Rice and curry
Rice and curry is the unofficial national dish of Sri Lanka and you will find it on every corner. The locals prefer to eat it in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. It is usually served as a buffet and you often pay no more than the equivalent of around 2.50 euros.
Rice, one of the main components of Sri Lankan cuisine, is served with around three different vegetable curries and a choice of protein curry (meat or fish). Unlike Thai curries, for example, Sri Lankan curries do not consist of different vegetables, but usually only one type of vegetable is prepared with a variety of spices in a little coconut milk. The curries are much less liquid than curries from other Asian countries.
In addition to fish or chicken curry, the most common curries are pumpkin curry, bean curry, potato curry, eggplant curry, jackfruit curry and beet curry.
The rice and curry are usually served with pappadams, which are lentil crackers, and a sambal.
Dhal
Dhal is a lentil dish. Red lentils are cooked in water and a few spoonfuls of coconut milk and seasoned with a colorful mix of spices. It is usually a little thinner than Indian dhal, but is more strongly flavored.
In Sri Lanka, dhal is served with everything: rice, roti, string hoppers... You can find this delicious lentil curry on the table at every meal.
Coconut sambal
Coconut sambal, pol sambola in Sinhalese, is a typical side dish for Sri Lankan cuisine that you won't find anywhere else in the world. It is served with almost every dish and gives it that special spice. The sambal consists of fresh grated coconut, ground chili, fresh or dried red chili, red onions, salt and lime juice. As a rule of thumb, the redder the coconut sambal, the spicier it is.
You can find our coconut sambal recipe to cook here
Kottu
You can hear restaurants serving kottu from afar: thin roti patties are chopped into long, fine strips to make it - and not silently. The roti strips are then fried in oil with spices and various vegetables. Kottu is optionally prepared with egg or meat. There is also a variation of cheese kottu, in which a kind of milky cottage cheese is added. Kottu is popular with locals and tourists alike and is now served in small, unassuming street cafés as well as in prestigious gourmet restaurants. Some people like to jokingly refer to kottu as the Sri Lankan hamburger, as it is a very tasty but greasy and quick to prepare dish.
String Hopper
String hoppers, idiyappam in Sinhalese, are one of the dishes that every visitor to the country should try. A dough is made from rice flour, which is then pressed into long, thin noodles and steamed. The result is the round string hoppers that are eaten in Sri Lanka and South India for breakfast or in the evening and served with dhal and coconut sambal or with various curries.
(Egg) Hopper
Classic hoppers (Sinhalese: appa) are made from a simple pancake batter consisting of flour, coconut milk and a little palm wine (toddy). They are fried in a kind of small wok, which gives them their typical bowl-like shape: At the bottom, the dough is thick and soft, while the edges are thinner and crispy. Hoppers are usually served for breakfast. You can order them either without a filling or with a fried egg in the middle as an egg hopper (Sinhalese: biththara appa). The hoppers are served with salt and pepper as well as coconut sambal and/or a chili paste.
Pittu
Pittu look like rolled pancakes, but they are not made from traditional pancake batter, but from rice and coconut. Traditionally, they were cooked in bamboo tubes to maintain their shape, but these have now generally been replaced by metal tubes. Pittu are usually served sweet, for example with palm sugar, but here and there they are also served with spicy sauces or curries.
Vegetable Roti
Vegetable roti are Sri Lanka's street food par excellence and will accompany you on one bus journey or another. You will find the triangular filled dumplings every few meters at street stalls and at almost every bus station. They are the Sri Lankan equivalent of Indian samosas, except that the vegetable roti are not deep-fried, but simply fried in oil in a pan. The filling consists of various well-seasoned vegetables. Depending on the chef's mood, it can sometimes be very spicy - watch out as soon as the filling turns a deep red.
Lunu Miris
Lunu miris is another sambal typical of Sri Lankan cuisine, which is made from finely chopped onions. Ground chili, lime juice, salt and often dried Maldivian fish are added to the onions. The ingredients are mixed together and mashed well to create a red paste. This is often served with meals together with coconut sambal.
Ulundhu Vadai
Ulundhu vadai are mainly served on trains and at street stalls. Red lentils are mixed with spices and often peas and/or corn and then deep-fried. Not the healthiest, but definitely a tasty snack that you should definitely try. Ulundhu vadai are often a little less spicy than vegetable roti.
Lamprais
Lamprais were invented under the influence of the Dutch colonists and are still eaten almost daily by many locals. Rice, various curries and a boiled egg are wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed - sounds simple but tastes incredibly delicious. The special thing about lamprais is that it is cooked twice: First, rice and the other ingredients are cooked separately and then again together in the banana leaf. This creates the unique lamprais taste.
Hello, very nice and interesting website!
I have already been to Sri Lanka and tried the local cuisine. And it was very tasty
I'm currently in Sri Lanka and trying out the local cuisine, everything has been delicious so far 😋