Are you ready for that exotic getaway to Sri Lanka? If the answer is yes, then you are most likely looking into the many areas that will make your journey special. Flight arrangements, finding the right accommodation, locating particular spots to visit and the list goes on How about food? Surely, this must be in your thoughts, too! It is possible, that, when you think of Sri Lankan food, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘curry & rice’. Yes, of course there are delicious curry dishes to sample in Sri Lanka, but what else is there worth trying? Here are our top 5 choices:
- Hoppers (Appa) and string hoppers (Indi Appa) for breakfast: Hoppers are similar to pancakes, but prepared with sourdough flour; their piquant flavour is a result of the palm wine used for fermentation. A traditional sauce made from chili peppers (sambol) usually accompanies hoppers. There are savoury hoppers (egg hoppers) and sweet hoppers. Indi Appa are hoppers made from rice noodles and are an excellent option for breakfast or dinner.
- Lentil/Dhal Curry (Parippu Hodi):This popular curry is made with lentils or the tropical vegetable dhal. To thicken the sauce, coconut milk is added. Served with bread or rice.
- Thosai (Those): This also looks like a pancake and is prepared from lentils, shallots, cumin, curry leaves and fenugreek seeds. Thosai ingredients are cooked in sesame oil. It goes very well with shredded coconut, sambol and vadai cakes, which have a scrumptious coconut flavour, since they are fried in coconut oil.
- Pol Sambola (Coconut Sambol):A typical Sri Lankan dish, with great appeal to tourists, too. Its preparation requires a variety of ingredients, the main ones being sambol and shredded coconut; other ingredients include lemon, onions, powder from red chillies, salt and fish, preferably tuna. Pol Sambola is most commonly served with rice.
- Curry & Rice:You may have already guessed that a dish as popular as curry & rice couldn’t be anywhere but at the top of the Sri Lankan foods’ list. And you were totally right. There is a variety of curry recipes in Sri Lanka. They may include meat, poultry or fish; they may even be prepared exclusively with pulses and veggies (for example, lentil curry). Curries are generally cooked with generous portions of chili powder, so a certain degree of heat should be expected. As the name of Sri Lanka’s most loved dish suggests, rice is the carb of choice to go with the curries. So, basically, if you are invited to a Sri Lankan house for dinner, you will find the table lined up with all the curry dishes, the rice and additional sauces, such as mango chutney and sambol.
Just describing these mouth-watering Sri Lankan foods is enough to make your stomach rumble, even if you’ve just had a meal, wrong? I should think not so, if you’ve already secured that Sri Lanka Visa and completed all the necessary arrangements, you are ready for a journey destined to remain in your mind forever for many reasons, the glorious food certainly being one of them!
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