Milk Rice (කිරිබත්) – The Food With A Hidden Story

The name “Kiribath” originated as “Kiri” referred to Milk and “Bath” referred to Rice. It’s considered a meal that is served at every auspicious moment, which symbolizes prosperity. Kiribath is mainly eaten with “Lunumiris”, spicy onion relish, and sometimes with jaggery as well.

Kiribath is prepared by cooking raw rice with coconut milk, the two main ingredients of Sri Lankan cuisine. Traditionally, it’s made with short-grain white or red rice known as “Kekulu hal”, due to its fast cooking ability and stickiness. In the traditional method, it’s made in a clay pot known as “Muttiya” on a firewood hearth. If it’s cooking for a special occasion like the new year, Sri Lankans use a fresh clay pot instead of a used one to showcase a fresh start. 

As most of you know, while milking we separate the coconut milk as 1st (thick milk), 2nd, and 3rd (thin/diluted milk) for cooking. In this recipe, we use thick coconut milk for extra creaminess and texture.  After cooking, typically we laid the cooked rice mixture on a banana leaf and flattened it to cut it into square/diamond shapes, where you can add the aroma and flavors of the leaf to enhance the properties of Kiribath. 

Nowadays, you can see several changes in making Kiribath. The most prominent one is buying ingredients. Although we used to grow paddy and coconut as a family tradition, due to the lack of farming and resources, most of us tend to buy them in grocery stores.  Apart from that, most Sri Lankans who live abroad use Basmati or some other types of sticky rice instead of Kekulu hal. Likewise, due to the unavailability of fresh coconut and coconut scrappers (Hiramanaya), they used to cook this with canned coconut milk or milk made with coconut milk powder. 

Moreover, people tend to use either a rice cooker or a metal pot on gas or electric burners instead of the traditional Muttiya, due to the unavailability of firewood or clay pots. The cost of living of Sri Lankans also made a huge impact in buying new clay pots over and over again for special days like New Year’s thus the traditional practices are slowly fading away from the society. Another change that took place is the cooked sticky rice is laid on cutting boards, trays, or plates instead of banana leaves due to the lack of banana leaves. 

When you look into the history of Kiribath, it’s still unknown, and the only known mention in stories where Lord Buddha was offered a bowl as his last meal before gaining enlightenment. Also, there’re stories about eating Kiribath kings in ancient times without an indication of who invented it.

This delicious food is mainly associated with Sri Lankan new year “Aluth Awurudda” (14th April), which celebrates the paddy harvest and makes the first offering to lord Buddha or gods as thanks. On this day, Sri Lankans wait till the auspicious time set by astrologists to eat Kiribath as their first food of the new year. The speciality is that everybody in the country eats at the same time accompanied by a variety of sweet dishes. There are many more occasions when we eat Kiribath, such as birthdays, weddings, and moving into a new house where it becomes the first food to make and most people do it at an auspicious time.

You might be amazed to hear that it’s the first meal babies have during the transition from breast milk to solid food around six months. Don’t worry, they don’t actually eat as we do. We just symbolize with a tiny bit of rice in their mouths. It’s also the main dish in certain religious offerings known as “Dane”. Apart from all these occasions, we are fond of eating milk rice as a fulfilling breakfast. I remember my mother used to make Kiribath on the first day of every month and it’s like a food calendar to me, therefore for us it was a family tradition. Unfortunately, nowadays with our busy schedules, we can’t continue that as a tradition. Having said that, I always try to find excuses to enjoy this delicious food as much as possible.

As you all know, we are so creative and we just don’t eat as it is, but create more recipes out of one. Kiribath is one such base food we used to create many more recipes such as Mung Kiribath (Made by mixing Mung dhal), Labu Kiribath (Made by mixing Labu aka bottle gourd) and Imbul Kiribath (Made by filling spicy onion relish or sweet coconut chutney and molding it into a cylindrical shape.

I hope after reading this interesting story about Kiribath, you might want to try making it, therefore I’m going to share my easy Kiribath recipe, Milk Rice (කිරිබත්) – A Traditional Breakfast In A Convenient Way with you. I hope you will fall in love with this traditional Sri Lankan vegan and gluten-friendly food recipe.