Gotu Kola Sambol

Recipe From Sri Lanka That Is Green And Tangy

Gotu kola sambol is made with a single leafy green that goes by a dozen different names depending on where you find it: gotu kola, Centella asiatica, Indian pennywort, Brahmi, or rau ma if you're shopping at a Vietnamese grocery store. In Sri Lanka, this salad green shows up as a side dish, valued as much for being considered a healthy, nutrient-dense herb as for how it tastes. The leaf itself belongs to the same botanical family as parsley, its flavour sits in a similar spot, with a mild, slightly bitter, faintly sweet herbaceousness that's far gentler than parsley's own punch, and that happily absorbs whatever else gets mixed in with it. That absorbent quality is really the whole trick behind a good gotu kola sambol salad, and the leaves act as a base that carries the citrus from lime, the sweetness and creaminess from fresh coconut, a savoury hit from Maldivian fish flakes, and a little heat from fresh green chilli. It is important to get the gotu kola leaves are sliced well and since it changes how the salad tastes. Finely slicing the leaves, rather than roughly chopping them, releases more of their flavour and lets them mix more evenly through the coconut and other finely diced ingredients. The leaves also need to be handled delicately so they don’t get crushed while being mixed with the other ingredients.