I felt like a relatively light dinner tonight, and a simple vegan meal of coconut milk rice, cauliflower poriyal, and pol (coconut) sambol hit the spot! (Coconut two ways…)
I give you lots of photos of pol sambol, because I make it ALL THE TIME, and so I HAVE lots of photos of it. 
*****
Coconut Sambol / Thengai-Poo or Pol Sambol
(10 minutes, serves 8.)
This is meant to be an accompaniment—make a batch (it keeps for weeks in the fridge) and then put a teaspoon or two on your plate with your rice/bread and curries. In Sri Lanka, they would just use straight up chili powder, instead of a mix of chili powder and paprika, which would make it fiercely spicy. If I were only going to make one accompaniment for the rest of my life, pol sambol would be my choice, although seeni sambol would be a very close second.
1 cup desiccated unsweetened coconut
3 TBL hot milk (I heat mine in the microwave)
1 rounded tsp salt
1 rounded tsp chili powder
2 rounded tsp paprika
2-3 TBL lime juice, to taste
1 medium onion, minced fine
1. Reconstitute coconut in a large bowl with the hot milk. I recommend using your fingers to squeeze the milk through the coconut. (If you can get fresh or frozen grated coconut, that is, of course, even better, and you can skip this step.)
2. Add salt, chili powder, paprika, lime juice, and onion. Mix thoroughly with your hand, rubbing ingredients together until well blended.
Note: If you don’t feel that your onion is minced sufficiently fine (ideally, to match the texture of the coconut), you can use a food processor to chop it more finely, or grind it with a mortar and pestle. You can grind just the onions, or the whole mixture.
*****
