I’ve just made Roti Jala so I thought I’d post in more detail about this. This is a Malaysian lattice pancake that is used to soak up the sauce of a meal. Tonight we ate it with a Chicken Kapitan Curry and some stir-fried vegetables.

We first ate Roti Jala when we visited Malaysia in 2013. When I returned I was desperate to get a roti jala cup, and tried in a few directions, ending up with three! The metal one was brought back from Malaysia by my friend Titus on his first home visit there in years. If you can’t get a cup, the roti gurus just use one cone with a small hole in it! Or you could make holes in a tin can.

I have two quite different recipes for the batter. The first came on the packet of one of the pouring cups.

2 eggs
2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups coconut milk
1/2 -1 tsp turmeric powder

Sift the flour, salt and turmeric powder together. Whisk the eggs, then gradually beat them into the flour. Slowly add the coconut milk, beating to get a smooth consistency.

Strain the mixture. Test it with the cup and add more water or flour until you get a smooth flow through the nozzles.

Recipe #2 has more eggs and less coconut and it is here. It comes from Ong Jin Teong’s “Penang Heritage Food.”

You can decide whether you like your roti with more coconut or egg.

You’ll see from the video below that it is easiest to keep something under the roti cup. The mixture will settle, so keep stirring it before you fill the cup each time, otherwise you will need to thin the batter with water towards the end.

Here’s a short video of me from the other night.

Making Roti Jala from Craig Mitchell on Vimeo.

I will confess that on this occasion I bought a jar of curry paste. It was a good decision as the curry was excellent and transported us back to Malaysia. It gave me a better idea of what to aim for when I make the curry from scratch in future.

Good luck hunting for a roti jala cup!