Here is the recipe for Sri Lanakan kiribath or milk rice 🍚🍛.
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups white rice
3/4 cup red raw rice or Sinhala kekulu haal
Water
Coconut milk – About 1 1/4 cups
Salt – About 2 teaspoons
Method
1. Measure and add the rice to the pot you are going to cook the rice in.
2. Wash the rice three times, tossing the water out each time.
3. Add water to the pot for cooking the rice. Gauge the amount of water by pouring in the water to reach up to the first ring of your middle finger when placed on the surface of the rice.
4. Boil the rice on an open fire. There’s no microwaving and no using a rice cooker for this. Start on a high flame and once it boils reduce to low flame and cook at low flame.
5. Prepare thick coconut milk diluted with a little water, in a bowl.
6. Add salt to the coconut milk and stir well. Set aside.
7. As soon as you hear a “kiri” “kiri” sound* coming from the pot of rice, add the coconut milk to it, stir well and wait for the next “kiri” “kiri” sound to appear.
8. Remove from fire and place the pot of milk rice on a mat.
9. Spread the milk rice on a flat tray or plate and cut it into diamond shapes or squares. 😋
10. Serve with lunumiris, katta sambol and seeni sambol, along with a chicken curry or fish curry.
11. Kids love kiribath with treacle or kithul paeni, grated jaggery or with honey.
*The sound “kiri” “kiri” here means the sound the rice makes when it is done. 😊.
Kiri also means milk in the Sinhala language. Kiri bath is had for breakfast during festive days or occasions and celebratory and auspicious occasions in Sri Lanka. Its is a very important part of Sri Lankan Sinhala culture.
