This coconut sambal contains really nice and healthy ingredients like fresh coconut, lemon, shallots, red chilli and fresh curry leaves making it such a flavoursome side dish. Delicious!
Shred the coconut and the best tool it’s using a coconut shredder but if you don't have that you can grate it on the small grater or use a food processor to get it to a gritty couscous size and texture.
Toast the red chillies for 1-2 min tossing them in a pan over medium heat. I do not add any oil but feel free to do so if you wish.
Whizz the toasted chillies into a food processor. These should be done separately while nice and dry so they don’t get moist with the other ingredients.
Peel and chop the shallots roughy and add together with the curry leaves to the toasted whizzed already red chillies in the food processor. Give these a good whizz until they get to a gritty texture and the size of a fine couscous.
Into a larger bowl bring all the ingredients together and mix well, add the lemon juice, the salt and some freshly ground pepper to taste. Some add sugar, 1 teaspoon or so, but I never do. I do not find that necessary.
Notes
dry red chillies can also be replaced with red chilli flakes or even fresh chillies - don’t forget to toast these too ;-)!
shallots can be replaced with red onion or regular brown or yellow onion; shallots are the best if you can get them as they are a lot tastier.
curry leaves are not so easy to find in general supermarkets but if you have any Asian store around, these will surely be sold there. You may be able to find the dry ones but they are nothing like the fresh ones so if you cannot find them at all use parsley or coriander (cilantro).