Vegan Serendib:
Recipes from Sri Lanka
Buy the Book: Vegan Serendib is available in hardcover and paperback, and can be found online at Amazon! Please contact your bookstores and libraries to request that they carry it!
You can also order directly from us! We’re happy to offer you signed / personalized editions, as well as the exclusive paperback edition.
Listed in Food Network’s 10 Best New Vegan Cookbooks!
“I must begin this with a confession; I am not actually vegan. I’m not even vegetarian. Which begs the question — why would I write a vegan cookbook?”
Vegan Serendib is for everyone who wants to explore Sri Lankan vegan cuisine, whether you’re vegan or not. In these pages you’ll find an exciting and wildly varied cuisine, with a multitude of preparations for vegetables, fruits, even flowers. You’ll learn how to make a master recipe for roasted curry powder, and how to prepare seasoned onions to infuse your dishes with added flavor. You’ll be invited to try a host of traditional preparations, which make up the bulk of the book, and also a few newer dishes, using ingredients that wouldn’t have been available on the island in the old days. Vegan Serendib will help make cooking and eating vegan cuisine easy, adventurous, fun, and most of all, fabulously delicious!
In her newest cookbook Vegan Serendib, Mary Anne Mohanraj celebrates two thousand years of the rich vegetarian and vegan culinary tradition of the island of Sri Lanka. With over 40 newly developed recipes and all of your favorite vegan dishes from Feast, Vegan Serendib is for everyone who wants to explore Sri Lankan vegan cuisine, whether a vegan or not.
Check out our gallery of food photos from throughout the cookbook!
If you’d like to support the development of more mostly Sri Lankan recipes, I’d love to have you join the cookbook club — for $2 / month, you’ll get recipes delivered to your inbox (fairly) regularly: https://www.patreon.com/mohanraj
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Serendib Kitchen blog: http://serendibkitchen.com
Serendib Kitchen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serendib_kitchen/
Serendib FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/132029834135500/
Serendib FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/mohanrajserendib/
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We come together with other Sri Lankans—homelander and diaspora, Sinhalese and Tamil, Buddhist and Hindu and Christian and Muslim—over delicious shared meals. Sri Lanka has been a multi-ethnic society for over two thousand years, with neighbors of different ethnicities, languages, religions, living side by side. We try to teach our children to be welcoming to all, to share our unique cultural traditions. That is part of what it means to be Sri Lankan, what it has always meant.
Dark roasted curry powder, a fine attention to the balance of salty-sour-sweet, wholesome red rice and toasted curry leaves, plenty of coconut milk and chili heat. These are the flavors of Sri Lanka, a South Asian island at the crossroads of centuries of migration and trade.
Can we choose the good parts of our culture to cherish, and leave the darker aspects behind? I hope so. I hope food can help provide a pathway there. Come together at our table, sharing coconut milk rice and pol sambol, paruppu and jackfruit curry. Linger over the chai—just one more cup. Eat, drink, and share joy.
In Vegan Serendib, novelist and post-colonial academic Mary Anne Mohanraj introduces her mother’s cooking and her own American adaptations, providing an introduction to Sri Lankan American vegan cooking that is straightforward enough for a beginner, yet nuanced enough to capture the unique flavors of Sri Lankan cuisine.
Table of Contents
MASTER RECIPES
Master Recipe: Sri Lankan Curry Powder
Master Recipe: Seasoned Onions
SAVORY ENTREES
Curry (cooked in coconut milk)
Beet Curry
Bottle Gourd and Spinach Curry
Carrot Curry
Cashew Curry / Kaju Kari
Drumstick Curry / Murungakkai Kari
Eggplant Curry / Kaththarikkai Kari
Eggplant, Plantain, and Potato Curry / Kaliya Kari
Fried Garlic Curry / Poritha Ulli Kari
Green Chili Curry / Kari Milaggai Kari
Green Mango Curry / Maankai Kari
Green Jackfruit Curry / Palakkai Kari
Green Tomato and Lentil Curry
Hibiscus (Shoeflower) Curry / Sembaruthipoo Kari
Mild Green Plantain Curry
Okra Curry / Vendikkai Kari
Pineapple Curry with Coconut Milk and Saffron
Pumpkin Curry
Ripe Jackfruit Curry / Palapazham Kari
Spicy Plantain Curry
Deviled (fried with cayenne, tomato, and onions)
Deviled Potatoes / Urulai Kizhangu
Poriyal (fried with seasoned onions)
Asparagus Poriyal
Brussels Sprouts Poriyal
Cauliflower Poriyal
Dried Hibiscus Poriyal
Eggplant, Potato, and Pea Pod Poriyal
Jaffna Whole Eggplant Fry / Yaalpana Kaththarikaii Poriyal
Mixed Vegetable Poriyal
Tempered (cooked, mixed with seasoned onions)
Tempered Lentils / Paruppu
Tempered Potatoes
Varai (steamed or stir-fried with coconut)
Broccoli Varai
Cabbage Varai / Muttaikoss Varai
Green Bean Varai
Lime-Masala Mushrooms
Marinated Ginger-Garlic Tofu
(with Seitan and Tempeh Variations)
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Jaggery, Balsamic, & Cayenne
Vegetable and Lentil Stew / Sambar
ACCOMPANIMENTS, SALADS, and SNACKS
Bonda
Chili-Mango Cashews / Kari-Maankai Kaju
Lentil Patties / Kadalai Vadai
Stir-fried Chickpea Snack / Kadalai Sundal
Vegetable Cutlets
Cucumber Salad
Pickled Beet Salad
Rose (or Hibiscus) Salad / Rosappu Pachadi
Chutneys
Cranberry Rhubarb Chutney
Green Coconut Chutney / Thengai Chutney
Green Tomato Chutney with Apples
Mango-Ginger Chutney
Bitter Gourd Sambol / Paavakkai Sambol
Chili Onion Sambol / Lunu Miris Sambol
Coconut Sambol / Thengai-Poo, or Pol Sambol
Eggplant Sambol / Kaththarikkai Sambol
Ginger Sambol / Injii Sambol
Kale Sambol
Plantain Sambol
Rose Sambol
Sweet Onion Sambol / Seeni Sambol
Eggplant Pickle / Brinjal Moju
Lime Pickle
Mango Pickle / Maankai Oorukkai
Quick-Pickled Cucumber-Carrot Relish
Spicy Pineapple Pickle / Achar
Cucumber-Tomato Raita
Leeks Fried with Chili
Spiced Tomato Jam / Thakkaali Yaam
SOUPS
Coconut Milk Gravy / Sothi
Coriander Soup / Kothamalli Rasam
Curried Pumpkin Soup
Herbal Porridge / Kola Kenda
GRAINS
Biryani
Golden Rice Pilaf
Hoppers / Appam
Jaggery Pongal / Sakkarai Pongal
Kundu Thosai / Paniyaram
Milk Rice / Kiri Bath (with Bottle Gourd Variation)
Millet Roti, with Coconut and Jaggery / Kurakkan Roti
Red Rice Congee
Roti, Plain / Kothambu Roti
Roti Stir-Fry, Chopped / Kottu Roti
Savory Rice Pancakes / Thosai
Spinach Pittu / Keerai Pittu
Steamed Rice Cakes / Idli
Steamed Rice Flour and Coconut / Arisi-Maa Pittu
Steamed Rice Flour and Coconut with Milk / Pal Pittu
Stir-Fried Semolina / Uppuma
Stringhoppers / Idiyappam
Stringhopper Biryani / Idiyappam Biryani
Tamarind Rice with Black Lentils
BEVERAGES
Beet Juice with Coconut Milk and Lime
Chai
Cocktails
Falooda
Mango Lassi
Mango-Passionfruit Punch or Mimosa
Fresh Sweet Lime Juice / Thesikkai Saaru
Spiced Yogurt Drink / Moru Thanni
SWEETS
Coconut Rock / Coconut Ice
Kokis
Love Cake
Purple Yam Pudding or Porridge / Irasavalli Kizhangu Kanji
Rich Cake (Wedding / Christmas Cake)
Sesame Balls / Ellu Urundai / Thala Guli
Sweet Coconut Steamed Appams / Halapa
Sweet Thosai / Inippu Thosai
Tropical Fruit Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing
Tropical Fruit with Chili, Salt, and Lime