Sunday, March 30, 2014

Coconut Vinegar from Sri Lanka


While this small bottle of vinegar cost $3 (on clearance no less) as vinegar doesn't go bad, I'm not unhappy with this expensive purchase. I can buy a gallon of white vinegar for that. None the less, I seldom have any self-control when I see an untested by me food product.

Pictured is the bottle I purchased. My first guess was to say it would taste good on fruit salad. Like the Mexicans squirting lime juice on their fruit salad, this would be a good use.

As I netsearched for recipes using coconut vinegar, I came across some recipes provided by a hotel chain. The only problem with their recipe is that while it is from Sri Lanka, the only reason the recipe exists is probably to exact upscale prices for a dish that a foreigner might take as exotic. So the coconut vinegar as an ingredient is not the 'star' here and I'm skipping it.

Next I saw a recipe using the vinegar in a Sri Lankan pickle. Five people rated this a 2.6 out of a possible 5 and I've decided that isn't good enough. In a spirit of multi-culturalism, here is that pickle.

A street snack, wadi, which I cannot get a good Tamil translation of uses chickpeas and/or lentils and coconut vinegar along with other ingredients to make a deep fried ball, served with a long dark brown or black chile.

So, if you visit Sri Lanka often, speak the language and can get a friendly street food vendor to part with a wadi recipe, I would be obliged.