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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

the sri lankan breakfast

i'm a savoury over sweet kinda girl; chips over chocolate any day.

so sri lankan breakfasts are where it's at for me in the early morning.

in negombo, our breakkie consisted of fresh papaya, banana and pineapple juice, tea (we bought our own soy milk), a creamy dahl, string hoppers and pol sambola.


string hoppers are bouncy little bundles of rice noodles. usually eaten with dhal - a lentil curry stew type dish -, a sambol and a chutney. apparently they take quite a bit of expertise to make: the steamed rice flour is made into a dough which they push through a little mould-maker into strings. then they are steamed again. ideal to mop up the dahl, they are a fun food to eat; silly-looking and springy. 

the daal lentils are cooked slowly in coconut milk, absorbing all the delicate spice flavours, which are set off by the spicy pol sambola. pol sambola, in the photo below, is made with grated coconut, red onions, ground dry red chilli, salt, lemon and pepper. each cook will mix it up a little so more ingredients are optional, but that's the basic recipe. it's delicious and darned hot. 

pol sambola

string hoppers and dahl curry

overall, sri lankan breakfasts have scored top points in my international breakfast charts. tasty, healthy and filling.


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