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The Story of Roti John



Roti John - Which is a superb french loaf with Asian flavor - Easy to make dish if you follow the recipe. It originated in Sembawang, Singapore


The more I walk around streets in Singapore, the more stories I find out about local food and it's origins. Ever heard of Roti John before ? I bet you haven't ! Neither celebrity chefs like Jamie Olivier or Gordon Ramsey ever heard anything like this sort of famous dish called Roti John. The dish itself is not high tech and if you follow the recipe it's actually easy to make. Roti John is a melting dish between Asian flavor and western looking baguette slices.

Let's put it this way, it resembles more a South East Asian Sandwich or Burger.. Well, according to local legend, sometime in the 1960s an Englishman asked a Malay hawker in Sembawang for a hamburger.

Because hamburgers were not available, as a substitute, the ingenious hawker spread minced mutton and onions between slices of French loaf and fried the concoction in egg. The name for the dish is also attributed to this anonymous hawker, who was overheard saying to the customer, “Silakan makan roti, John”, which literally translates as “Please eat this bread, John”, but can also be understood as “Please eat this dish, John’s bread”.

Although roti john is often classified as Malay cuisine, partly because it is usually offered by Malay stalls, its origins, ingredients and taste meld together the diverse flavours of the English, Malay and Indian communities. The dish is sometimes considered as being of Indian origin possibly because Shukor, the hawker who popularised it, was of Indian ancestry. 




In the 1970s, Shukor set up stall at the Taman Serasi hawker centre near the Botanic Gardens serving Eurasians and Caucasians, many of whom frequented the nearby Tanglin Club. Shukor obtained the recipe for roti john from a fellow hawker in Geylang and began offering the dish at his stall in 1976. Shukor’s recipe for the dish contains up to 30 eggs beaten with onions, minced mutton and sambal (minced chilli). Some of the mixture is slathered onto sliced halves of a local bread loaf similar to the French baguette, then pan-fried on a hot griddle. So popular was the dish that Shukor sold up to 800 loaves on weekends and over 100 plates a day at his Taman Serasi stall.

Shukor’s innovation is considered the original roti john by some and his eatery remains the benchmark for the dish. After his death, his wife, Khadijah bt Mohd Salleh, continued running the stall. The stall, Shukor Makanan Istimewa, originally located at Number 9 Taman Serasi Food Centre, made the hawker centre synonymous with roti john. When the hawker centre underwent changes in 2001, the stall moved to the Serangoon Garden Market where roti john is still sold by Shukor's daughter Noriani Shukor.

Today, roti john is served throughout the Malay Peninsula, with variations in Malacca and Penang that use toppings of sardines or ikan bilis (anchovies) rather than meat.




The Dish itself…

Sometimes called Singapore's version of the burger, roti john is made using a local bread loaf similar to the French baguette, but shorter in length and with rounded ends and a softer texture. Good roti john is considered to be crispy on the outside, while the meat and egg mixture remains soft and the onions crunchy. It is usually served in bite-sized slices with green chilies, tomato sauce and sweet chilli sauce on the side. Variations on this dish use chicken, beef or sardines instead of mutton. More recent innovations include adding melted cheese and mushrooms to the topping. The Malaccan version of this dish uses longer bread with a topping mainly of sardines and ikan bilis with onions, eggs and chili.





2 comments:

  1. Well, that is a very detailed account of roti john. I have viewed some other pages for the recipe but their description is only very brief. I love anchovy and I love chili so it is a win/win food for me!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Roti John is one of my favorite dish in Singapore.

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