Hicksville: On a mutton roll

In May, my colleague Joan Reminick wrote about the terrific chicken kati rolls at Aminia in Hicksville and she lamented that the mutton version wasn’t available on her visit . On my visit today, luck and mutton were on my side.

Here’s how they make a kati roll: Marinated meat (in this case, mutton) is threaded onto a long skewer which is then placed in the scorching-hot tandoori oven. Meanwhile, a cook heats up a huge, slightly concave cast-iron griddle (a tava) and when it’s hot, adds sliced onions and green pepper along with seasonings and a squirt of lime. When the mutton is cooked through, it is removed from the skewer, chopped up and added to the tava.

At this point the cook rolls some dough into a thin disk as if he were making naan, but instead of slapping it smartly against the interior of the tandoori oven, he slaps it down on the tava, next to the mutton mixture (see picture, above). If the kati roll is destined to be an “anda” roll (with egg), he scrambles an egg and pours it onto the tava, immediately pressing the flatbread onto it so that the egg adheres to the bread. Finally, the bread is removed from the tava and placed, egg side up, on a counter. The meat is spooned onto the bread and then the whole thing gets rolled up.

My kati roll, $6, was fantastic. Run don’t walk. Aminia of Calcutta is at 253 S. Broadway, Hicksville, 516-605-0575.

Before they become a kati roll: flatbread, left, and mutton, onions and peppers on a tava at Aminia of Calcutta.