Gotu Kola Sambola

Ingredients

The leaves

• 200 ggotu kola
• Centella asiatica
• pennywort leaves and soft stems
• washed very well
• or 200 g young spinach
• or watercress, shredded

The coconut

• 100 gfresh grated coconut
• or 70 g unsweetened desiccated coconut
• soaked in warm water
• squeezed dry

The rest

• 1small red onion, very finely chopped
• or 4 shallots
• 2green chillies, finely chopped
• or to taste
• 1tomato, deseeded and diced
• optional
• half a teaspoon chilli powder
• or to taste
• 1 teaspoonMaldive fish flakes
• umbalakada, optional
• juice of 1 lime
• or more, to taste
• 1 teaspoonsalt
• or to taste
• black pepper

To serve

• with rice and curry
• as one dish among several
• with pol sambola alongside

Directions

1. Fill a large bowl with cold water. Lift them out rather than pouring the water off. The last water should be completely clear.
2. Use a salad spinner or a clean cloth. Wet leaves make a watery sambola. Roll them up if you can. Slice across as finely as you possibly can. It also lets the leaf take up the dressing.
3. Use the soft stems along with the leaves. Discard any thick or tough runners. Those do not soften and eat unpleasantly.
4. Use unsweetened desiccated coconut only. Soak it in warm water for fifteen minutes. Squeeze it out thoroughly before using it. Put the shredded leaves in a bowl.
5. Add the grated coconut. Add the finely chopped onion. Add the chopped chillies and chilli powder. Add the Maldive fish if using. Add the tomato if using. Mix it with your hands rather than a spoon.
6. Squeeze and rub the mixture as you go. Do that for a minute or two. Add the lime juice and the salt. Mix again with your hands. It should be sharply sour first.
7. Add more lime if it tastes flat. Salt draws water out of the leaves. Add it shortly before serving. It stays fresh for perhaps an hour. Wrap them in a damp cloth in a bag. Shred and dress them fresh when you want it.

Technique

• Shred the leaves as finely as you possibly can — threads rather than pieces. Fine shredding distributes the bitterness evenly and lets the leaf take the dressing; whole leaves in a sambola eat badly, and the fineness is genuinely the point.
• Wash gotu kola in three changes of water, plunging and lifting out rather than pouring off. It grows low against soil and holds grit at the stem joins, and the last water should be completely clear.
• Dry the leaves thoroughly. Wet leaves make a watery sambola and dilute the lime and salt.
• Mix with your hands, squeezing and rubbing rather than stirring. That bruises the onion, releases its juice, works the coconut into the leaves and distributes the chilli — it is what makes a sambola rather than a salad.
• Make it just before eating. It stays fresh for about an hour, after which the leaves wilt and darken and the dish goes wet and dull. Salt in particular draws water out, so add it shortly before serving.
• Do not forage this. Several creeping plants look broadly similar, some look-alikes are not edible, and plants growing in or beside water can carry agricultural runoff and — where livestock graze — liver fluke, a documented risk with wild water plants. Buy it from a grocer.
• Gotu kola is grassy and distinctly bitter with a faint medicinal quality. That bitterness is what it is for, and the lime, coconut and chilli exist to balance it — this is not a mild salad leaf.
• Gotu kola is widely used in traditional medicine and many claims are made for it. The atlas records that those claims exist and repeats none of them. As a salad leaf in salad quantities it is ordinary food; concentrated extracts and supplements are a different matter, and cases of liver injury have been reported with those. It is also traditionally avoided in pregnancy in some contexts — the atlas records that the caution exists, makes no medical claim, and leaves the question to a doctor.
• Use unsweetened desiccated coconut soaked in warm water and squeezed dry if you cannot get fresh. Sweetened coconut is entirely wrong; frozen grated coconut is a much better substitute.
• Maldive fish, umbalakada, is dried smoked tuna pounded to flakes and gives a deep savoury note quite unlike fish sauce or shrimp paste. Without it the dish is vegan — and it is a fish product, so say which version you have made.
• This is one dish among many on a Sri Lankan rice and curry plate, providing the fresh green element beside dhal, a curry or two, a pickle and pol sambola.

Substitutions

• Young spinach, watercress or rocket replace gotu kola, giving a milder and less bitter sambola.
• Frozen grated coconut replaces fresh closely; unsweetened desiccated, soaked, is the fallback.
• Lemon replaces lime, though lime is what is used.
• Maldive fish is optional; leaving it out makes the dish vegan.
• Shallots replace red onion and are common in Sri Lanka.
• A little grated ginger or a pinch of turmeric is added in some households.

Variations

• Pol sambola, made from coconut, chilli, lime and onion without greens, is the everyday Sri Lankan relish.
• Mukunuwenna sambola uses a different local green in the same way.
• Kohila and other stem vegetables are shredded into similar salads.
• Kola kanda is a green herbal porridge made with gotu kola and rice.
• Vietnamese rau má drinks blend the same plant into a cold sweet drink.
• Thai and Indonesian salads use pennywort in a similar raw treatment.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gotu Kola Sambola?

Gotu Kola Sambola is a salad & side from Sri Lanka: finely shredded pennywort leaf with coconut, lime, onion and green chilli.

How long does Gotu Kola Sambola take to make?

Gotu Kola Sambola takes 25 minutes of preparation and none of cooking. The recipe makes serves 4 as a side. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Gotu Kola Sambola?

Yes, within limits. Young spinach, watercress or rocket replace gotu kola, giving a milder and less bitter sambola. Frozen grated coconut replaces fresh closely; unsweetened desiccated, soaked, is the fallback. Lemon replaces lime, though lime is what is used. Maldive fish is optional; leaving it out makes the dish vegan. Shallots replace red onion and are common in Sri Lanka. A little grated ginger or a pinch of turmeric is added in some households.

What is the most important thing to get right in Gotu Kola Sambola?

Fill a large bowl with cold water. Lift them out rather than pouring the water off. The last water should be completely clear.