Lakpura Nelli is the small, round fruit of the nelli tree, known in English as Indian gooseberry and across much of South Asia as amla. It is a familiar fruit in Sri Lankan home gardens, where the tree is grown for its crop, and it is prized in the kitchen for its sharp, bracing taste.
Each fruit is a pale green to greenish-yellow sphere with faint vertical lines running from top to bottom, dividing the skin into shallow segments. The fruit is fleshy, with a few seeds at its centre. The flavour is sour and astringent first, with a bitter edge, and a sweetness that tends to show itself afterwards, especially once you drink a little water.
Because the fruit stays tart even when ripe, it is seldom eaten plainly out of hand. In Sri Lankan and wider South Asian kitchens it is more often turned into pickles with salt, oil and spice, cooked into jams and chutneys, or candied in sugar syrup and eaten as a sweet.
Nelli is the Sinhala name for the fruit of Phyllanthus emblica, which grows wild in the forests bordering the island's intermediate zone as well as in cultivation. Bought as whole fruit, it gives you a free hand to make your own pickle, preserve or relish in the Sri Lankan way.
