Sri Lanka Traditional cuisine

Vegetable food - the staple food people in Sri Lanka. Rice, corn, peas, lentils and other legumes, as well as all types of flour from legumes and vegetables - an integral part of local cuisine. The dominant position is, of course, Fig. Seasoned with curry, spices and other ingredients with seafood and fruit, with coconut and vegetables, and in the most unimaginable at first sight combination. Traditionally, most of the dishes prepared in an earthenware or metal utensils, hand-made and an open fire. Used daily lyudami are rice cakes, roti, pancakes made from rice flour and coconut milk appu "rice noodles" indiappa, boiled for a couple of Rice-coconut mixture in a bamboo stalk, "pitta", a pink rice in coconut milk "kiribad" and came from India pilaf and others.

Meat consumed is relatively small - the cows are considered sacred animals, and resources for raising small livestock and poultry have traditionally lacked. instead of fish and seafood varied simply can not count. Tuna fillet in coconut sauce, dried and smoked fish of all species, squid, lobster, shrimp and various shells are used throughout, both as a stand-alone courses or as ingredients of various complex things that are as rich local cuisine. And all this is, again, a huge number of seasoned greens and spices - garlic, pepper, saffron and nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and coriander, cumin, mustard, and dozens of other, lesser-known Europeans spices used here in the most unimaginable combinations. Prolonged cooking of all meals over an open fire, along with so many spices are often completely negate the original taste of the original product, making it a real exotics.

The most popular condiment, as in India, a curry, which prepared many of the condiments and sauces. Also available hot sauce "oro" of the fruit with spices, red hot sauce, masala, thick coconut milk "mitikiri, finely chopped mixture of onion salt, dry fish, red pepper and lemon" lunumiris, rhizome of ginger in syrup and other exotic seasonings.

Must be on the table there are a variety of salads with fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as simple green beams or in the form of green salads, and used as the traditional tomatoes, peppers, onions and bamboo shoots, and a variety of exotic grasses, the leaves of a special tree, a flower of the banana palms or cactus, and some algae. Important place in the cuisine is fruit, which is simply unheard of.

The main drink on the island, of course, tea. Here, hundreds of varieties and producers, practiced a variety of mixtures of herbs and fruits, but a special procedure for its preparation and the excellent quality of the local tea won deserved popularity all over the world. Most of the island easy drinking tea (B.O.P), more saturated varieties (B. O. PF), familiar to Europeans, are less common, as mainly for export. Not less sympathy pertinent residents enjoy a variety of coconut milk and fresh fruit juices (oranges on the island do not grow, so the orange juice, mostly imported, and so - not very tasty). A very popular kind of local strong alcoholic drink "arak", and gin and whiskey local production, but to Europeans they taste quite unusual, and the consequences of use - are sad, because the cleaning procedure of the local alcohol from fusel oil is practically absent. Local beer "Lion" is being prepared in the classic recipes, and quite pleasant to the taste and cheap.