Roti

Roti? Whaaaa? When I first came to Guyana I didn’t have a clue what this wonderful morsel was. However within the first night at our host families house this atrocity was quickly rectified with our first Guyanese, home cooked meal: Roti and Curry. It looked delectable: these warm tortilla looking things steamed next to a heaping helping of curry. I grabbed my fork and dug in-- well I tried, our host mom quickly stopped me from sullying her food by using a fork, she explained that when Roti is on the plate we don’t use forks. Nice one. I sure did my cultural studies. Not. Anyway, I put the fork down and scooped up the curry with this flat bread and it was delicious. Roti, who woulda thought? So how does one make this delicious treat which we have found can also stand in for our California-centric desire for tortillas? Let us explain.* However, it should noted that this is the short cut way to make roti taught to us by a younger Guyanese generation. A Guyanese elder watching this process would suck their teeth, shake their head, and then do it for you in their own more complicated way with the exact, same result.


Flour
Salt
Baking Powder
Water
Margarine

Put your flour in a large aluminum bowl, the amount depends on how much you want to make we use about 1 to 2 cups. Take a couple pinches of salt and baking powder and sprinkle it onto the flour mixing it all together.
Slowly add water to the flour mixture, kneading it and making it kinda sticky. Once most of the flour has been used keep kneading until its smooth and has the consistency of chewed bubble gum.

Piece the dough into blobs that are a little bigger than golf balls. (don’t worry about making them perfect spheres)

Smear a little butter (margarine), about the size of a pinky nail, over the entire top of the blob. Dust buttered blob with dry flour.

Take blob, stretch it out and then fold it towards you two or three times. (hot dog style for those used to folding paper in classrooms) as seen below.



Rotate blob 45 degrees, and roll folded blob up like a tortilla, or a cinnamon roll. Stand on end, with spiral roll facing the ceiling. See pictures below.




Dust a flat surface, like a cutting board or a flat counter, with flour. Place the rolled dough in the middle. Dust a rolling pin. And then roll the dough flat, like a tortilla.



Heat up the Tawa (or frying pan) Place the flattened dough on the pan, heat for a minute, then flip it, rubbing the slightly cooked side with oil (or butter), flip again, rub the other side with oil (or butter) let it sit on each side, flipping it occasionally until its cooked through. If you want to eat the roti like a tortilla you can stop here. However, if you want to make roti for eating with say, curry, you should place the cooked roti in a pitcher and shake it until it starts to fall apart slightly. The old school Guyanese use their hands to accomplish this stage, clapping it hence the name, but that is way too freaking hot for our little hands!

-T & C

*This if for Clap-up Roti, which is the flat, tortilla-like roti. But there are other versions like Sada which is a roti that puffs up as you cook it, but we couldn’t recall the recipe.