Kota

 

Kota is a legendary South African sandwich from Soweto. Johannesburg. It's also known as spatlo or skhambane in other provinces. 

It's a hollowed out quarter (kota) of a loaf always filled with "slap-chips" (homemade potato fries) and atcha (pickled mango). 

It's then usually topped with a pile of meat, a combination of polony (bolony meat sausauge), a "russian" smokie franfurter style meat sausages. So it's time for reach out for the tofu/soy substitutes! 

Extra toppings could then be a fried egg, processed cheese slice, and your favourite sauces, like a chilli sauce or tomato ketchup. 

Ingredients

serves 4

800g white bread "tin"loaf, (a cuboid [square and long] loaf)
butter (spreadable)
1kg large potatoes, such as maris piper variety
Atchar (picked green mango)

other fillings

vegan hot dog or vegan frankfurter, chorizo style vegan sausage, veggie burger etc
Processed "burger" cheese slice (such as Kraft)
fried egg
combination of your favourite sauces (like Nando's spicy chilli sauces)
Lettuce, roughly chopped
Tomato, thinly sliced

other random veggie toppings 
chakalaka bean stew
chickpea and potato curry
guacamole

Method

Remove the butter from the fridge so it becomes soft and spreadable.

Peel the potatoes, then slice them about 1cm thick, then slice them again about 1cm, creating reasonably uniform thickness. Soak the sliced potatoes in water. 

Bring a deep-fat fryer (or chip pan) filled with vegetable oil, up to 160C.

Drain the potatoes and pat dry with kitchen paper. Place them in the hot oil a batch at a time depnding on the size of your fryer. Cook for 10 minutes. That should be long enough to cook through but not colour too much. Remove from the hot oil and drain on kitchen paper. Repeat with all batches. Set aside. 

In the meantime, cook the optional fillings as required, i,e, hotdog, veggie burger,

Cut the loaf in half, vertically. Then slice the halves in half again, but horizontally this time.

Spread butter on the two open sides of bread. Place a frying pan over a medium to high heat and fry each side of buttered bread unitl golden brown.

For each block of bread, cut out the inside, leaving around 15mm thickness to created the "cup" to hold the filling.

Then turn the heat up in the deep-fat fryer to 180C and cook for the chips for 2 minutes until they have become a nice golden colour. Drain over absorbent kitchen paper.

If you are adding a fried egg, cook it now.

You could also cook the vegan chorizo style sausage in an artistic way by hassleback the sausage, cutting slices but not all the way through.  

Begin to assemble the kota. 

There's no rules, but I began with (to be healthy) some lettuce, then a layer of tomato. Then a generous amount of mango atchar. 

Next fill the bread basket with chips. No need to be neat or precise. Just randomly throw them in.

Add another layer of atchar.  Add slices of process cheese on top. 

Then continue with a fried egg, (I prefer sunny side up), veggie hot dog/frankfurters and a smokie chorizo style vegan sausage. 

Then drizzle with a combination of your favourite sauces.  Two different colours would make it look great.

Serve immediately, either "to go", with lid back in place and wrapped tightly with foil of parchment paper. Or serve on a plate, but no cutlery required.

It's a classic streetfood so it has to be eaten with the hands, however challening!

Use the lid to hold the filling in place, and plug it close. With two hands tightly roll the sides and shove it in your mouth!