Cheesy Sri Lankan style fish filled roti

Depending on your perspective on life, this could be a cheesy roti filled with fish, or a cheesy fish empanada, or both, or neither.

Either way, it’s a fishy variation of the coconut roti I made for breakfast a while ago. Except replace the filling, and replace the coconut with cheese. Again, a breakfast food, as I made it for breakfast just yesterday, but I suppose no one is stopping you from making it for dinner. What it is definitely not though, is a fish roti (so get the lingo right!) as the dish called fish roti is specifically made from a different type of roti (called Godamber roti). Hence why I’m calling this a fish filled roti.

Anyway, hope you like it. Took me about 45 mins from start to the first roti being ready to eat, but totally worth it.

Roti ingredients

1 cup plain flour mixed with 1 tsp of baking powder (alternatively use self raising flour).

1 tsp each of cumin powder and salt.

1 cup grated cheese (I used cheddar).

1/2 cup of water

Filling ingredients

250g of canned fish (tuna, salmon, mackerel or sardines – I used the latter).

1 tsp each of mustard seeds, curry powder, cardamom powder, chopped garlic and white pepper.

1/4 cup tomato sauce / ketchup.

Some oil for the saucepan.

Method

Roti first. Mix the dry roti ingredients together including cheese, then add water bit by bit while mixing into a hard but moist dough that is not very sticky. As in my other roti recipe, it’s important to add as little water as possible, only as needed.

Once the dough is done, leave it covered while you make the filling.

Pour oil in to a saucepan, and heat to a high heat. As the oil starts to bubble, add all the filling ingredients in together, drop to medium heat and mix thoroughly until you basically get a paste. Total cooking time is only about 7-8 minutes.

Turn the heat off, and while the filling cools down, refocus your kind attention to the roti dough. Cut the dough in to 4 even pieces, and use a rolling pin to roll each out into a flat roundish pancake. Thanks to the cheese, flattening them with the palm of my hand was an epic fail this time. So yeah, use a rolling pin.

Take a scoop of the filling mix, and put on one half of each roti. Take the other half, fold over on top, and press the edges together to seal, leaving just a couple of holes for air to escape. Put some oil in a frying pan, and fry each of these cheesy fishy roti empanadas, turning each over a couple of times until both sides were browned with some black dots here and there, or until fully cooked through. Done!

Serve however you like and enjoy!

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