One of my favourite food travel destinations is Malaysia. With an incredible melting pot of Asian cuisines, it’s hard to eat badly here. One of my favourite dishes is roti canai, which is also mega easy to make… 

Roti Canai (pronounced: Roti chennai) is a popular street food in Malaysia and Singapore. These delicious fried and flaky flatbreads are served with a bowl of lightly spiced curry and are usually picked up for pennies. Popular pretty much any time of day, Roti Canai is one of those dishes you’ll spot everywhere from Penang to Kuching.

The funny thing is, it’s hard to find this really simple dish outside of Malaysia. And, if you do find it, it’s usually really badly done. I’ve had roti canai served with generic naan bread and a green curry sauce before… Definite no-no. 

Thankfully it’s really easy to make roti canai at home, and it doesn’t take long either. Online, most roti canai recipes will tell you all about how to make the bread and then just say ‘serve with a curry’. I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna tell you how to make the whole thing, flatbreads and curry and all… I know, I’m nice like that.

My cooking style doesn’t involve measuring anything… At all… So if you’re the accurate type, yeah, sorry about that. Embrace the chaos. Even done wrong this roti canai recipe will be delicious…

Oh one more thing. If you follow this recipe without the meat or butter, its vegan. I promise you won’t notice (meat-atarians resist the urge to add meat the first time because it’s amazing without).

Roll up your sleeves and prepare to get addicted to roti canai!

Ingredients:

Roti

• Plain flour (I use around 200 grams for about four rotis)
• Cooking oil (I usually use olive oil but whatever neutral flavoured oil you have to hand is good)
• Salt
• Water to make a dough

Curry

• One tin of coconut milk (or ⅓ block of creamed coconut in a pint (500 mls) of water works too)
• One onion, chopped quite chunky
• One large potato (or a couple of small ones – diced quite small)
• Optional extra veg: peas, chickpeas, carrots, pumpkin/squash etc – one or two of these is enough
• Thumb sized chunk of minced ginger
• One clove of garlic, chopped or minced finely
• 1 large tablespoon of curry powder or curry paste of your choice (a generic ‘Madras curry powder’ is fine, but you could also use any of your favourite curry pastes or sauces. Go wild and experiment because you’ll be making this dish more than once, I promise)
• Meat such as chicken, lamb or prawns is an optional extra – or, yellow split peas work well too

FOR BEST RESULTS: 

• Stick of cinnamon
• One star anise
• 2 cardamon cloves

How to prepare the roti canai

You’re gonna need to make the roti first as they’ll need to stand in oil for a bit.

Add the flour and salt into a bowl, add a generous splash of the oil (probably about 20ml but I’ve never measured it) and mix together with a splash of water. You want a dough that is not too sticky but not too hard either. Start with a little bit of water and add more if needed. If you go too sticky just add a dusting of flour and skip to next step…

Knead briefly (don’t worry, you don’t need to do a big kneading job on it, just enough until mixed together and smooth).

Once you have a smooth dough ball, divide the dough into 4 balls and leave to stand in about 1/2 an inch of oil while you make the curry. Alternatively coat each ball in a generous amount of butter. For best results, leave to stand for an hour at least (lots of roti canai recipes online say 6 hours, but an hour is normally fine).

How to make the curry

In a pan, heat a splash of oil. If you’re using the whole spices then put them in as the oil heats up. These sweet spices add a nice little authentic element to your roti canai recipe, but if you don’t have them don’t worry; the curry powder alone should suffice.

Fry the onions for a few minutes until just translucent then add the ginger and garlic and fry for another minute. 

Add your curry paste or powder and stir though.

If using meat, add and brown it in the spices.

Add potatoes and whatever veg you’re using and coat in the spice mix, then add the coconut milk. If using a tin of coconut milk, half fill the can with water and add to the mix (you want about 1 pint/500ml of liquid in there).

Bring the whole thing to a boil then leave to simmer gently for 10-15 minutes while the veg/meat cooks.

This is your cue to cook the roti…

Preparing your roti

So this is the fun bit. I hope you don’t mind getting dirty hands because, well, you’re going to get dirty hands.

Take some of the oil that your roti dough balls are standing in and rub it on the kitchen worktop. If you have a tiled or grooved surface, maybe use a plate or big chopping board for this bit.

Place a dough ball in the middle of your greasy puddle and work it until it’s flat and thin with your hands. It might tear and go all funny shaped, but that’s fine.

Fold the dough back in on itself so you have a parcel about the same size as the ball you just rolled out. Then stretch it out again into a flat bread, probably about the size of a plate. This is your roti ready to fry…

Your pan should be sizzling hot, so add just a little bit of oil from your bowl to coat it. When its super hot, fry your roti for about 2-3 mins each side.

When you’ve done all your roti, scrunch them up slightly so they flake apart.

Eat with a bowl of the curry.

Is that delicious and easy or what? If you’ve made this recipe, or you have your own roti canai recipe, drop a comment comment below.

The post Travel Cooking: How to Make Roti Canai appeared first on Gone Travelling.