[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":418},["ShallowReactive",2],{"recipe:kottu-roti":3,"recipe:country:sri-lanka":209},{"slug":4,"title":5,"nativeName":6,"pronunciation":7,"countrySlug":8,"region":9,"emoji":10,"summary":11,"intro":12,"story":13,"whyThis":14,"tips":19,"substitutions":26,"variations":39,"serveWith":49,"storage":51,"faq":52,"equipment":68,"baseServings":72,"prepMinutes":73,"cookMinutes":74,"difficulty":75,"course":76,"diet":78,"mainIngredients":79,"ingredients":85,"instructions":161,"nutrition":189,"images":196,"keywords":200,"publishedAt":207,"updatedAt":207,"authorSlug":208},"kottu-roti","Kottu Roti (Sri Lankan Chopped Flatbread Stir-Fry)","කොත්තු රොටී","KOT-too ROH-tee","sri-lanka","Colombo and the West Coast","🥘","Sri Lanka's late-night griddle dish: flatbread chopped into ribbons with egg, leeks, curry meat and roasted spice, then loosened with a ladle of hot curry gravy.","Kottu roti is what happens when flatbread is treated as a stir-fry ingredient. Soft godhamba roti is thrown onto a hot steel plate with onion, leek, carrot, egg and shredded curry meat, then hacked apart with two blunt metal blades until the bread is in ragged ribbons that have absorbed everything around them. A ladle of curry gravy goes over at the end so the whole mass turns glossy and savoury rather than dry. It tastes of dark roasted curry powder, hot fat, egg and chile, with chewy bread edges and crisp bits where the roti caught the plate. Nobody eats it for elegance; it is filling, fast, loud and slightly greasy in the way good late food should be.","Kottu is a young dish by Sri Lankan standards. It grew out of the Muslim-run eating houses of the Eastern Province and Batticaloa in the middle of the twentieth century as a way to use up yesterday's roti and last night's curry, and it moved west into Colombo with the rest of the country's street trade. Within a couple of generations it went from thrift food to the most recognisable thing the island cooks after dark, sold from open-fronted shops where the griddle faces the street on purpose.\n\nThe sound is not incidental. Cooks work two flat metal blades against a steel plate in a fast alternating rhythm, and skilled ones swing into syncopation and drum patterns that carry two streets away — the clatter is advertising, and regulars can tell one shop from another by its beat. Order kottu and you are also ordering an approximate three minutes of percussion, which is why Sri Lankans abroad describe missing the noise as much as the food.\n\nWhat goes in is entirely negotiable and that is the dish's logic: vegetable kottu, egg kottu, chicken, mutton, fish, or cheese kottu for people who grew up on it and want it richer. The one non-negotiable is gravy. A kottu served dry is considered badly made, and shops keep a pot of thin curry sauce beside the plate to pour on at the last second so the bread drinks it up. The blade-chopping matters too: shredding roti with a knife on a board gives neat strips, but chopping it hot on the griddle tears the bread unevenly, and those torn edges are what soak up sauce and crisp against the metal. At home you can get remarkably close with a wide steel pan, two stiff turners and the willingness to be aggressive.",[15,16,17,18],"Uses shop-bought paratha or leftover roti, so the dish is a twenty-minute weeknight cook rather than a two-stage project.","Keeps the gravy step that home versions usually drop — it is the difference between real kottu and dry chopped bread.","Two-turner chopping technique explained properly, including why you tear the roti on the heat instead of slicing it cold.","Scales down to a home burner without losing the char, by cooking in a wide pan and resisting the urge to overload it.",[20,21,22,23,24,25],"Use day-old roti or paratha. Fresh-from-the-pan bread is too soft and turns pasty when chopped; slightly dry bread tears into ribbons and stays chewy.","Get the pan properly hot before anything goes in. Kottu is a high-heat dish — a lukewarm pan steams the vegetables and the bread goes soggy.","Chop with two stiff metal turners, not a knife. Hold one in each hand and work them alternately against the pan base; the uneven tears are the point.","Cook in two batches if your pan is under 30 cm. Overcrowding drops the heat and you will never get the crisp caught edges.","Add the gravy only in the last thirty seconds, off the boil, so the bread absorbs it without collapsing into porridge.","Taste before you salt — curry powder, soy sauce and the curry gravy all bring salt, and kottu tips into oversalted very easily.",[27,31,35],{"original":28,"swap":29,"note":30},"Godhamba roti","Frozen Malaysian-style paratha, Indian lachha paratha, or flour tortillas at a pinch","Frozen paratha is the closest widely available stand-in — cook it, cool it, then chop. Tortillas work but are drier and give less chew.",{"original":32,"swap":33,"note":34},"Sri Lankan roasted curry powder","Ordinary curry powder toasted in a dry pan for 2 minutes until it darkens and smells nutty","Not identical, but roasting is what separates Sri Lankan curry flavour from Indian, so toasting an ordinary blend gets you most of the way.",{"original":36,"swap":37,"note":38},"Leftover chicken curry and its gravy","Shredded cooked chicken plus 250 ml of thin coconut-milk gravy made from stock, coconut milk and curry powder","The quick gravy in the ingredient list is built exactly for this — kottu was invented for leftovers, but you should not have to make a curry first.",[40,43,46],{"name":41,"description":42},"Egg kottu","The default order in most shops: no meat, but three or four eggs scrambled straight into the bread so the whole thing turns rich and slightly custardy.",{"name":44,"description":45},"Cheese kottu","A Colombo invention that locals either love or refuse — processed cheese melted through the mix at the end, turning it stringy and heavy.",{"name":47,"description":48},"Dolphin kottu","Nothing to do with dolphins: the roti is chopped much finer, almost to crumbs, and bound with extra egg and gravy into a softer, wetter mass.",[50],"A small bowl of extra curry gravy on the side, plus pol sambol or a sharp lime pickle to cut the fat.","Kottu is a dish to eat immediately — the bread keeps absorbing gravy and goes stodgy within an hour. If you do have leftovers they keep one day refrigerated; revive them in a very hot dry pan, spreading the kottu thin so the edges crisp again, and splash in a little water or gravy as it heats. Do not microwave it, which turns the roti rubbery. The gravy and the chopped vegetables can both be prepped a day ahead and kept separately, which is the practical way to make kottu fast on a weeknight.",[53,56,59,62,65],{"question":54,"answer":55},"What is godhamba roti and do I have to make it?","Godhamba roti is a thin, stretchy Sri Lankan flatbread made by slapping a very soft, oiled wheat dough out to near-transparency and folding it in layers before griddling. Making it well takes practice, and almost nobody making kottu at home starts from flour. Frozen paratha from an Asian supermarket is a genuinely good substitute and is what many home cooks in Colombo use too.",{"question":57,"answer":58},"Why is my kottu soggy instead of having crisp edges?","Almost always heat and crowding. The pan needs to be very hot and the mixture needs room to touch the metal, so cook in two batches if your pan is small. Using fresh, still-soft bread and adding the gravy too early are the other two causes — the bread should meet the sauce for less than a minute before serving.",{"question":60,"answer":61},"Can I make kottu roti vegetarian or vegan?","Yes, and vegetable kottu is a standard order in Sri Lanka. Leave out the meat, double the leek, carrot and cabbage, and use a coconut-milk gravy built on vegetable stock with roasted curry powder. For a vegan version also omit the eggs and check the roti — most frozen paratha is made with vegetable fat rather than ghee, but not all of it.",{"question":63,"answer":64},"Do I really need two metal blades to chop it?","You need two stiff flat tools and a pan you do not mind scratching, but they do not have to be the traditional kottu blades. Two metal fish slices or sturdy turners work well. The point is chopping the bread while it is hot and oiled in the pan, which tears it unevenly, rather than slicing it cold on a board into tidy strips.",{"question":66,"answer":67},"How spicy should kottu roti be?","Street kottu in Sri Lanka is genuinely hot, built on roasted curry powder plus green chile and chile flakes. This version is assertive but not punishing. Cut the chile flakes to half a teaspoon and deseed the green chiles for a mild version, or serve it as shops do, with extra chile flakes on the table so each person adjusts their own plate.",[69,70,71],"Very wide heavy frying pan, flat griddle or carbon-steel wok","Two stiff metal turners or fish slices","Small saucepan for the gravy",4,25,20,"medium",[77],"street-food",[],[80,81,82,83,84],"chicken","eggs","cabbage","leek","curry-leaves",[86,92,96,101,105,110,114,118,121,123,126,129,133,136,139,141,145,146,149,151,154,157],{"qty":87,"unit":88,"name":89,"ref":90,"group":91},250,"ml","chicken or vegetable stock","stock","For the quick gravy",{"qty":93,"unit":88,"name":94,"ref":95,"group":91},150,"coconut milk","coconut-milk",{"qty":97,"unit":98,"name":99,"ref":100,"group":91},2,"tsp","roasted Sri Lankan curry powder","curry-powder",{"qty":102,"unit":98,"name":103,"ref":104,"group":91},0.5,"ground turmeric","turmeric",{"qty":106,"unit":107,"name":108,"optional":109,"group":91},1,"piece","pandan leaf, 5 cm piece",true,{"qty":111,"unit":107,"name":112,"group":113},6,"godhamba roti or frozen paratha, cooked and cooled","For the kottu",{"qty":115,"unit":116,"name":117,"group":113},3,"tbsp","coconut oil, or any neutral oil",{"qty":106,"unit":107,"name":119,"ref":120,"group":113},"large onion, thinly sliced","onion",{"qty":106,"unit":107,"name":122,"ref":83,"group":113},"leek, halved lengthways and thinly sliced",{"qty":106,"unit":107,"name":124,"ref":125,"group":113},"carrot, cut into fine matchsticks","carrot",{"qty":93,"unit":127,"name":128,"ref":82,"group":113},"g","cabbage, finely shredded",{"qty":115,"unit":130,"name":131,"ref":132,"group":113},"clove","garlic, finely chopped","garlic",{"qty":106,"unit":116,"name":134,"ref":135,"group":113},"ginger, finely grated","ginger",{"qty":97,"unit":107,"name":137,"ref":138,"group":113},"green chiles, sliced","green-chili",{"qty":106,"unit":107,"name":140,"ref":84,"group":113},"sprig of curry leaves, leaves picked",{"qty":142,"unit":127,"name":143,"ref":80,"note":144,"group":113},300,"cooked chicken curry meat, shredded","leftover curry is ideal; plain roast or poached chicken also works",{"qty":97,"unit":98,"name":99,"ref":100,"group":113},{"qty":106,"unit":98,"name":147,"ref":148,"group":113},"chile flakes","chili-flakes",{"qty":115,"unit":107,"name":150,"ref":81,"group":113},"eggs, lightly beaten",{"qty":106,"unit":116,"name":152,"ref":153,"optional":109,"group":113},"soy sauce","soy-sauce",{"qty":102,"unit":98,"name":155,"ref":156,"group":113},"coarsely ground black pepper","black-pepper",{"qty":158,"unit":159,"name":160,"group":113},null,"to taste","salt and lime wedges",[162,167,170,174,178,181,186],{"title":163,"text":164,"timerSeconds":165,"tip":166},"Make the gravy","Simmer the stock, coconut milk, 2 teaspoons of curry powder, the turmeric and the pandan leaf in a small pan for 8 minutes, until it thickens just enough to coat a spoon thinly. Season with salt and keep it warm — it should taste slightly too strong on its own, because the bread will dilute it.",480,"If you have leftover curry gravy from a chicken or mutton curry, use 250 ml of that instead and skip this step entirely.",{"title":168,"text":169},"Shred the roti","Stack the cooled roti and cut them into rough 1 cm strips, then cut across into short pieces. Keep the pieces uneven — this is a rough pre-chop, and the real tearing happens in the hot pan.",{"title":171,"text":172,"timerSeconds":173},"Fry the aromatics","Heat the oil in your widest pan over high heat until it shimmers and a piece of onion sizzles instantly. Add the onion, leek, carrot, garlic, ginger, green chiles and curry leaves and stir-fry hard for 3 to 4 minutes, until the leek is limp, the onion edges are browning and the curry leaves smell sharp and toasted.",240,{"title":175,"text":176,"timerSeconds":177},"Add cabbage, meat and spice","Throw in the cabbage, {qty:chicken} of shredded chicken, 2 teaspoons of curry powder and the chile flakes. Keep the heat high and toss for 2 minutes, until the cabbage has just wilted but still has bite and the spice smells roasted rather than dusty.",120,{"title":179,"text":180},"Scramble in the eggs","Push everything to one side, pour the beaten eggs into the cleared space and let them set for 20 seconds before breaking them up. Once they are in soft curds, mix them through the vegetables so no large plain pieces of egg remain.",{"title":182,"text":183,"timerSeconds":184,"tip":185},"Chop the roti in","Add the roti pieces and the soy sauce, then start chopping with two metal turners, working them alternately down through the mixture and scraping across the pan base. Keep going for 2 to 3 minutes, until the bread is in ragged short ribbons, everything is evenly mixed, and you can hear and see crisp browned edges catching on the metal.",180,"Do not stir gently. Kottu needs percussive chopping and the sound of metal on metal — that is what tears the roti properly.",{"title":187,"text":188},"Gravy, pepper and serve","Pour about half the hot gravy over the kottu, chop it through for a final 30 seconds until the bread turns glossy and the pan is nearly dry again, then grind over the black pepper and check for salt. Pile it onto plates with the remaining gravy and lime wedges alongside, and eat it while the edges are still crisp.",{"calories":190,"protein":191,"carbs":192,"fat":193,"fiber":194,"sodium":195,"estimated":109},610,33,55,29,5,980,[197],{"src":198,"alt":199},"\u002Fimages\u002Frecipes\u002Fkottu-roti\u002Fhero.svg","Chopped kottu roti piled on a plate, ribbons of flatbread mixed with egg, leek, carrot and shredded chicken curry",[201,202,203,204,205,206],"kottu roti","sri lankan street food","chopped roti","godhamba roti","curry stir-fry","late night 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