Sri Lankan cuisine

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Sri Lankan cuisine has been influenced by many historical, cultural, and other factors. For example, the effects of the British colonialists who once ruled Sri Lanka and brought their own cuisines with them; foreign traders who brought new food items; and the cuisine of Southern India have all helped to shape Sri Lankan cuisine. Today, some of the staples of Sri Lankan cuisine are rice, coconut, and spices. The latter are used due to Sri Lanka's history as a spice producer and trading post over several centuries.

Dishes

A Sri Lankan rice and curry dish.
Typical Sri-Lankan dish of rice and prawns.

The central feature of Sri Lankan cuisine is boiled or steamed rice, served with a curry of fish, chicken, beef, mutton, or goat, along with other curries made with vegetables, lentils, or fruits.

Dishes are accompanied by pickled fruits or vegetables, chutneys, and sambols. Especially common is coconut sambol, a paste of ground coconut mixed with chili peppers, dried Maldive fish, and lime juice.

Pol Sambola

Kottu

Kottu is a spicy Sri Lankan stir-fry of shredded roti bread with vegetables. Optional ingredients include eggs, meat, or cheese.

Hoppers

Hoppers

Hoppers (appa) are a range of dishes based on a fermented batter, usually made of rice flour and coconut milk with spices. The dish is pan-fried or steamed. The fermenting agent is palm toddy or yeast. Hopper variants can be either savory (such as egg hoppers, milk hoppers, and string hoppers), or sweet (such as vandu appa and pani appa).[1] Savory hoppers are often accompanied by lunu miris, a mix of red onions and spices.

String Hoppers

String hoppers (idiyappa) are made from a hot-water dough of rice meal or wheat flour. The dough is pressed out in circlets from a string mold onto small wicker mats, and then steamed.

Lamprais

A Dutch Burgher-influenced dish, lamprais is rice boiled in stock accompanied by frikkadels (frikadeller meatballs), a mixed meat curry, blachan, aubergine curry, and seeni sambol. All of this is then wrapped in a banana leaf and baked in an oven.

Kool

Kool is a seafood broth from Jaffna containing crab, fish, cuttlefish, prawns, and crayfish. It also contains long beans, jak seeds, manioc, spinach, and tamarind. The dish is thickened with palmyra root flour.

Pittu

Pittu[2] are cylinders of steamed rice mixed with grated coconut.[3]

Roti

Gothamba ma roti is a simple Sri Lankan flatbread usually made from wheat flour.

Variants of roti include thengappu roti (Pol in Sinhalese), in which shredded coconut is mixed into the dough. Another variant is Uraippu roti (spicy roti), in which chopped onions and green chilies are used when making the dough.

Sweets

A common dessert in Sri Lanka is kevum, an oil cake made with rice flour and treacle and deep-fried to a golden brown. There are many variations of kevum. Moong Kevum is a variant where mung bean flour is made into a paste and shaped like diamonds before frying. Other types of kevum include athiraha, konda kevum, athirasa, and handi kevum.

Many sweets are served with kiribath milk rice during the Sinhala and Tamil New Years . Other sweets include:

Cakes & Pastries:

  • Aluwa - Diamond-shaped rice-flour pastries
  • Bibikkan - A rich, cake-like sweet made from grated coconut, coconut treacle, and wheat flour. It is a speciality of coastal areas.
  • Kokis - A savoury crispy biscuit-like dish made from rice flour and coconut milk.
  • Pushnambu - A rich, cake-like sweet made from coconut treacle and wheat flour. Cinnamon/cardamom and sweet cumin is often added among the Christian population of Sri Lanka.

Treacle-Flavored Sweets:

  • Undu Walalu/Undu wal or Pani walalu - A sweet from the Mathale area, prepared using urad bean flour and kithul treacle.
  • Aggala - Rice balls flavored with treacle
  • Weli Thalapa - Made from rice flour and coconut treacle.
  • Aasmi - Made with rice flour and the juice of a leaf called dawul kurundu (okra juice can be used as a substitute), deep fried and topped with pink-coloured treacle.

Puddings & Toffees:

  • Kalu Dodol - A solid toffee-, jelly-like confection made by lengthy reduction of coconut milk, thickened with rice flour and sweetened with jaggery.
  • Watalappam - A steamed pudding made with coconut milk, eggs, and jaggery. First introduced by the Malay immigrants, watalappam has become a staple of Sri Lankan desserts.

Other Sweets:

  • Thala Guli - Made from ground sesame and jaggery with finely grated coconut.
  • Kiri Toffee - Made with sweetened condensed milk or sugar-thickened pure cow's milk. Cardamom/sweet cumin and cashews are added for more taste.
  • Sri Lankan sweets
  • Konda Kavum 01.JPG

    Konda Kevum

  • Kokis.JPG

    Kokis

  • Kalu Dodol

  • Sri Lankan Swiss roll

Short eats

"Short eats" are a variety of snacks that are bought by the dozen from "short eat" shops and restaurants. These are eaten on the go, mainly for breakfast or during the evening. Short eats include pastries, Chinese rolls and patties. A popular short eat among Tamils is the Mutton Roll, made from tender pieces of mutton with potato and seasoned with spices. This can be a very spicy dish. Mutton rolls are served all over the world wherever there are Sri Lankan Tamils. Other short eats include:

  • Vade - parippu vade, ulundu vade, isso (shrimp) vade, crab vade
  • Chinese rolls or egg rolls, which often contain minced meats, potatoes, and vegetables
  • Patties & pastries - filled with vegetables, meat, or fish
  • Vegetable/fish roti - a flatbread with a filling rolled into a triangular shape and baked

Short eats are served at parties or to guests when they visit a home. Western food such as hot dogs and hamburgers have arrived in Sri Lanka, with the globalization of fast-food chains such as McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut. However, foods from these establishments are not usually considered short eats. Additionally, hot dogs and hamburgers are also modified to fit local tastes.

Beverages

Beverages commonly served in Sri Lanka include:

See also

References

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External links

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