Harischandra Instant Hopper Mixture is a dry flour blend designed to take the effort out of making hoppers — the thin, bowl-shaped rice and coconut milk pancakes that appear on Sri Lankan breakfast and dinner tables as a matter of course. The 400g pack comes from Harischandra Mills PLC, a food processing company founded in 1943 and based in Matara, Sri Lanka, whose instant products have long made traditional cooking more accessible for home kitchens anywhere in the world.
The mixture contains rice flour, wheat flour, salt, yeast improver, and sugar — nothing more. There is no coconut milk powder in the pack; instead, the recipe calls for fresh or tinned coconut milk, added by the cook in two stages. This approach preserves the characteristic flavour that comes from real coconut milk rather than a powder substitute, and the yeast improver in the blend means the batter needs only a short resting period before it is ready to cook.
Preparation is straightforward. The entire contents of the pack go into a bowl, and two tea cups (roughly 350ml) of coconut milk — the thinner second extract — are stirred in to form a thick dough. After fifteen minutes the dough loosens with the addition of another one and a half tea cups (roughly 265ml) of the richer first-extract coconut milk, and after a further fifteen minutes the batter is ready. The result is cooked in a small, round-walled pan that gives each hopper its characteristic deep, slightly crisp edge and soft centre.
Hoppers are most commonly served alongside curries, sambols, or a freshly cooked egg cracked directly into the hopper as it sets — the egg hopper being a fixture of the Sri Lankan table. The mix works equally well for anyone recreating a Sri Lankan meal abroad, where sourcing the ready-made batter is not practical. Store the unopened pack in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight.
The pack is available as a single 400g unit or as a set of three packs, which is a practical choice for households that prepare hoppers regularly or for anyone stocking up for a larger gathering.
