Coconut Sambol Recipe

Coconut Sambol is a side dish or condiment from Sri Lanka – formerly Ceylon. If you are having people round for a curry, having one or two side dishes like this on the table will help make it a little more special.

My Mum always used to make one when she made a curry, and we would sprinkle a little on the side.

Then we would add a bit to the occasional spoonfull of curry, a bit like you do with the soured cream with a chilli con carne.

I think in Sri Lanka it is more usually eaten with hoppers, pappadums or naan bread.

If there was any left over the next day, I used to love having it in a sandwich.

Coconut Sambol should really be made with freshly grated coconut but that is not easy to get hold of so I always use desiccated coconut. If you decide to try it with fresh coconut you will need to use a little less lemon (or lime) juice as desiccated coconut will soak up the juice.

Cayenne pepper is a moderately hot chilli pepper and I have been told it is widely used in Sri Lanka. You can use any hot, red chilli powder if you don’t have any cayenne.

I usually use a red onion, but I have made it with a brown onion if you don’t happen to have any red ones. The flavour is slightly different, but it is still really tasty.

In Sri Lanka they will often add a small amount of dried tuna, but I think that would make it a Pol Sambol not a Coconut Sambol. I may be wrong, so don’t quote me on that! If you want to try something like that just add a couple of chopped up anchovies.

If using fresh coconut you may want to try using a pestle and mortar instead of dicing the onion and grating the coconut. This will give a very different texture to the dish – almost a paste. Personally, I prefer the texture when prepared my way.

Coconut Sambol Recipe

Ingredients

1 Red Onion – very finely diced
1 Cup – Desiccated Coconut (about 120g)
1 – Tsp Cayenne Pepper
1-2 – Tbsp Lemon Juice (or Lime Juice)

Method

Very finely dice the onion. I usually use a food processor, but if your knife skills are good enough you can do it by hand.

What you want is to have roughly equal parts diced onion to desiccated coconut. Depending on the size of your onion this will mean about 1 cup, or 120g, of coconut.

Sprinkle over the cayenne pepper and mix thoroughly. Slowly add the lemon juice, stirring as you go, until the mixture is nicely moist.

Taste and add a little more cayenne pepper if required.

This will keep in the fridge for a few days, so can be made well in advance. Be careful if you do, though. I have done this before and found most of it gone by the time I wanted to serve it!