Sri Lankan cooking is built on coconut, true cinnamon and dark roasted curry powders, with Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher kitchens each adding their own accents.
Overview¶
Sri Lanka's cooking is often mistaken for a variant of south Indian food. It shares ingredients and some techniques with Tamil Nadu and Kerala, but the island's cooks have their own blends, their own balance of sour and hot, and a few ingredients rarely seen elsewhere. Rice and curry — a mound of rice with several small curries of vegetables, fish, lentils and meat — is the everyday meal, and a single lunch can include five or six distinct spice mixtures.
Sri Lanka is also the home of true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum), long exported as "Ceylon cinnamon" and one of the drivers of Portuguese and Dutch interest in the island (see the-spice-trade and the-dutch-east-india-company). It is used in curries far more freely than in most cuisines, snapped into the pan as whole quills.
The core palette¶
- Curry powder in two main forms. Roasted (or black) curry powder is made by toasting coriander, cumin, fennel, fenugreek, black pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and often rice and curry leaves until deep brown, then grinding. It goes into meat curries. Unroasted (raw) curry powder uses the same seeds untoasted and is lighter, for vegetables and fish. See curry-powder for how these relate to the British-style blends.
- Turmeric colours white and yellow curries.
- Chilli in several forms: whole dried reds, flakes and powder, plus fresh green chillies.
- Goraka (Garcinia gummi-gutta), a dried fruit rind used to sour fish curries, especially fish ambul thiyal. Tamarind does a similar job elsewhere.
- Maldive fish: sun-dried, smoked skipjack tuna, flaked into sambols and curries for depth. Not a spice, but as essential to the flavour as any.
- Fresh aromatics: curry leaves, pandan (called rampe), lemongrass, garlic and ginger.
Regional and community differences¶
Sinhala cooking is broadly the base described above. Sri Lankan Tamil food from Jaffna in the north is famously fiery, with its own Jaffna curry powder heavy on dried red chilli, and more use of palmyra products and seafood. Sri Lankan Muslim (Moor and Malay) cooking contributes rich biryanis, watalappan (a jaggery and cardamom custard) and, via the Malay community, dishes like achcharu pickles. The Burgher community, of Dutch and Portuguese descent, gave lamprais — rice, curry and frikkadels baked together in a banana leaf — and cakes spiced with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
Key techniques¶
- Roasting to near-black: the dark roast is deliberate. It gives meat curries a toasty, almost coffee-like base note. Toast in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the coriander is mahogany — not smoking. See toasting-spices.
- Tempering: mustard seed, curry leaves, sliced onion and dried chilli in hot oil, often added to dhal (parippu) at the end. See tempering-spices.
- Coconut milk in stages: thin coconut milk goes in first to cook the ingredients, thick milk at the end so it does not split.
- Pounding: sambols are traditionally made on a grinding stone or in a mortar, bruising chilli, onion, lime and Maldive fish together. See pestle-and-mortar.
💡 Two curry powders, not one
If you only keep a single Sri Lankan curry powder, make it the roasted kind — but the unroasted version is what gives vegetable curries and white fish curries their fresh, green brightness. They are easy to make from the same jar of seeds.
Landmark dishes¶
Parippu (red lentil dhal with coconut), black pork curry, chicken curry with roasted powder, fish ambul thiyal (a dry, sour fish curry with goraka and black pepper), kiri hodi (a turmeric and coconut gravy for string hoppers), hoppers (appa, bowl-shaped fermented rice pancakes), kottu roti, pol sambol (grated coconut, chilli, lime and Maldive fish), seeni sambol (a sweet-hot caramelised onion relish), lamprais, and watalappan.
Stocking the cupboard¶
- Coriander seed, cumin and fennel seed — the base of any curry powder
- Ceylon cinnamon quills — look for thin, papery, multi-layered sticks rather than thick cassia bark
- Black peppercorns
- Fenugreek seed and black mustard seed
- Chilli flakes and whole dried red chillies
- Ground turmeric
- Curry leaves and pandan leaves (both freeze)
- Goraka or tamarind, and Maldive fish from a Sri Lankan grocer if you can find it