Pickles, Sambols and Preserves
Chilli Sambol (Katta Sambol)
Dried red chilli pounded with onion, lime and Maldive fish, and it is genuinely hot.
- Dried red chilli, not fresh, for a deeper heat
- No coconut, so nothing softens it
- Pounded coarse rather than blended smooth
- Maldive fish underneath the chilli
- Very hot, and we are not going to describe it as medium
Available to pre-orderSKU: CC-SAM-KAT
Size: 150g
- Carefully packed and shipped to your door
- 14-day replacement on damaged items
- Secure checkout
Description
Katta sambol is the hot one. Dried red chilli pounded down with onion, lime, salt and a little Maldive fish into a coarse, dark red paste. There is no coconut in it to soften the heat, which is exactly what separates it from a pol sambol.
Katta sambol and lunu miris get confused constantly, and the difference is real. Lunu miris is fresher and simpler, built on chilli, onion, lime and salt. Katta sambol adds Maldive fish and is usually cooked briefly, so it is darker, deeper and hotter.
Neither contains coconut. That is what people miss, coming from pol sambol, where the scraped coconut carries the chilli and tempers it. Take the coconut away and there is nothing standing between you and the chilli.
It is eaten with string hoppers, with bread, and with rice when somebody wants the meal to actually hurt a little.
How to Use
- With string hoppers and coconut milk
- On bread with butter, in very small amounts
- Stirred through rice with a fried egg
- As the hot element on a rice and curry plate
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Frequently Asked
Hot enough that a first-timer should start with a quarter teaspoon. There is no coconut, no sugar and no oil to soften it, so it is essentially concentrated dried chilli with onion and lime. Sri Lankan households eat it in small dabs, not spoonfuls.
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