Sri Lankan Food: 7 of the Island’s Best Dishes- Try these mouthwatering treats!

It is the staple lunchtime dish for Sri Lankans, while some may have it for all three meals. Freshly prepared rice is paired with a host of tasty vegetable and meat curries. The curries are cooked in coconut milk, with plenty of spices, curry leaves, cinnamon, and pandan leaves. Some of the usual side dishes you would encounter are dhal curry, chicken curry and beetroot curry among others. A typical rice and curry dish will also include a greens dish like Asian Pennywort, known as gotukola or mukunuwenna, and pol sambol. Proteins will mostly be either chicken, fish or egg.

As the sun bids adieu for another day, those scouring the streets of Sri Lanka for something to eat will gravitate towards a place that offers kottu roti. Shredded godamba roti is mixed with finely cut veggies, eggs, and a curry sauce before getting a thorough mix with two metal shards. Egg and veggie, chicken kottu, and chicken and cheese are some of the hot favourites! Drench your hot kottu with more curry and wash it all down with an Elephant House Ginger Beer for a truly streetside Sri Lankan meal.

Also called 'appa' in Sinhalese, these bowl-like crispy crepes have a soft spongy centre. A fermented rice flour batter of coconut milk and salt is what it takes to make a hopper, which is typically eaten at breakfast or dinner. Variations of the hopper are the egg hopper, with an egg cooked inside, and the treacle hopper, where the batter is mixed with kithul treacle. Hoppers are eaten alongside curries and condiments. Coconut sambol, seeni sambol (spicy caramelised fried onions), lunu miris (spicy onion sambol), and curries like fish, chicken, potato, and jackfruit can be a good combination. Many hotels in Sri Lanka feature all these dishes and more! Restaurants in Kalutara offered by the likes of Mermaid Hotel & Club would be good places to try this delightful dish.

This dish owes its origins to the Dutch, who landed in Sri Lanka in 1658. It is a creation of the Dutch communities who remained in Sri Lanka after their ancestors had vacated the land. It consists of rice boiled in chicken stock, and a three-meat curry, frikadelles (meatballs), belachan (shrimp paste), fried ash plantain curry, and pickled eggplant fry. Some variations will include a fried boiled egg. The parcel of rice is neatly assembled in a banana leaf and baked in the oven.

This sweet custardy pudding is made from eggs, fresh coconut milk, kithul jaggery, and spices like cardamom, cinnamon and nutmeg. It is said to have come to the island with the Sri Lankan Malays during the 18th century and is now commonly identified with the Sri Lankan Muslim communities. It is a popular dessert during Ramadan and festive events.

The ingredients typically used are rice flour, Kithul/coconut treacle, coconut milk, spices, dried beans and nuts. Some of these sweets are prepared at home during the traditional Sinhala New Year and at special occasions like weddings. Favourites include the konde kavum (rice flour and treacle batter deep fried in coconut oil), mung kavum (prepared from dried mung beans and treacle), kokis (a savoury fried cookie made using rice flour), kiri/kalu dodol (a dense fudge-like sweetmeat prepared from kithul treacle, coconut milk, and rice flour).

Called indi appa in Sinhalese, string hoppers are steamed, noodle-type of preparation eaten for breakfast and dinner. Red/white rice flour is mixed with water into a dough that is pushed through a mould into a noodle disk and steamed. String hoppers are eaten with curries like white potato curry, dhal, fish/chicken curry, egg curry, jackfruit curry and condiments like pol sambol, and seeni sambol! Mix all the curries and sambols with the string hoppers using your fingers to truly savour this meal.