When we were out at the
Taste of Sydney festival a couple of weeks ago, I got handed a booklet introducing the
Malaysia Kitchen with a selection of Poh's Malaysian recipes inside. The one that got me going was the Roti Canai. Whilst Malaysian food is all the trend here, if and when I move to London, I figured, I'd go cavewoman on the asian delicacies and would have to make these dishes on my own, so why not give it a go?
Here's the recipe with my own tips after having trialed it.
Ingredients
500g (2 cups) plain flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup water
2 Tbs condensed milk
2 Tbs butter, ghee or margarine, at room temperature
1/2 egg, lightly whisked
1/2 cup vegetable oil for greasing
Method
Combine flour, salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
Make a well at the centre of the dry ingredients and into it, pour the condensed milk, butter/ghee/margarine and egg.
Work in a circular motion with your hand, gradually gathering more and more of the flour into the wet ingredients. As you do this, slowly add water to the mixture, being very careful not to over-commit as this will make your dough very wet and difficult to work with. Keep working this in the bowl until you have a single mass.
Tip all the ingredients onto the bench and knead until smooth and elastic. At this point the dough should not be sticking to the bench top. If it is, add a little flour and knead until smooth.
Roll into a cylinder and divide the dough into 10 pieces. Knead each piece a few times to achieve a smooth texture, then shape into a ball by tucking in the edges of the dough into the bottom so that the top is a smooth round surface.
Gently cover each ball with butter/ghee/margarine and rest in a bowl. Cover in cling wrap and allow to rest overnight at room temperature (very important to have enough resting time otherwise the dough isn't as relaxed or elastic as it should be when it comes time to stretch the roti).
After the overnight resting you will find the dough soft and stretchy. Start by oiling a substantial area of the bench liberally. This next part you're best off watching
Poh's motions in order to appreciate how it should work. It starts at the 3.20 minute mark of the video.
Place one of the balls of dough onto the table and press down with the palm of your hand while moving it in a circular motion. This is just to flatten and smooth out the surface of the dough as much as possible before you stretch it.Work around the edges of the circle of dough, gently stretching the edges outwards as far and as thinly as you can before holes start to appear. The end result should be as thin as tracing paper and about 60-70 cm in diameter.
Fold the stretched dough into an envelope of layers, each time drizzling a little oil between the layers.
You'll end up with a squarish shaped roti.
Heat up your frypan on medium heat with a dash of vegetable oil and fry the roti until golden blisters appear on both sides (be careful not to have it too hot otherwise it'll burn the outer layers without cooking through the inside layers- As you can see from the black dots on the picture below, I learnt from experience).
When cooked, immediately slide the roti onto a chopping board, wrap your palms around the edges and smash your hands together so the roti bunches up and flakes. Rotate the roti and do this several times while it is still hot.
