60 South Asian Dishes Every Londoner Should Know
60 South Asian Dishes Every Londoner Should Know
Part 3: Mutton Rolls to Xacuti
This is a paid-subscriber only edition of Vittles. If you are receiving this then thanks so much for subscribing! If you wish to continue reading and access all paywalled articles, please subscribe for £4/month or a temporarily-discounted £30/year below. If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to share/screenshot/post on social media etc.
You can find part one of this three part guide here and part two here. You can also find a full map at the end of this article.
Writer key: Cynthia Shanmugalingam (CS), Dina Begum (DB), Feroz Gajia (FG), Isaac Rangaswami (IR), Jonathan Nunn (JN), Kaleem Hyder (KH), Rida Bilgrami (RB), Sejal Sukhadwala (SS), Shekha Vyas (SV), Thuli Weerasena (TW) and Zarina Muhammad (ZM)
Mutton Roll - Best Foods Supermarket, Walthamstow
Short eats is the term for grab ‘n’ go snacks that can be found in bakeries, street-side stalls and restaurants all over Sri Lanka, and they also provide the cornerstone of any family gathering on the island. Among the Sri Lankan community in London, the consensus is that the GOAT short eat is the mutton roll: a spiced goat and potato filling wrapped in a pancake then rolled in a cylinder-like shape, covered in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. You can find bougie versions made with panko, but the hallmark of a good mutton roll is a high-vis orange hue from golden breadcrumbs fried to a crisp.