Flaky Roti Canai

Serves: 4

I know its a bit of a cheat using the same picture for the Roti, but I had two choices, make the quick chicken curry recipe really long by including the Roti recipe there or making a fresh batch, just to take a photo for this recipe. Anyway, this isn’t the soft wrap like Roti that you can buy in the supermarket. This is a flaky, crispy, fried flatbread that’s laminated with butter. These also go great with my Chicken Rendang Curry!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of plain bread flour
• Pinch of salt (approx 1/4tsp)
• 1/2 cup of chilled water
• 20g butter, melted
• Optional: Paneer cheese, crumbled
• vegetable oil as required

Method:

1. In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water. Mix together using your hands until the mixture forms a dough.
2. Turn out the dough into a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes.
3. Flatten the dough into a thick disk and cut into quarters.
4. Shape each portion into a ball and roll out each portion until they are around 20cm diameter disks.
5. Set 3 of the disks aside and place a sheet of glad wrap/cling film over them to prevent them drying out.
6. With the one remaining disk, brush on the melted butter (imagine putting pizza sauce on a pizza base).
7. Optional: lightly sprinkle the crumbled Paneer cheese and lightly press into the dough.
8. Now that the top of the roti is covered, roll the disk up like a cigar and then coil the dough into a scroll shape.
9. Here’s the fun part! With the palm of your hand, squash the coil flat and roll back into a 20cm disk with a lightly floured rolling pin.
10. Repeat the process with the remaining 3 disks
11. Heat a heavy frying pan with around 2tbs of oil. Once hot, place one of the disks into the hot oil, turning after around 1 minute.
12. repeat process with remaining portions, adding a little more oil if necessary.
13. once cooled a little, you can fold your roti into quarters and give it a little scrunch to crush it.
14. Serve. This roti is especially good with my Chicken Curry, which can be found here.