Chicken Kottu

A dish truly unique to Sri Lanka. Kottu is one of Sri Lankan's favorite dinner options; a dish that is loved by young and old alike. Even though this is not the healthiest dishes out there, it is one of the heartiest. 

Most of the time kottu is something that would be either be ordered at a typical Sri Lankan restaurants or for those people who love the comforts of their house when having dinner, delivered to their doorstep. Let's be real, a typical Sri Lankan restaurant is not the cleanest and most hygienic places out there. Because of this, the word kottu is something that Sri Lankan mother's hate hearing. But, alas most of the time they have to halfheartedly agree to the constant pleading of their children and buy kottu (that is after they give at least a 10 minute lecture on the horror stories of eating out and how unhygienic the preparation of these dishes). 

But, what is we say that making kottu not as hard as you imagine. It just needs a bit of prep time and some simple ingredients.
In this post we will be making a chicken kottu but if you want you can substitute it with any other meat or just make it pure vegetarian. If you are feeling adventurous you can try to make cheese kottu. This is a recipe for you to make kottu at home, so sadly it doesn't involve steel chopping blades that will give you the authentic experience of making kottu. But, we assure you that the taste is still the same. If you want you can skip the step of making the rotti and just buy 'parata' or 'godhamba rotti' from your local Sri Lankan, Indian or Malay restaurant. Or you can buy frozen ones from the local supermarket. The following recipe feed 3 to 4 people and has a prep time of about 4 hours and cook time of half an hour.

Ingredients

For the Rotti Dough

• 500g flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp margarine or 1/8 cup coconut oil
• Coconut oil

To Make the Kottu

• 250g Carrot
• 100g leeks
• 1/4 cabbage
• 2 eggs
• 1 red onion
• 3 green chilies
• 1 tomato
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1tsp chili flakes
• Chicken curry (500g of chicken and curry) (See our chicken curry recipe here)

How to Make Them

For the Rotti
Now the rotti is the part that takes most of the time. But most of the it is resting time. So, during this time you can make something else like the chicken curry that is needed for the dish. 

Mix the flour, salt and margarine/ coconut oil together and knead until the mixture comes together and form a ball. Rub coconut oil over the dough ball and let it rest for 2 hours by placing it inside a bowl and covering it will a lid. After 2 hours take the dough ball out and knead it again. Repeat the process of rubbing coconut oil over the dough ball and letting it rest, but this time just for 1 hour. After that, take the dough ball out and divide it into 12 equal small dough balls. Roll out each of these balls into thin sheets or what we call rotties.Place a frying pan in medium heat and add a bit of coconut oil to the pan when it is hot. Place the rotti on the pan and cook them until they get a nice golden colour.

To make the Chicken Kottu
This is the easy bit thinly slice the carrot, leaks, cabbage and dice the tomatoes, green chilies, red onion. Also chop the chicken into small pieces. Take the rotti and roll them, 3 at a time. Slice it horizontally. Then roughly chop those slices to make a small rotti pieces.

Heat some oil in a large pan, add the red onions, green chilies and saute for 1 min. Next, add the carrot, cabbage and leaks and saute it. Add salt and pepper to taste. After the vegetables are cooked slightly, push them to the side of the pan and in the free space add the egg. Then mix the eggs in with the rest of the ingredients in the pan. Add in the chopped rotti and some chicken curry into the mixture as well. Finally add the cooked chicken. Mix it all together and there you go homemade Chicken Kottu.

Attached below is a recipe card for this dish. Enjoy and please feel to comment any questions you have and share your experience with us.

Checkout our YouTube video on the same!!