Sri Lankan · Breakfast

Egg Hoppers

Fermented rice and coconut batter swirled up the sides of a small bowl-shaped pan, with an egg cracked into the middle as it cooks.

50 min prep and cooking plus 8 hr resting 8 hr 50 min start to finish Serves 6 servings Medium
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Egg Hoppers

Photograph credit: Egg Hopper - The Coconut Island 2025-10-05 by Andy Li · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

Making Egg Hoppers

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  1. Blend the cooked rice with 100 ml of the warm water until smooth — this helps the ferment and the texture.

  2. Mix the rice flour, yeast and sugar in a large bowl, then whisk in the rice paste and the rest of the warm water to a thick batter.

  3. Cover and leave at room temperature for 8 hours or overnight, until bubbly and smelling faintly sour.

  4. The next morning, whisk in the coconut milk, salt and bicarbonate of soda. The batter should be thin — like single cream. Add water if it is thicker.

  5. Heat a small bowl-shaped hopper pan or a small wok over medium heat and wipe it with coconut oil.

  6. Pour in a small ladleful, then immediately lift the pan and swirl it so the batter coats the sides in a thin film, leaving a thicker pool in the base.

  7. Crack an egg into the pool, cover, and cook 3 to 4 minutes, until the edges are lacy, crisp and lifting away and the egg white is set.

  8. Loosen the rim with a thin spatula and lift the whole hopper out in one piece.

  9. Repeat, wiping the pan with oil between each.

  10. Serve immediately with pol sambol and dhal.

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Notes for Getting It Right

  • Thin batter, or you cannot swirl it up the sides.
  • Cover the pan for the egg. It sets the white while the rim crisps.
  • Eat them as they come out. Hoppers go soft within minutes.

If You're Missing Something

  • If coconut is a problem, a cooking cream (dairy or plant-based) can stand in for the coconut milk in a sauce; the dish will lose the coconut flavour and taste noticeably different.

What to Serve with Egg Hoppers

  • Pol sambol and lunu miris
  • Dhal curry
  • Strong milky tea

Keeping and Reheating

The batter keeps 2 days refrigerated and improves. Cook the hoppers to order.

Egg Hoppers: Questions and Answers

How long does Egg Hoppers take to make?

30 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking, plus 8 hours of resting, so allow 8 hours 50 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.

Egg Hoppers Nutrition Facts

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

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Compiled by Turab

Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.

First published ; last changed .