Arguably, Sri Lanka’s most famous sambol pol sambol is most versatile—eat it with string hoppers, hoppers, roti and rice, put it in a grilled cheese sandwich or eat it as part of fry up—it’s a winner! When Tinie Tempah played my music festival in Colombo; we took them to eat crab curry and pol sambol; his team described it as ‘pure gold’. We even had to pack some frozen pol sambol for them to take back to the UK. If that’s not a guarantee of excellence, I don’t know what is.
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 tsps ground maldive fish (optional)
1 clove garlic
2 small shallots, roughly chopped
½ tsp salt
2 tbsps red chilli flakes
1 whole coconut, freshly grated (200-250g)
Juice of ½ large lime
Method
Powder the maldive fish in a spice grinder and set aside.
In a pestle and mortar, pound the garlic, shallots and salt until you start to form the beginnings of a paste. Add in the chilli flakes, the grated coconut, salt and the powdered maldive fish. Make sure you mix well and the grated coconut is turning orange.
Once all the ingredients are well-combined, pour in the lime juice and pound into the pol sambol and mix again. Serve with string hoppers or yellow rice!
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