is eaten with a coconut milk-based curry called kurma. There are two common varieties of roti prata—plain and with egg—but Indian Muslim stalls across the island also offer interesting and innovative versions incorporating cheese, mushrooms, bananas, sugar, jam, chocolate, ice cream and other similarly unexpected ingredients.

Another Indian breakfast food, appam jala (page 48), has been transformed into roti jala, or net bread. The original lacy pancake used a wheat flour and coconut milk batter fried with liberal doses of ghee; it was served with vegetable or mutton kurma. The Malays added eggs, evaporated milk and yellow food colouring to the batter and served the bread with ayam masak merah, a chicken curry.

The fish head curry (page 42) that is synonymous with Indian cuisine in Singapore today was unheard of before the 1970s. The dish gained popularity only after the national newspaper, the Straits Times, featured the stall run by the father of brothers Sellapan and Muthu, who later founded The Banana Leaf Apolo and Muthu’s Curry respectively.

Indian children enjoying a meal
served on banana leaves at a
wedding celebration, 1987.

16

indian heritage

Cooking