Simple pleasures. Roti Canai and a soupy Curry.

Cyclonic 4 or 5, becoming southwest 5 or 6, occasionally 7 for a time.

Slight or moderate.

Thundery rain and fog patches for a time.

Moderate or good, occasionally very poor for a time.

The East of London was always a place for immigrants, from the Irish, to the Jewish refugees, the first Caribbean migrants and now it is home to the largest Bangladeshi community in the UK. If you take the tube to Whitechapel and go out, your senses are assaulted in the most wonderful way. Market stalls full of exotic fruits and vegetables, the spoken sing sang of vendors in a different language, colourful shop windows and incredible good food smells. 
I used to take an early tube and arrived there shortly before 8am. My next step however was not into a cafe getting a latte, but into one of the Bengali cafes in order to get my fix of Roti Canai. Sometimes I sat down and had the “full Monty”: freshly made Roti with the soupy curry and a lentil dish; if I was late I just grabbed a freshly made (as in: made after I ordered it) Roti and gobbled it down. What better way to start your working day with a hot, greasy pastry, especially in winter. Sometimes I also bought, on my way back, just the shaped dough and fried it at home with a proper curry.

Making a Roti is not difficult, at least making the dough. You need to rest it though, so it is best if you invest 10 minutes a few hours earlier (or the evening before), so all you have to do is making the quick curry and have fun with the dough flipping. I am pretty sure you can do that easily.

No? Neither can I. But if you look here, you realize it is actually not too difficult.

Still not convinced? You miss a lot of fun, but here is an easier method.

You will notice that this time he made a different shape. Both are common, the square one and the snail one which resembles a “cinnabon”.

The only difference is that once you have the snail shape, you stretch it, just before you put it into the pan, again.

You can also make it really flaky by using the croissant technique and brush each fold with ghee, but this is then very rich. The bread without ghee brushing is a bit denser, but not hard or chewy, just a bit more “substantial”.

This is what you can expect without brushing,  and this with (and an additional squeeze).
But honestly, it is really fatty and not really necessary.

You also have to decide on taste, do you want it flakier: then you omit the condensed milk (but have to add sugar and more water), or go for the richer taste.

Since the typical soupy curry, which accompanies it, is not very filling, I decided to go for the richer version.

The internet is full of the dough recipes, but finding a recipe for the soupy curry was quite challenging. In several blogs it was asked how to do it, but no one knew. But finally I struck luck. Okay, I was a bit miffed that it asked for “curry powder”, but to my surprise it tasted exactly how I ate it in several restaurants (and food stalls). They all seem to use some kind of ready-made generic mix. Here we go then, finally a use for “Schwarz mild curry mix”.

Roti Chanai

Plain Flour 60g

Water 27ml

Condensed Milk 8g

Oil or Melted Butter/Ghee 2ml

Salt 1 pinch

1 quail egg

Mix the flour and water. Once both water and flour are mixed evenly, leave it alone for 20 minutes for them to get to know each other intimately. This makes the further process much easier. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead it until the dough is a bit tacky but soft and flawless like a ball of marble. You might need a bit more flour for your hands. There is no way you can that small amount in a food processor, hence your hands need the odd dusting of flour. But kneading is easy. What you really want is a smooth ball of dough without any folds because these folds will cause problems during the flipping process. So form your dough into a smooth ball (a bit smaller than a tennis ball), oil one hole of your non-stick muffin tin, put the ball in it and rotate it, so it is evenly covered in oil. Rest it for at least 8 hours or overnight, outside your fridge, but covered with cling film.

When you are ready to cook it, flip it and shape it. Heat ghee in a pan and fry the Roti. Dont press it down, even if it expands unevenly, or you will destroy the layers.

Serve with the

Soupy curry

2 Potatoes, diced

1 small can Coconut Cream

½ onion, chopped

1 tsp Curry Powder

1 Star Anise

3 whole Cloves

1 Cinnamon Stick

1 pinch Chili Powder

1 tbsp Cooking oil

200ml Vegetable stock

Heat cooking oil, add onion and stir till soft.

Add curry powder, cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise and chilli powder. Stir for 30 secs. Then add potatoes into the curry mixture, stir for 2 mins. Add stock and coconut cream and simmer for 30 mins or until the potatoes are cooked.

 (I also added some mushrooms which needed using up, but this is not typical. However if you happen to have some okras or peas which start to wilt, feel free to add them. The whole idea is that the Roti is the star, and the soupy curry just something you dunk it in and scoop some bits out.)

It does help to have some cutlery, but you basically tear pieces of the Roti as you go along, dunk it into the sauce and enjoy. A beer goes nicely with it.

Verdict.

More pleased with the curry than the Roti. It was fine and flaky but maybe I just need more flipping practise. Could have been a tad airier. And the curry was not soupy enough, blame the extra mushrooms. But for a first attempt: Good enough.