Side Dishes
On the table with the main curry, there is always a pappadum (lentil crisp), some coconut sambal, and a lentil curry (dhal). This is not so different from any dhal you'd find at an Indian restaurant, though Sri Lankan dhal tends toward a thinner texture, and, again, the spices are amplified.
What else to serve with a curry? Some version of savory onion sambal (lunu miris) is common, with chopped shallots, lime juice, Maldive fish, and red pepper to provide a sharp, spicy bite with a touch of raw shallot crunch. Seeni sambal (sweet condiment), usually made with rich caramelized onions brings a softer, more mild spice, tamed by the sugary sweetness. There is no road map for how to eat the condiments served with Sri Lankan food, but since you're digging in with your fingers, scooping up a bit with your rice and curry is usually easiest, though sambal can also be spooned onto a roti or pappadum.
When it comes to vegetables, the British influence is evident, with curries featuring carrots, potatoes, eggplant, and pumpkin. More indigenous vegetables used in the similar preparations include the straw-like shaft of the drumstick plant (eaten by scraping out the insides with your teeth, as you would an artichoke leaf, it has a vegetal flavor vaguely reminiscent of asparagus), the tender heart of the jackfruit, and the pucker-inducing bitter gourd. Aside from being curried, any of these might instead show up deviled (heavily spiced and cooked with onions, peppers, and often tomatoes), or in a sambal-type condiment (fried, then mixed with shallot, green chili, Maldive fish, and lime juice). Leafy vegetables receive a different treatment in dishes called mallum: literally, to "mix up." Mallum is made from shredded leaves (kale, mustard greens, cabbage, or others) with scraped coconut, lime juice, onion, chili, and Maldive fish.
A side dish made with hibiscus and coconut.
Breakfast in Sri Lanka
Though most meals—whatever the hour—consist of rice and curry, hoppers are also a breakfast staple, taking over the starch portion of the meal. These bowl-shaped pancakes, cooked in a rounded pan (like a miniature wok), are best with an egg fried into the bottom. Made from fermented rice flour, they are used to pick up many of the same curries and accoutrements that rice would, especially the sweetened seeni sambals.
Sri Lankan breakfasts, such as the dosas and pittu above, are worth waking up for.
String hoppers are rice-flour noodles, thin as vermicelli, drizzled into a flat circle, steamed, and piled into a many-layered stack to form a sort of noodle pancake. A thin coconut curry gravy is often added to any curry tray with string hoppers.
String hoppers
Another popular breakfast, Kiribath, is "milk rice": rice prepared with coconut milk, flattened, and shaped into diamonds or squares. Kiribath is served with seeni sambal and curries, or sometimes simply jaggery (palm sugar) as a sweeter option. Pittu also makes an appearance in the morning. Made of roasted rice flour mixed with coconut, it's steamed inside bamboo until just solid enough that it barely holds together as you swipe it through a curry.
The non-rice-based starches that you'll see in Sri Lankan food tend to be the dishes that come from Indian neighbors: dosa (sometimes spelled thosai) and gambota roti (like a Southeast Asian roti, a flaky, layered pancake). There's also a uniquely Sri Lankan version of roti, made with coconut flour. It forms a thick disk, and can be found at breakfast and throughout the day as a "short eat" at roadside stands, where a generous dollop of chili sauce makes it a sustaining snack.
Roti with hot sauce from a roadside stand.
Sometimes served for breakfast, but also appearing as a snack or dessert, buffalo curd is another iconic local food. A thick, yogurt-like concoction made from the milk of the water buffalo, it's sold throughout Sri Lanka in disposable pottery. It's often drizzled with what's called treacle, but is actually the sap of the kithul palm. The cool, thick curd has the flavor of fresh cream laced with umami, and a texture almost as thick as ice cream—but at refrigerated temperature. The flavor of treacle, closer to a strong maple syrup than a light honey, is an excellent contrast to the cool, clear curd, with textural differences as well: sticky syrup on soft dairy.
Pots full of buffalo curd at the market.
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