keen to try some flavours and techniques that would be brand new to you, we’ve got you covered. Our ‘chefs’ for the evening, the enthusiastic home-cooking husband-and-wife pair, Niki and Abi Arulanandam, will guide you through a couple of their family favourites step-by-step, sharing some stories behind the food, along with a few tried-and-tested tips and tricks. Think of it as a really entertaining cooking show where you also get to enjoy a great meal at the end.

About the food:

Pol roti is coconutty lightly spiced dense flatbread that’s great to eat with all kinds of curries. My family often eat it for breakfast in Sri Lanka but it’s great at any time of day! Tandoori chicken is a taste sensation, zingy, spicy and smoky all in one mouthful. The tandoori marinade we’ll be making together is vegetarian and can be applied to paneer, tofu or salmon if you don’t eat chicken.

South Asian cuisine often involves lots of dishes on the table with a variety of textures and colours. We’ll focus on the two dishes above during the cookalong, but if you have the time or inclination we recommend that you make your dhal/parripu or similar to add a different texture to the meal. 

How to attend:

The cookalong will begin at 5pm on Saturday 20 February, conducted through Zoom. Sign up here in advance to receive the link. We expect it to take roughly 2 hours.

There’s no fee to attend but if you feel like making a donation to support our work we would appreciate contributions of any size via our Just Giving page . We support a variety of charitable projects in Sri Lanka. For examples of previous projects, see our blog posts about donations to a school for children with special needs and a social enterprise giving rural households safer and more sustainable energy access.

How to prepare for the session:

It works best if you have the ingredients measured out in advance and laid out on your kitchen counter in advance of the cookalong, along with any necessary equipment.

For the pol roti 

Equipment:

A mixing bowl, frying pan and spatula

The quantities below will make around 4 pol rotis, enough for two people.

Ingredients:

300g self-raising flour

50g desiccated coconut (often found in the baking section of good supermarkets)

1/4 medium onion finely chopped

1 green chilli finely chopped

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp oil

125-175 mls water/coconut milk  

For the tandoori chicken (or alternative)

Equipment:

Chopping board, knives, mixing bowl, a blender/food processor (or pestle and mortar), a grill rack (ideally) or a baking tray, a griddle or regular frying pan and tongs 

The quantities below will make enough chicken for two people.

Ingredients:

500g chicken, ideally skinless and boneless (or alternative substitute of your choice)

Tandoori masala powder

3-4 tbs yoghurt or buttermilk

4 garlic cloves roughly chopped

2 tbsp ginger roughly chopped

½ large onion or 2 shallots roughly chopped

3 green chillies roughly chopped

1 unwaxed lemon

Small bunch fresh mint 

Small bunch fresh coriander

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp each turmeric, cumin, coriander seeds, chilli powder, mustard seeds

Salt, pepper, sugar to taste

Coriander leaves optional to serve

Salivating already? Click here to sign up!

We hope to see many of you there!

Nilmini

A Warm Welcome & The Gecko Pub Quiz 2019!

Written by Denesh Srikantharajah

Let me first introduce myself – my name’s Denesh, and I’m the new Gecko Sri Lanka President for the next two years. It’s a fantastic honour being in this privileged position of responsibility, and I must thank Yasath Samarage, who has led the charity in distinguished fashion over the last two years.

Alongside me, we have Ashan Herath as our Vice President, Dilani Perera as our Secretary and Yasath is returning as our Treasurer. Together, along with the rest of the committee, we promise we’ll deliver fantastic events and raise money for many more worthwhile causes – and we hope you’ll help us continue the work that Gecko Sri Lanka prides itself on.

And with that mind, may I introduce our first major event of the year – The Gecko Pub Quiz 2019!

 

For those of you who have been before, you will know that this is no ordinary pub quiz, but one filled with such variety and fun, and likely to have questions that suit all sorts, both brain boxes and first time pub quizzers alike!

This year, we have revamped the quiz and moved to a more central location, thus committing to refreshing our ideas and making this year’s quiz bigger and better than ever before, whilst making it easily accessible to all!

On Saturday 30th March 2019, we’ll get things going from 5.30pm onwards at The Drafthouse Chancery, located on Plough Place, just a short walk from Chancery Lane tube station. The quiz will begin at 6pm, so there’ll be plenty of time to get the drinks in before we get going and to place your food orders for dinner, choosing from a range of mouth-watering dishes served at this exciting new venue.

The entry fee is £10 – but the entirety of this fee goes towards the charitable projects that we’ll be donating to this year, thus for an evening of fun, food, drinks and competitive banter, you’ll be doing your bit for charity. We’ll be confirming our chosen projects later in the year at our flagship event, Gecko Sixes – so stay tuned for that!

The teams will consist of a maximum of 7 people, but you don’t necessarily need to come with a team. We accept teams of 2+ and even if you come by yourself, you’ll easily find a welcoming team to join! There will be 6 main rounds, with added bonus rounds for extra fun, and the prize at the end of this will be a fantastic hamper of delights for the winning team! And if that’s not enough, then the fact that yours truly will be your amazing quizmaster leading you through the quiz should have you rushing through the doors! I jest of course … But if you’d like more of a flavour of what this quiz is like and the type of questions we’ve had previously, then please have read of last year’s review blog: Gecko Pub Quiz 2018: “And the winner is…”

The other important yet understated plus point of the quiz (and all of our events) is the people who will be there – whether they’re old familiar faces or first timers keen to meet new people, this quiz caters for all. You’ll be sure to meet other like-minded individuals and this quiz offers an amazing night where you can make new friends, get involved with the charity or simply just have a fantastic night with your friends. We’ll have the venue open until 11pm, so please stay on following the quiz and it’ll be a wonderful opportunity to have some drinks and socialise, and we’ll likely head out afterwards to continue the party!

For those of you who know Gecko, this charity is extremely welcoming and is always open to new ideas and new faces. I myself joined in 2010 and what I found was a group of determined but down to earth young professionals who did their bit for charity but were also the most genuinely wonderful people I had had the pleasure of meeting, with whom I have now formed friendships for life.

Hopefully over the next two years we’ll have plenty of you joining us at our events, and just maybe you’ll also form those amazing relationships, just as I did.

But for now, we look forward to seeing you at the Pub Quiz, and please invite everyone you know! Either forward this blog or the poster below and the more the merrier! We look forward to seeing you there on Saturday 30th March 2019 on what promises to be a fantastic night.

We’ll see you there!

iEnergy Solar Lantern Project

Thanks to all of your support, Gecko has been able to donate £1,500 towards iEnergy’s Solar Lantern Project currently in operation in the North Eastern region of Sri Lanka. The funds were raised from The Gecko Pub Quiz in January and The Gecko Sixes cricket tournament in August. Our thanks also go to law firm Slaughter and May for supporting this donation. Below, iEnergy’s John Remigus writes on the ongoing amazing work of iEnergy which Gecko is proud to contribute towards. For further information, please visit iEnergy here.

Access to electricity is something that we take for granted in the developed world. All it takes is a flick of the switch to turn on our lights or power our appliances. However, globally, almost 1.3 billion people live without access to electricity. In Sri Lanka despite recent improvements in electrification rates tens of thousands of impoverished and marginalised rural families still live in relative darkness. This is particularly the case in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, where electrification rates lag behind the national average.

In the absence of electricity these families rely on traditional kerosene lamps for light. These lamps are expensive to run and on average families spend 15-20% of their household income on kerosene. Kerosene lamps are also extremely dangerous with 40% of all burn cases in Sri Lanka being attributed to them and their toxic black fumes contributing to serious respiratory diseases. As a result, day to day tasks such as cooking and studying become almost unbearable under the smoky, dim light of a kerosene lamp.

iEnergy was set up as a social enterprise in 2015 with the aim of replacing dangerous, expensive kerosene lamps with clean, safe solar lanterns. We work through a number of established local charity partners (i.e. Smile Foundation, Serendip Childrens Home and KGM Foundation), leveraging their local insight and extensive networks to ensure that we find the most deserving beneficiaries and that our solar lanterns reach and benefit them.

Solar lanterns provide a safe, affordable alternative to kerosene lamps. During the daylight hours they can be left out to charge in the sun. Once fully charged these solar lanterns can provide clean, bright light for up to 8 hours for these families whether that be for cooking, studying or socialising.

 

 

 

 

 

Most recently, in June 2018, iEnergy travelled back to Sri Lanka to donate over 100 solar lanterns to families that lived without access to electricity in a number of villages in the Eastern Province including Unnichai, Nelloor, Mankerni, Vakarai and Chettikulam. Whilst it was fantastic to see these families benefiting from our solar lanterns, they were just the lucky ones. In the interior parts of the Eastern Province there are still many more that are living in relative darkness and caught in a vicious cycle of poverty. Thanks to the support and generous donations of Gecko Sri Lanka we look forward to brightening up the lives of another 150 families and giving them a clean, safe alternative to dangerous kerosene lamps. Watch this space for further updates and photos of all the beneficiaries!

The Gecko Sixes 2018 – Match Report

In the midst of a glorious summer heatwave, The Gecko Sixes returned to the Victoria Recreation Ground in its eleventh edition on Saturday 4^th August.  Our annual cricket tournament is a fun filled day of six-a-side cricket for all ages, sexes and abilities. Five over games played with a windball and small boundaries, with double runs awarded for female players, once again made for a thoroughly enjoyable day for all involved.

Ten teams contested for the title this year and were divided into two groups of five, with eight advancing to the quarter finals. In the quarter finals, Team Ham defeated Team Ash, Team Arun saw off Team Jamie, Team Lux got the better of Team Niki, and Team Deno beat Team Madu.

The first semi-final exhibited a rematch of the group stage fixture of Deno’s Daredevils and Ham’s Hammerheads. Batting first, the Daredevils could only muster 36 runs. A spirited bowling and fielding display, led by captain Deno himself with 3 clean bowled wickets in an over, almost pulled off a spectacular victory, but the Hammerheads prevailed by one wicket. The second semi featured two potent bowling sides in Lux’s Lions and Arun’s Anacondas. A strong fielding and bowling display defending a tough score saw the Lions into the final.

Not for the first time, the final was a tense encounter boiling down to the end of the final over. Batting first, Ham’s Hammerheads posted an imposing 112 for 0, led by Jonny Morris- a score enough to win most games. However Lux’s Lions kept up with the testing required run rate, powered by Youhan’s mighty hitting. With 8 runs required off the final over, The Lions finished in style with Youhan launching the penultimate ball down the ground for six to hit the winning runs and take the Gecko Sixes 2018 title.  The team were presented with their deserved winners medals and a celebratory bottle of fizz.

As always, a delicious assortment of Sri Lankan and Western food, drink and cake was on sale for enjoyment by all. Our thanks to all those who helped cook and bake for this successful day.

The event has raised a total of £775. In addition to the funds raised from The Gecko Pub Quiz in January, these will be donated to Infinite Energy’s Solar Lantern Project currently operating in the North of Sri Lanka. Infinite Energy work to provide solar energy to underprivileged and vulnerable people in this region of the country, and to reduce the use of kerosene lamps and their associated hazards. For more information on their work, see their website here.

A huge thank you once again to all players and spectators for attending and making the day another huge success. We hope to see you again next year when World Cup fever hits the UK.

The Gecko Sixes 2018 – Charity Cricket Tournament

Given the football and the weather, the British summer so far has been both atypical and exhilarating. With World Cup heartache now behind us (what a tournament!), we know what you’re thinking: how best to channel this sporty competitive energy, and make best use of the balmy sunshine while we’ve still got it? Our answer comes in the form of our annual charity cricket tournament, The Gecko Sixes, 2018 edition.

For those of you that haven’t been before, the day is a mini-cricket tournament which has something for everyone, from absolute beginners to seasoned cricketing pros, and ages eight to eighty. It’s 6 a-side and 5 overs per innings, so each game is both short and sweet. And like last year, we’ll be dishing out double runs for girls, so it would be wise to keep your teams mixed! Or just turn up and we can work out teams when you arrive!

It’s £10 to play and £5 to spectate, with all proceeds going to charity. As usual, there will be a heady selection of food and refreshments for sale, including all of your Sri Lankan favourites.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2043327799030643/ 

So what are you waiting for? Hit attend on that Facebook group and bring yourselves down to the Victoria Recreation Ground in Surbiton, London on Saturday 4th August for another day of charitable cricketing chaos. For now, we’ll leave you with our highlights reel from last year:

 

 

The Thambiluvil Orphanage

Gecko has supported a number of worthwhile projects, ranging from our most recent contribution to Chitra Lane, contributions toward humanitarian efforts following natural disasters, and supporting training of mental health nurses in Sri Lanka.

 

The Thambiluvil Home for Girls is an orphanage which was set up by a subgroup of the Medical Institute of Tamils (MIOT) in 2004 after the devastating tsunami. Over the past few years, the home has been further improved thanks to generous support from family, friends and Gecko. Currently, there are 17 girls aged 9-15, a matron and a cook, living in the home. We enjoy receiving updates from previous girls and their successes, with two being employed at the local school, and another successfully completing University. Gecko first supported this project in 2012, funding invaluable resources including computers and textbooks.

The Home is not only beneficial for the residents, but also for the other local children of Thambiluvil. The main aim is to provide food, shelter and education to these children, and help them regain confidence and independence to enable long term financial security, which the founding organisation also helps with. The MIOT is now preparing to set up another orphanage in Kaithady, Jaffna.

MIOT supports a number of other healthcare projects too, if you’re interested to find out more please visit http://www.miot.org.uk.

 

Gecko Sri Lanka always strives to support projects in Sri Lanka similar to this. Our event of the summer, The Gecko Sixes, is just around the corner! Be sure to check here and our Facebook page for more details, and the project we’ll be supporting this year!

Chitra Lane

Thank you to everyone who came to support us at the Gecko Pub Quiz last month; we hope you all had an amazing time. We would like to tell you about our beneficiary project from last year’s funds. We raised a total of £1966.36 through our annual pub quiz and our flagship Gecko Sixes cricket tournament, thanks to your generous donations and a supplementary £500 from law firm Slaughter and May. We have donated this to Chitra Lane, a school for children with special needs in Colombo.

Chitra Lane first opened in Sri Lanka in the 1960s and through the years has expanded and developed a Children’s Resource Centre and Sheltered Workshop. The Resource Centre provides a wide range of facilities including physiotherapy and speech and language development.  They host a variety of activities for the children, such as sports days and creative exhibitions.

 

 

 

 

 

The donation from Gecko Sri Lanka went towards supporting the Chitra Lane Sheltered Workshop. The Sheltered Workshop provides an environment for the children, adolescents and young adults to develop a vocational skill, empowering them to help promote their independence and support their families. It also provides a place for families to work closely with their children. The vocational training units include sewing, cookery and recycling units.

For more information about Chitra Lane, please visit their website here.

We’d like to thank everyone who supported us last year and made this donation possible. We hope to see you again soon!

The Gecko Committee

 

Gecko Pub Quiz 2018: “And the winner is…”

It was a rainy Saturday in the gloomy month of January, but all was not lost.

Quizmaster extraordinaire Denesh was back hosting the Annual Gecko Pub Quiz, bringing joy to the faces of millions. Well, not quite millions. But with an excellent turn out this year’s pub quiz proved to be our most popular yet, with 15 teams competing to win the coveted prize hamper. The combination of brain-tickling questions, pints and tasty pub grub brightened up even the most dismal of days.

Our tried and tested format of 6 categories, 12 dingbats and 4 bonus rounds did not fail to disappoint; but in case you couldn’t make it here’s a sample of the questions you missed…

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Science & Technology

The first UK storm of 2017 was Storm Aileen, the last was Storm Caroline? Can you think of suitable name for the first of 2018?

TV & Film

Order the following 2017 UK TV shows by peak viewing figures (1/2 mark per answer):

Blue Planet, Great British Bake Off, Strictly Come Dancing, The X Factor

History & Culture 

Name the authors of these classic novels? (1/2 mark if correct, 2 if all 3 correct)

Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Little Women

Geography

British photographer Oliver Curtis has been taking photos with his back to famous landmarks. Can you name where this is taken?

Sports

Can you name these three sportsmen, who all play sports that use balls?

Music

Which country won the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest?

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Serial attendees may remember that last year we had an unprecedented event with two teams being tied on their final score, and an inaugural tie-break round was introduced. Unbelievably, this year, a record THREE teams tied on 68.5 points leading to another nail-biting tie-break round with “Team Toad”, “Sticky Pickled Sausages” and “Communist Sheep Lady” competing for glory!

Tie-break Question: Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” was the most streamed song on Spotify in 2017. Name the next most streamed song.

Its fair to say the crowd were on tenterhooks. Amazingly (but perhaps not unsurprisingly, given the Beliebers present), all 3 teams got this correct, answering “Despacito” and calling for yet another tie-break question!

This time, in response to the next highest streamed song on Spotify, “Sticky pickled sausages” lost out to the other two teams, who correctly named “Sorry” by Justin Bieber over Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking out Loud”.

Only two teams left now, with “Team Toad” and “Communist Sheep Lady” vying to answer the third tie-break question correctly and put everybody out of their misery. Team Toad managed to guess the height of The Shard to within 5metres of its actual height of 306m, whilst Communist Sheep Lady, after putting up a valiant fight, weren’t quite as accurate here with a guess of 845m!

Congratulations to Team Toad who finally emerged victorious, sharing the glory as well as a hamper of goodies between them.

As always, thanks to the Railway Tavern for providing us with a venue and to everybody who joined us on the night. You all helped us raise an incredible £900 for charity – stay tuned to hear about the projects we support. Thanks again; we can’t wait to see you at the Gecko Sixes this summer!

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Answers below:

Science & Tech

Names always reset each year, and the gender changes i.e. 2016 started with Angus, 2017 started with Aileen. Therefore any male name beginning with A (like Andrew or Albert!) would score you a point!

TV & Film

1. Blue Planet
2. Strictly Come Dancing
3. GBBO
4. The X Factor

History & Culture

Moby Dick – Herman Melville , The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald, Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

Geography

The Wailing Wall,Jerusalem

Sports

John Stones, Jordan Speith, Joe Root

Music

Portugal

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Gecko Pub Quiz 2018: The Perfect Evening

Written by Denesh Srikantharajah

It’s mid January and those blues are hanging around far longer than I had planned for: that solitary gym session on 2^nd January was swiftly followed by a run of (albeit delicious) Nandos fina pittas, those guitar lessons I thought about signing up for remain just a thought, and to top it all off the weather is pretty dire at the moment … but thank goodness there’s something exciting just around the corner – The Gecko Pub Quiz 2018!

That’s right, it’s that time of year where I start practicing my Dermot O’Leary quips in front of the mirror and use my shampoo bottle as a microphone in order to adequately prepare as the quizmaster for the greatest pub quiz around! And I urge all of you to come on down to The Railway Tavern this Saturday 20^th January 2018 for what promises to be an exemplary night.

That should be enough to peak your interest, but for those who still need convincing, let me draw you a little picture …

The sun has set and it’s time to head on out. You call your mates and bring them along too, or even just head out by yourself to mingle with quite frankly an awesome group of people. You’re greeted by some friendly faces who take your name, and then you happily pay £10 for entry, knowing that it’s going to go towards a fantastic cause as part of this charitable fundraising event.

You take your seat and starting chatting to your fellow quiz-loving peers. You fancy a drink, so head to the bar to grab a refreshing beer, or maybe a tangy J20. You notice the mouthwatering dishes on the menu, and decide to give your taste buds a treat by ordering that burger you’ve been craving all week (the diet’s already fallen by the wayside, why keep pretending?!).

You join a team, be it with your friends or some new friends you’ve just made, and come up with a whimsical team name. Then, in the words of Joey Tribbiani, “a handsome man walks in” – and from then on in I’ll take you through a series of rounds full of fascinating quiz questions that will make you think and that have been carefully designed by the Gecko committee to create maximum enjoyment. With bonus rounds for added spice and even a “free drink” round, this quiz quite literally has everything. You’re sitting there thinking: “I never want this to end!”

But then it does end – and the winning team (which you’re clearly part of) holds aloft a wonderful prize that money can’t buy! But the enjoyment does not need to end there – people seem to be heading out, so why not join them and keep this party going! Can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday night: donating to charity, having some competitive banter and having a night out while we’re at it!

Now that picture seems pretty rosy to me – and that’s a night none of you should miss! So please, join us this Saturday for what promises to be a wonderful evening. We can’t wait to see you there! For further information, click on the link below!

Gecko Pub Quiz 2018