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Lunu miris
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Lunu miris

Pounded onion and chilli relish

Two words, salt and chilli, describe the bluntest relish on the Sri Lankan table, and that is exactly the point: a spoonful of this rough red paste wakes up the plainest starch. It is the classic partner for kiri bath on Sinhala and Tamil New Year mornings, for boiled manioc, for kurakkan roti in village kitchens and for a stack of plain hoppers at a roadside boutique. Red onion, dried chilli and salt are crushed on a grinding stone or in a mortar, then sharpened with lime; many cooks also pound in a spoon of Maldive fish, which is left out here to keep it vegan. Do not reach for the food processor, which chops everything into a wet slurry instead of bruising it into a coarse, juicy paste. Chef's tip: pound the chilli and salt together first, before the onion goes in, because the salt acts like grit and breaks the flakes down far faster.

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