Spice up your meatballs with this Sri Lankan-inspired recipe from O Tama Carey

Sydney’s only hatted Sri Lankan restaurant, Lankan Filling Station, closed last month, having been awarded a hat in every edition of the Good Food Guide during its seven-year run.

Chef and owner O Tama Carey’s hoppers – the delicate curved pancakes made from coconut and fermented rice – quickly became her signature dish. But the menu offered so much more, from snacks to curries, all celebrating the complexity and spices of Sri Lankan cooking.

The spirit of the celebrated Darlinghurst venue lives on, however, with the release of Carey’s second cookbook, Lankan Filling. The collection includes more than 80 recipes that are connected to Sri Lanka yet still distinctly Australian, such as dhal and hot butter jaffles, spiced jaggery custard tart and Sri Lankan omelette.

“This is ... the evolution of my version of Sri Lankan food,” Carey writes in the book’s introduction.

“It celebrates the cuisine and weaves in elements from different parts of the world equally, embracing the glorious way of food that is so distinctly and irreverently done in Australia.”

Here, Carey shares her take on meatball curry. It can be eaten with rice, as part of a larger banquet, or served with pasta to make spaghetti and meatballs. Leftovers can be used to make a meatball sandwich or banh mi.

– Megan Johnston

Meatball curry

I have a Sri Lankan cookbook – no names here – which I love for its sheer ridiculousness, as it veers wildly from tips on how to beautify your table with rose petals to traditional Lankan recipes to glamour photo shoots involving ballgowns, beaches and pizza. It’s also where I first saw a reference to a meatball curry, so you will forgive me for thinking that this dish fell into the silly category, particularly because the dish was made using turkey meatballs.

However, I have since come upon many more such references, and although I find the idea of meatballs and Sri Lanka in the same sentence confusing, it is actually a thing. And really, why not? Versions of meatballs appear in so many cultures. Perhaps we can even posit that they appeared on the island via the Dutch and their frikadels, which are one of the traditional components of lamprais. That is entirely guesswork on my part, but it kind of makes sense.

Besides, I do love a meatball. I make this version using my staple Italian meatball-making method, and use a curry sauce instead of a tomatoey one. And so, here is my meatball curry, something I first snickered at but now love. It just goes to show, one mustn’t be too hasty to judge.

INGREDIENTS

Sauce

• 100g ghee
• 10g picked curry leaves
• 5g mustard seeds
• 350g brown onions, diced
• 35g finely chopped garlic
• 30g finely chopped ginger
• 2 long red chillies, cut into thin rounds
• 15g brown curry powder (see below)
• 3 cardamom pods, bruised
• 1 rampe (pandan) leaf, tied
• 330g canned chopped tomatoes
• 300ml coconut cream
• salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

Meatballs

• 20g garlic cloves
• 15g ginger
• 15g picked curry leaves
• 8g fresh turmeric
• 1 bunch coriander, roots and stems washed, leaves picked and roughly chopped, to garnish
• 500g coarsely minced fatty pork
• 500g finely minced beef
• 15g chilli flakes
• 10g ground Maldive fish flakes
• 5g roasted and ground fenugreek
• 5g cooking salt
• 5g ground black pepper
• olive oil, to drizzle

METHOD

1. To make the sauce, warm a large, wide-based saucepan over a medium heat and then add the ghee. Once warmed, add the curry leaves and mustard seeds, fry a little to temper and then add the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes, until the onions are softened. You don’t want to get any colour here. Season well.
2. Add the curry powder and continue cooking and stirring for 1 minute. The curry powder will start to stick to the base.
3. Add the cardamom, rampe (pandan), tomato and coconut along with 300ml water and bring to a simmer. Simmer the sauce gently for about 30 minutes, then set aside.
4. For the meatballs, place the garlic, ginger, curry leaves, turmeric, coriander roots and stems in a blender and blitz to form a paste. Set aside.
5. In a large mixing bowl, throw the pork and beef together and around, slapping and working the mixture until it starts to emulsify and becomes sticky. Add the paste and the remaining dry ingredients and continue mixing until you have a thoroughly homogenised, emulsified mix. This step can be done in a stand mixer.
6. Preheat the oven to 200C fan-forced (220C conventional).
7. Lightly oil a large baking tray and then use your hands to form meatballs weighing 40g each. As you roll them, place them directly onto the tray, leaving a nice amount of space between each one (you may need two trays). You should end up with about 30 meatballs.
8. Drizzle with a little oil.
9. Place the meatballs in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove them from the oven and gently place the meatballs in the saucepan with the sauce.
10. Simmer everything together over a low heat for 30 minutes.
11. Serve hot, garnished with the chopped coriander leaves.

Serves 4-6

Brown curry powder

This is our all-purpose friend, the mix that you can add to anything to make it really Sri Lankan. In traditional recipes, this one also gets referred to as a toasted, Ceylon or Sri Lankan curry powder. It has plenty of flavour on its own, but you can also build other spices on top to send it in any direction you desire.

INGREDIENTS

• 45g coriander seed
• 30g fennel seeds
• 30g white peppercorns
• 30g mustard seeds
• 20g cumin seeds
• 12g picked curry leaves
• 1g rampe (pandan) leaf, cut into 5mm pieces
• 15g cinnamon stick, roughly crushed
• 8g cardamom seeds
• 11g turmeric powder
• 11g chilli powder

METHOD

1. Place a wide shallow frying pan over a medium-high heat, add the coriander and fennel seeds and toast gently, tossing regularly for even cooking. After about 2 minutes the spices will start popping and releasing their aromas. Reduce the heat and keep toasting for another 4-5 minutes, until the spices start to darken and the aroma becomes stronger and sweeter. Tip them into a bowl.
2. Add the peppercorns, mustard and cumin seeds, curry leaves and pandan to the pan and toast over a medium-high heat for 2 minutes, or until they start to pop. Reduce the heat and toast for another 2-3 minutes until the pepper smell is pronounced, the mustard seeds are not only popping but grey in colour, the cumin darkens, and the fresh leaves are dry. Tip them into the bowl with the coriander and fennel seeds.
3. Next, toast the cinnamon and cardamom seeds over a medium-low heat for 4-5 minutes, then add to the bowl with the other spices and allow to cool completely.
4. Grind to a fine powder and then mix through the turmeric and chilli powder. Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 200g

This is an edited extract from Lankan Filling by O Tama Carey, Hardie Grant Books, RRP $55. Photography: © Patricia Niven 2025

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