The Indian subcontinent · Volume 25, The Roasted Spice, the Palmyrah Coast and the Coral Atoll
Pol sambol and seeni sambol
Pan Sri Lankan
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Pan Sri Lankan. The two condiments that sit on every table, one raw and sharp, one slow cooked and sweet, and the clearest single lesson in how this cuisine balances a plate.
As tradition built it
Each makes enough for 4 to 6 as a side. Pol sambol: 10 minutes. Seeni sambol: about 40 minutes.
Ingredients
Pol sambol
- 1 fresh coconut, grated, or 200 g desiccated coconut, rehydrated
- 1 to 2 tbsp roasted curry powder or dried chilli flakes, to taste
- 1 small red onion or shallot, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Maldive fish flakes, crushed
- 1 juice of 1 lime
- To taste salt
Seeni sambol
- 4 large onions, very finely sliced
- 2 tbsp dried fish or Maldive fish flakes
- 1 tbsp roasted curry powder
- 1 tbsp tamarind pulp
- 1 tbsp jaggery or kithul treacle
- A sprig curry leaves
- As needed oil
Method
- Grind or pound the coconut, chilli, onion, Maldive fish and salt together on a miris gala or in a mortar until the mixture is evenly moist and a little sticky, not a smooth paste.
- Stir in the lime juice just before serving.
- Fry the onions slowly in oil with the curry leaves over low heat for around 30 minutes, stirring often, until deeply caramelised and jammy rather than merely softened.
- Stir in the dried fish, curry powder, tamarind and jaggery, and cook for a further 10 minutes until the mixture is thick and glossy.
What a modern chef changes
A coconut scraped, not shredded, and an onion caramelised low and slow rather than rushed.
Rung 1
Method
- Scrape the coconut fresh with a hand crank coconut scraper rather than a food processor, for the drier, more textured shred pol sambol actually wants; a processor cuts wetter and pastier.
- Cook the seeni sambol's onions over the lowest possible heat for the full 30 minutes rather than raising the heat to hurry it, since real caramelisation, not colour from scorching, is what gives the finished sambol its depth.
- Grind the Maldive fish separately to a fine powder in a spice grinder before folding it in, for an even distribution of its umami rather than occasional stringy pieces.