My sister-in-law posted a picture of the Sri Lankan egg hoppers she was cooking for breakfast while on holidays. I was fascinated and went searching the internet for recipes.
It is like cooking eggs on toast in one go. You end up with a crispy thin edged pancake with an egg in the middle. Hard to describe but really good and interesting.
The real Sri Lankan Egg Hoppers are made out of ground, soaked rice and coconut milk from real coconuts and the mixture has yeast (more traditionally a “toddy”) added and is allowed to sit and either ferment or rise for quite a while before being cooked in a well seasoned bowl shaped pan.
I have adapted my sister-in-law’s recipe, which was based on one her father cooked them as children, used gluten free self raising flour. I used 50-50 plain flour and rice flour, adding baking powder and a little bicarbonate of soda to give a few more lacy edges. There is no yeast and only a 10 minute resting time before cooking. I also used a very small non-stick fry pan because I don’t need more things in my kitchen.
NOT SRI LANKAN EGG HOPPERS
This is better if you make only as much as you need in one go. It keeps in the fridge but loses its bubbles and lightness on the edges overnight. Just reduce the quantities. About half is more than enough for 2 people.
Ingredients
- ½ cup plain flour
- ½ cup rice flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp maple or golden syrup
- (optional depending on next ingredient) Coconut milk powder (handy for camping because this is where I’m going to make these)
- 1 cup + extra of water or coconut water or coconut cream and water mix
- ½ tsp bicarb soda (added after blending and resting)
- 1 egg per serve
Method
- Mix all the ingredients (except the egg and carb soda) very well using a stick mixer. It needs to be fairly runny so add more liquid if necessary. Towards the end add in the bicarb soda.
- Leave to rest for 10 minutes.
- Heat a pan (lucky you if you have an egg hopper pan – but then you wouldn’t be reading this version of a cheats way to make an egg hopper). I use the smallest nonstick fry pan I have, my sister-in-law uses an enamel pudding basin so she gets a much more cup shaped hopper.
- Pour a scoop of the mix in the well seasoned pan and swirl it right around and up the sides, add more mix if necessary or if the puddle left in the base is too thick pour some out.
- Turn down the temperature and crack an egg into the centre of the pan, cover it with a lid and wait until the egg is cooked to your satisfaction.
- Ease a knife or rubber spatula around the edges and loosen the hopper then slide onto a plate.
- Can only be cooked one at a time so whoever is around gets it.
- The leftover mix will keep but loses some of its bubbles so it is best to make a smaller quantity of the mix and use it all up.