Roti john is an

omelette In cuisine, an omelette (also spelled omelet) is a dish made from beaten eggs, fried with butter or oil in a frying pan (without stirring as in scrambled egg). It is quite common for the omelette to be folded around fillings such as chives ...

sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

first believed to be made in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

during the 1960s or 1970s. It later became widely popular, spreading throughout the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula ( Malay: ''Semenanjung Tanah Melayu'') is a peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The ar ...

in present-day

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

and in modern-day

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

street food Street food is ready-to-eat food or drinks sold by a hawker, or vendor, in a street or at other public places, such as markets or fairs. It is often sold from a portable food booth, food cart, or food truck and is meant for immediate consumpt ...

Origin

The word ''

Roti Roti (also known as chapati) is a round flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent. It is popular in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, Trin ...

'' is derived from the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

word (rotikā), meaning "bread", and more generally for any bread-based or bread-like food, including sandwiches and pancakes. The origin of ''john'' within the name of the dish has not been definitively proven, but may derive from British use of the first name John to address any male person, especially when that person's first name is unknown, difficult to remember or difficult to pronounce, thus a name that may have been used by British armed forces members to address native vendors in

British Malaya The term "British Malaya" (; ms, Tanah Melayu British) loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. ...

or vice versa. Oral sources have claimed that the dish and name originated with a Malay cook who lived in Singapore during the early 1970s. Various variations may have existed, but the final version is associated with a stall in the Taman Serasi hawker centre that began serving the dish in 1976, after obtaining the recipe from another hawker. This original stall was moved to

Serangoon Garden Serangoon Garden Estate is a residential estate in the Serangoon district of the North-East Region of Singapore. History Serangoon Garden is one of the oldest estates on the island, and was built during the 1950s. The estate was upgraded in ...

Market in 2001. Today, ''roti john'' is served throughout the

, with a popular variation that uses a sardine toppings rather than meat."

Ingredients

The sandwich is made with a

baguette A baguette (; ) is a long, thin type of bread of French origin that is commonly made from basic lean dough (the dough, though not the shape, is defined by French law). It is distinguishable by its length and crisp crust. A baguette has a dia ...

-type loaf with a fried filling of egg,

minced Mincing is a food preparation technique in which food ingredients are finely divided into uniform pieces. Minced food is in smaller pieces than diced or chopped foods, and is often prepared with a chef's knife or food processor, or in the case ...

meat (

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

sardine "Sardine" and "pilchard" are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring family Clupeidae. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century, a folk etymology says it comes from the It ...

mutton Lamb, hogget, and mutton, generically sheep meat, are the meat of domestic sheep, ''Ovis aries''. A sheep in its first year is a lamb and its meat is also lamb. The meat from sheep in their second year is hogget. Older sheep meat is mutton. Gen ...

), and

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

, served with tomato-chilli sauce.

Preparation and presentation

The minced meat, egg and chopped onion mixture is poured into a frying pan and then split long, soft rolls are pressed into the mixture. When the egg is set, the whole roll is then flipped over to toast the other side. The roti is lifted onto a plate, liberally spread with salad, chilli sauce and mayonnaise, before being cut into portions. A variant is to place the minced meat, onions and sauce inside the baguette, dip the baguette into beaten egg, and then fry the whole sandwich in a frying pan. Variants may use additional or alternative ingredients such as beef, mutton and sardines.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roti John Malay cuisine Singaporean cuisine Malaysian breads Omelettes Egg sandwiches

Origin

Ingredients

Preparation and presentation

See also

References