Sri Lankan eggplant salad is a quick and easy recipe. Deep fried pieces of eggplant are tossed in mustard vinaigrette and is a great side dish.
What is Sri Lankan Eggplant Sambol?
Sri Lankan eggplant salad is a mixture of deep fried eggplant cubes, onion and green chilies dressed with a mustard vinaigrette. A quick Google search this morning enlightened me to the fact that Sri Lankan eggplant salad is a fancy name for eggplant sambol and wambatu is eggplant/brinjal. Someone correct me, if I am wrong.
The reason I chose Sri Lankan cuisine is pork curry, which was on my to try list for a long time. Second, I misread the theme and assumed one has to do same cuisine for all 3 days. So I planned a meal with all Sri Lankan dishes. This was soon after I came back from India and had a big photographer’s block. Photos from that shoot were terrible and only decent picture is this.
Unhappy with the photos, prepared the meal again with a slight change in the menu. This time. time consuming pork curry was out and an easy eggplant salad was in. Though I changed the menu, I am quite happy with today’s dish, except for the photos.
Ingredients
The basic ingredients for the salad are deep fried eggplant pieces, onion, green chilies, vinegar and mustard powder. And of course salt. Cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers are optional and to be honest, I liked the salad with the basic ingredients and did not care much for the cucumber in this salad.
Theme of the Week – Global Cuisine
The last recipe for this week’s global cuisine is Sri Lankan eggplant salad or eggplant sambol. The other two dishes for this theme are dhal curry and kale mallung.
Sri Lankan Eggplant Salad ~ Wambatu Sambol Recipe
Sri Lankan Eggplant Salad
Ingredients
To Deep Fry Eggplant
- 250 grams or medium sized Eggplant
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Turmeric Powder
- ½ tsp Chili Powder
- Oil for deep frying
Vinaigrette
- ½ tsp Rice Wine Vinegar
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Mustard Powder
Remaining Salad Ingredients
- 1 small Green Chili seeded and finely chopped
- ¼ cup chopped Red Onions
- 2 tbsp chopped Cucumber
Instructions
- Wash eggplant and cut into ¾ – 1” cubes.
- Season eggplant with salt, turmeric and chili powder. Keep aside for 10 minutes.
- Heat oil for deep frying.
- Deep fry eggplant cubes until crisp. Drain on paper towels until ready to use.
- Prepare vinaigrette by mixing together, vinegar, salt and mustard powder.
- Just before serving, in a bowl take eggplant cubes, chopped onion, green chilies and optional veggies.
- Pour vinaigrette and toss to mix everything well.
- Serve immediately. Though this is a salad, it is served as a side dish with rice.
Notes
- Optional vegetables – Chopped tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers are optional. I personally didn’t care much for the cucumber in this salad and liked it better without it.
- Variety of eggplants – When using long brinjal, Chinese or Japanese eggplants, either slice into circles or thin strips.
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Rafeeda - The Big Sweet Tooth says
I remember making the Vambatu Moju for the Sinhalese cuisine, and this is was the first and only time we licked the whole brinjal off the bowl, otherwise it is a much hated vegetable in our house! Hehe… this salad sounds delicious, especially because of the fried brinjals, they always taste better…
MySpicyKitchen says
Brinjal is not a favorite even at my home. Usually I end up eating it by myself. I looked at moju recipe as well and keeping in mind that I might bet he only one eating, went with an easy recipe.
harini says
I couldn’t make out that it was egg plant salad looking at the pictures. Very interesting way to serve eggplant, Usha.
MySpicyKitchen says
I was surprised how good it tastes. I loved it.
Priya Suresh says
Am yet to try this salad which is sitting still in my bookmarks, and am sure this salad will definitely please everyone at home. Lovely platter there.
Srividhya Gopalakrishnan says
I think we all go through that photographer block. I do have a few recipes just sitting. Need to retry. This salad is amazing and I have already bookmarked. The entire world knows how much I love eggplant. 😉 😉
MySpicyKitchen says
🙂
Pavani says
Oh my Usha, that eggplant salad looks sooo good. I am definitely going to be trying this delicious eggplant salad soon.
Gayathri Kumar says
This is a very unique way of making salad with eggplant. I love eggplant in any Avatar. This deep fried eggplant salad sounds so delicious.
Chef Mireille says
what an interesting salad – you can see the influence of central asian cuisine on Sri Lanka with the ingredients used
Sushma Pinjala says
This eggplant salad looks so nice and yummy.
Sandhya Ramakrishnan says
That is such a different recipe for a salad. I love eggplant, but have never thought about using it in a salad. Bookmarking to try it soon Usha!
Srivalli Jetti says
This is surely a different take on a salad right, sounds interesting. Photographer’s block is not something I would associate with your pictures usha, all of them look so classic and pretty..:)