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Rice and Flours

Kuruluthuda Rice

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A slender red heirloom named after a bird's beak, firm, and traditionally given to new mothers.

  • Named for the beak-shaped grain, and it looks it
  • Slenderer and firmer than the other red heirlooms
  • Unpolished, with the bran left on
  • Gently sweet under the nuttiness
  • Grown in small traditional lots
$16

Available to pre-orderSKU: CC-RCE-KUR

Size: 1kg

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Description

Kuruluthuda takes its name from the shape of the grain, kurulu thuda meaning bird's beak in Sinhala. It is a traditional red paddy, long and slender for a Sri Lankan variety, with a firm bite and a gentle sweetness. In village practice it was the rice cooked for new mothers and for anybody recovering.

Sri Lankan traditional rice names tend to describe what the grain looks like, and this one is unusually literal. Hold a grain up and the pointed, slightly curved shape really does look like a small beak.

It grows red like the other heirlooms, but the grain is longer and more slender, and it cooks up firmer and a little sweeter than kalu heenati. Side by side the difference is obvious in both look and bite.

Its traditional place was the postnatal kitchen, cooked as a plain rice or a kenda for women after childbirth. That is village practice rather than anything we are claiming, and it says something about how carefully these varieties were once matched to a purpose.

How to Use

  • Cook plainly with a little salt and eat with dhal
  • Simmer into a kenda porridge with coconut milk
  • Serve alongside a mild vegetable curry
  • Soak an hour first for a softer grain

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Frequently Asked

Grain shape and bite. Kuruluthuda is longer, slenderer and pointed, and it cooks firmer with a gentle sweetness. Kalu heenati is small, dark and more assertively nutty. Both are unpolished red paddies and both take about the same time to cook.

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