Kottu roti is an extremely popular dinner food in Sri Lanka. This comforting street food is a favorite delicacy among both adults and kids throughout the country. Kottu is a delightful combination of pieces of kottu roti, and a choice of meat and vegetable ingredients. The crispy fried vegetables and the tasty meat gives a wonderful taste to delicious kottu roti. As well, the addition of aromatic spices gives it a nice aroma and flavor.
Kottu is readily available in all cities in the country. Moreover, it is a food with its own rhythm. Kottu makers use two metal blades to cut and mix kottu roti. The metal blades make a loud sound during the kottu-making process. This sound is interesting music that can be heard on Sri Lankan Street food corners every evening. Due to this wonderful rhythm, kottu is called food that you make to dance in the streets. When you go to a food corner in the evening, you’ll see how popular this iconic dish is in Sri Lanka.
Since kottu is a quite popular food in Sri Lanka, you’ll find plenty of places around the island to try this delicacy. If you take a stroll down a street in Colombo or any other major cities in Sri Lanka, you’ll hear the sound of street vendors making kottu roti. Not only in the main cities but also in every suburb and villages also have small stalls that make kottu roti. Without a doubt, tasting some delicious kottu for your dinner is a wonderful thing you shouldn’t miss in Sri Lanka.
How to Prepare Kottu?
Kottu preparation is done on a hot griddle. It needs an experienced hand to make a perfect kottu dish. The process starts with frying the spices such as ginger, garlic, curry leaves, cardamom, and cinnamon to release their aromas. Then carrots, leeks, and other vegetables are stir-fried with eggs. After that, the pieces of sliced roti add to it and all the ingredients mix together well.
The metal blades and sizzling griddle helps to incorporate all ingredients together. As the final step, the cooked meat curry with gravy adds on the top of the mixture. This meat gravy is an essential item to add the mouth-watering spicy taste to the kottu dish. Additionally, kottu roti serves along with spicy chicken gravy. If you don’t tolerate spices, you can just enjoy it without this gravy.
If you like to make kottu roti at home, you can do it with a little effort. The main ingredient of kottu is shredded pieces of thin dough called Godamba Roti. Making these roti pieces at home is a complex procedure. But nowadays they are available in supermarkets. You can buy a pack of frozen pieces of kottu roti and try to make a delicious plate of kottu roti at home.
Popular Types of Kottu
There are many different versions of kottu roti are available in Sri Lanka. In this post, we are going to introduce you the most popular types of kottu roti you can taste while touring Sri Lanka. Remember to select the best one among these delicious kottu rotis.
1. Vegetable Kottu
If you are a vegetarian, you can order a vegetable kottu without the meat. Vegetable kottu is the simplest type of kottu with a mild spicy taste to suit your palate. If you don’t tolerate spices, this is the best one to try in Sri Lanka. Vegetable kottu serves as a budget option as well as a dietary choice for vegetarians.
2. Chicken Kottu
Usually, kottu dishes employ meat and the most popular one among Sri Lankans is chicken kottu. It contains generously seasoned, spicy pieces of chicken. With a perfect spicy taste, chicken kottu roti is the best delicious street food you’ll find on the island. Definitely, you can’t leave Sri Lanka without enjoying the super delicious chicken kottu roti.
3. Beef Kottu
You can select the meat in kottu according to your personal choice. Beef kottu is another popular one. Since beef curry is always cooked with lots of spices, beef kottu also has a spicy taste. It’s an ideal dish for people who like beef, with lots of meat and plenty of heat. Therefore, it suits best for spicy food lovers. Sometimes beef is devilled, sometimes it’s curry. Either way, the beef kottu is so good and delicious.
4. Mutton Kottu
Although not as widely available as the other two meat kottu types, mutton kottu is also available in a limited number of restaurants in Sri Lanka. The mutton kottu has a generous helping of chewy bits of mutton to go with every bite of kottu. The addition of mutton curry to the kottu roti gives a perfect hot and spicy taste. Therefore, it is quite famous among meat lovers.
5. Egg Kottu
Traditionally, kottu is always prepared with eggs to hold the ingredients together. In egg kottu, there is an omelet chopped up and mixed into kottu. Sometimes it is topped with a fried egg too. Egg kottu is a budget option, as well as a dietary choice for people who don’t like meat.
6. Cheese Kottu
Cheese kottu contains cheese as a major ingredient and it is a super delicious dish with this additional amount of shredded cheese. Wonderful cheese kottu is highly famous among the younger generations of Sri Lanka. Cheese kottu is mostly ordered with chicken, but you can get it with beef too. The milky and creamy bites of kottu give a lovely taste and you’ll never feel dissatisfied with yummy cheese kottu.
7. Seafood Kottu
Since fresh seafood is abundant in Sri Lanka, a wide spectrum of seafood kottu is available on the island. The shrimp kottu is one of the tastiest kottu in the country. This is a scrumptious dish of shrimps and veggies. The addition of stir-fried shrimps enhances the taste and appearance of the kottu dish. It has a good crunch since it’s got a lot of shrimps and small-sized prawns.
8. String Hopper Kottu
This is a little bit different from the usual kottu dishes. Instead of pieces of kottu roti, it is made from string hoppers. Actually, this dish looks like fried noodles, but it’s often called as a kottu. String hoppers are chopped up and mixed with veggies and meats. It feels much lighter than the kottu roti. If you’re a fan of string hoppers, definitely you’ll prefer this dish.
To sum up, kottu is a versatile dinner food item that suits everyone. Sri Lankan chefs have experimented and added some unique types of kottu roti. If you look at the restaurant menus, there will be several other mixed types of kottu such as mixed chicken/cheese and many other varieties. As Kottu roti is loved by tourists and all visitors, it is included in all the food tours in Sri Lanka. You can explore them and discover new tastes you have never enjoyed before. Hope you all enjoy this mouth-watering dinner food in Sri Lanka. Happy kottu meal to everybody!
Text by Magnificent Sri Lanka. Images from Wkimedia Commons, Dreamstime, yamu.lk, Twitter and Facebook. All copyrights reserved by original authors.
