Sri Lanka is a land of many wonders. Take a bite of its feisty and unique cuisine and you’ll discover that some of these wonders can be found in its food as well!

 

Sri Lankan Cuisine | Free-Photos by Pixabay | CC0 Public Domain
Sri Lankan Cuisine | Free-Photos by Pixabay | CC0 Public Domain

 

Rice and Curry

 

 

The amalgamation of rice and curry is a match made in heaven. For many Sri Lankans living a day without eating rice and curry is a day that is not well lived! LOL You will come across this everywhere during your travel here whether you’re sitting down for meal at a café in Galle, at a luxury hotel the likes of the Pegasus Reef Hotel; or at the fine dining restaurants in Wattala, Kandy, Colombo or any other major city. There are many different kinds of rice just as there are curries. If you’re health conscious stick to red or basmati rice. When it comes to curry, they come in all different flavours and colours ranging from the beloved parippu (dhal curry) to the mouthwatering kukul mas (chicken) curry.

 

Milk Rice

 

 

If there’s any event to be celebrated- New Year, first day at school, coming of age or a wedding; Milk Rice will be there at the table. To make Milk Rice, one must first boil the rice with salt then when it’s cooked, add coconut milk and boil again. The cooked rice is then spread on a big plate and when its cooled, cut into either squares or diamond shapes. It’s either served along with the spicy katta sambol or with jaggery (palm sugar).

 

Hoppers

 

 

You’ve got to be hopping mad if you miss hoppers when in Sri Lanka! If you’re wondering what hoppers are, they’re sort of a crispy pancake that’s made out of rice flour. There are four different kinds of hoppers or aappa to try out. The savoury ones are the plain aappa and the biththara aappa or egg hopper. The latter has a egg in the middle of it. Then there are the sweet hoppers, the peni aappa (honey hopper) and the kiri aappa (milk hopper). The savoury ones are eaten with katta sambol and some sort of curry while the sweeter are eaten as they are.

 

Kotthu

 

 

The queen of all street food in Sri Lanka! Koththu is a dish that features strips of godamba roti that’s mixed together with vegetables, fish or meat. This mixing is really interesting to watch and listen. The koththu chef puts everything together on a special flat stove and then chops it up with two steel plates. The noise from all the chopping and the mixing sounds like a mash up of house music / beat boxing!

 

Intrigued by history, art and food, Lavinia Woolf is a writer who is passionate about the extraordinary and writes of the exhilarating and enchanting. Google+