A sweet that draws white lace on oil
On the day you make aasmi, what you watch first, though it is a fried dish, is not the bubbles but the thin white lines. Let rice-flour batter fall from between your fingers and wavering lines spread across the surface of the hot oil, forming a thin net within a few dozen seconds. Fold it over, and small white lace pieces stack up on the plate. Finally, draw thin lines of pink syrup, and at last it looks like a Sri Lankan celebration sweet.
Aasmi, written ආස්මි in Sinhala and Aasmi in English, is a traditional Sri Lankan sweet. It is described as a sweet fried treat served at the Sinhala and Tamil New Year table, at weddings and on birthdays. A rice flour and coconut milk batter has the juice of cinnamon leaf, called dawul kurundu locally, added to give it stickiness, and the batter is then dropped in thin streams into oil.
What is hard when you make it at home is not the ingredients themselves but "stickiness" and "oil temperature." Dawul kurundu leaves are hard to find, so this article uses okra mucilage. Okra is sometimes used as a substitute in local recipes too, and in a home kitchen it is the most realistic choice. If the batter is too loose the lines break, and if too thick they become white lumps. If the oil is too low it turns greasy, and if too high it colors before it becomes a net.
If bibikkan is a heavy baked sweet of jaggery and coconut, aasmi is lighter, a sweet in which you can see the movement of the hands. Like kiribath and hoppers it has rice and coconut as its base, but the texture is something else entirely. As a sweet plate for a celebration, it goes well broken into small pieces with tea.
What to protect: a white batter of rice flour and coconut milk, stickiness that keeps the lines thin, frying once and resting, then frying again to make it light, and drawing dark syrup in lines at the end. The aroma of dawul kurundu can't be fully reproduced, but okra stickiness raises how reliably the shape comes out.
What kind of sweet is aasmi?
Aasmi is a sweet in which a batter of rice flour and coconut milk is dropped thin into oil and fried into a net. In Lakpura's explanation it is a sweet served at the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, weddings and birthdays, using rice flour, coconut milk and the juice of dawul kurundu leaves, and the flow is shown as resting, frying twice, and pouring on colored syrup.
What matters here is that aasmi is not just a "fried crepe." The thinner the lines dropped in the oil, the more holes there are, and the double fry lightens it. Pour the batter thick and the look is similar, but on the first bite it is chewy and heavy. White, light, and full of holes: when these three come together, you get close to the texture of aasmi.
| What to protect | Local ingredient or method | Practical method at home |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | Fine rice flour | Rice flour for baking. If using joshinko-type regular rice flour, sift it first |
| Liquid | Coconut milk | Thick canned coconut milk |
| Stickiness | Juice of dawul kurundu leaves | Mucilage from okra rubbed in water |
| Shape | A special perforated tool, or fingers | Fingers, a piping bag or a fine-spouted bottle |
| Finish | Colored syrup | Made with sugar, water and a little food coloring |
A special funnel makes it easy to drop the lines, but at home dropping from between your fingers is the easiest way to start. You're working over hot oil, so on a first try, don't aim for a large circle; make it small, around 14 cm in diameter. Even if the shape is somewhat uneven, it succeeds if there are many holes and the oil drains well.
This recipe uses rice flour, coconut, okra, sugar, food coloring and frying oil. Rice flour and food coloring may be made on lines that handle wheat, dairy and nuts, so if you have allergies, check the labels. Frying oil is handled at 165°C or higher, so keep your hands and clothing from getting too near the oil surface, and in a kitchen with children, set the pot toward the back.
Ingredients (makes 8 pieces)
This makes 8 pieces of aasmi, each 14 to 16 cm across. Making them large from the first time makes folding hard, so keep them small. Traditionally there are methods in which the once-fried pieces rest for several days before being fried again, but for a one-day job at home, rest 30 minutes or more to let the surface settle before the second fry.
Where to draw the line on substitutes
| Ingredient in question | Why it is used | Limits of the substitute |
|---|---|---|
| Dawul kurundu leaves | Gives the batter stickiness and keeps the lines | Hard to find outside Sri Lanka. Okra mucilage puts the shape first |
| Okra | The mucilage makes the batter easy to drop in threads | Too much leaves a green aroma, so use only the extracted liquid |
| Coconut milk | The whiteness and aroma of the rice flour, and lightness when fried | With cow's milk or soy milk the aroma is something else |
| Food coloring | Makes the lines look like a celebration sweet | Optional. Does not affect flavor |
What to look at when shopping
With aasmi, three things change the failure rate: rice flour, coconut milk and oil temperature. Sugar and okra are fine from any local store, but for rice flour look at the fineness of the grain, and for coconut milk the thickness of the cooking kind. A deep-frying thermometer is most useful for a sweet with lines this thin.
The finer the rice flour, the thinner the lines fall and the less the holes clog. When using regular rice flour, sifting it once through a strainer reduces large grains and makes it less likely to break on the oil.
Use canned cooking coconut milk. With a thin drink-type, only the aroma of the rice flour comes forward, and the sweet, fatty aroma of Sri Lankan sweets weakens.
Aasmi is a sweet with a narrow range of oil temperature. Below 165°C it soaks up oil, and near 180°C the lines color before they set white. Without a thermometer, use as a guide the state in which a small drop of batter immediately gives off fine bubbles but doesn't turn brown.
Why it fails and how to fix it
You can tell a lot about aasmi failures from the shape. Few holes means the batter is thick or the lines dropped are thick. Tearing means too much water or folding too early. Oiliness means the temperature is low. Before changing the flavor, first fix the batter thickness and oil temperature.
| Condition | Cause | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Lines are thick with few holes | The batter is thick, or too much was dropped from the fingers | Add 2 tsp water and move your fingers in smaller motions |
| Lines break in the oil | Not enough stickiness, or too much water | Add 2 tsp okra mucilage. Mix in 2 tsp rice flour |
| The white net tears | Folded too early, or the net is too thin | Wait 20 seconds before folding. Overlap the lines a little more |
| Oily and heavy | The oil temperature is low | Bring it back to 165°C before frying the next one |
| Yellow and hard | The oil is too hot, or it was fried too long | Lower below 170°C and shorten the second fry |
| The syrup sets and crushes the white net | Boiled down too far | Add 1 tsp hot water and return to low heat |
| A green aroma remains | Okra pieces got in | Use only the mucilage and don't put in chopped okra |
The easiest thing to fix on a first try is adjusting the batter a little for each piece. Before putting it all in the oil, make one small test net. Looking at whether the lines connect on a net about 5 cm wide, whether the holes remain, and whether it soaks up oil steadies the real 8 pieces.
Local ways of eating it and tying it into a menu
Aasmi is less a deep-fried food eaten hot than a celebration sweet cooled and then drawn with sweet lines. Resting it about 10 minutes until the syrup settles on the surface keeps syrup off your hands when you break it. With strong Ceylon tea, milk tea or unsweetened black tea, the sugar sweetness doesn't feel heavy.
Thinking of a Sri Lankan celebration meal, it is natural for the morning to be kiribath with lunu miris, and aasmi as the sweet plate. As a dessert, serving it broken into small pieces after kukul mas curry, fragrant with coconut and curry leaves, or kottu, chopped on a griddle, changes the afterglow of the table.
For those used to Southeast Asian rice-flour sweets, comparing with Thailand's khanom tan (in Japanese) is easy to understand. Khanom tan is steamed and fluffy, and aasmi is fried to make holes. Both use the aroma of rice and palm, but aasmi, drawing lines over oil, shows the expression of handwork more clearly.
Storage and making ahead
Store the aasmi with syrup only after it is completely dry. Stacked while damp, the white net goes soft and the holes collapse. Put it in a single layer in a storage container lined with parchment paper; in a cool place plan on the same day to the next day, and in the refrigerator 2 days.
Refrigeration firms the fat and makes the texture a little heavier. Take it out 20 minutes before eating to come to room temperature, and if humidity is a concern, don't use a toaster oven; dry it for just 3 minutes in a low oven at 100°C (210°F). The strong top heat of a toaster tends to scorch only the syrup, so avoid it.
Twice-fried aasmi before the syrup can be stored with paper between until the next day. For guests, finishing through the second fry the day before and drawing the syrup on the day of serving gives a cleaner look. Freezing doesn't work: frost gets into the holes and it turns sticky after thawing.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make it without dawul kurundu leaves?
Yes. The local aroma will be weaker, but okra mucilage is the realistic choice for getting the shape. If you don't put in okra pieces and use only the mucilage, the green aroma is greatly reduced. If you want to add a little aroma, mix a tiny pinch of cinnamon powder into the syrup, not the batter.
I'm afraid to drop it into the oil with my fingers.
Use a fine-tipped piping bag, a dressing bottle, or a thick bag with a small hole cut. But a large hole makes the lines thick. At first, keep about 15 cm from the oil surface and don't hold your hand over the pot for long. There are hot steam and oil spatters, so avoid wet hands and tools with water droplets on them.
Do I need to rest it for several days after the first fry?
There are explanations that traditionally it rests before the second fry, but at home it can also be made on the same day. This recipe rests 30 minutes, drains the surface oil, and then fries a second time. If you leave it for days, humidity and oily smells become issues, so you need a dry place and clean paper.
Is food coloring necessary?
Not necessary. A clear, uncolored syrup tastes good too. Use red the size of a toothpick tip only when you want the look of a celebration sweet. More coloring doesn't improve the flavor and tends to look artificial, so use a little.
Can I make it with wheat flour in place of rice flour?
I don't recommend it. Wheat flour's gluten makes the lines heavy and light holes hard to get. On a day when you really don't have rice flour, postpone the work and get rice flour for baking or regular rice flour. The whiteness and lightness of aasmi come closer with rice flour.
What frying oil should I use?
Rice bran oil, canola oil or neutral vegetable oil are easy to use at home. Coconut oil has a strong aroma and is hard to manage by temperature, so avoid it the first time. Oil after frying has fine fragments of rice flour left in it, so cool it, strain it, and use it up soon in stir-fries.
Sources
- Lakpura "Aasmi (ආස්මි)": Checked the ingredients, dawul kurundu, the okra substitute, the double fry and the flow of colored syrup.
- Lakpura "Lakpura Aasmi": Checked the description of the Avurudu table, rice flour and coconut milk, and the lace-like texture.
- FoodVoyageur "Aasmi Recipe": Referred to the home formulation using okra extract and the handling of syrup.
