Rice, Spice and Everything Nice: Dhalpuri Roti with Trini Aloo Chana

Roti in Trinidad means something a little bit different from Indian roti. It's made with white flour, and has baking powder to give a little puffy-ness. There are various different kinds of roti, but perhaps the greatest is dhalpuri roti. This is roti with a layer of ground up seasoned split peas in the roti itself. It's absolutely divine!

Another thing about roti in Trinidad is the roti-shop experience. Yes you can make roti at home, but you can also go to a roti shop and get one for no effort! They tend to be a lot bigger than roti made at home. You select your curry (goat curry is probably the ultimate favourite, but potato and chickpea is popular curry for vegetarians), and the kind of roti you want (dhalpuri is best!). Your freshly made curry will be wrapped around the curry, with any pepper or other sauces you desire!

Here's my homemade dhalpuri roti with aloo chana curry, Trini style!

You can make the curry whilst the bread dough is resting, but you need to think about certain bits of it first, and make it so it has ten minutes to sit and meld nicely, so I'll put it first. And yes, you can call it curry in Trinidad, no need to worry about the non-Indian-ness of saying curry!

For the Aloo Chana

1 cup chickpeas, soaked in hot water overnight
800g peeled potato, chopped into cubes
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed and chopped
Oil
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds
Trini curry powder, from the recipe below
Seasoning peppers and scotch bonnets, as noted in the recipe below
A few sprigs of thyme and some chives, roughly chopped

Drain the chickpeas and cook them with plenty of water until tender. This may take over three hours, but doesn't need much attention. It's better to cook long and slow so the chickpeas stay whole and don't break up before getting soft. Drain the chickpeas but keep the cooking water.

Mix the curry powder in a cup with a little water to make a loose paste.

Heat some oil in a large pan. When hot, add the cumin seeds. When they sizzle, add the onion and garlic. At this stage you can also add chopped scotch bonnet (a kind of habanero chilli) if you like, or if you would like it milder you can use some chopped Trinidadian seasoning peppers at this stage and use a scotch bonnet later in a clever way which gives all the flavour and not much heat. Since my Nan was eating with us today, this is what I did. Trini seasoning peppers are pretty much unknown outside of Trinidad, so you could just use a little red sweet pepper or a very mild red chilli instead.

Fry until the onion is translucent and a little golden. Then add the curry powder mixture, swilling out the cup with a bit more water to get it all out. Cook until thick, then add the potatoes and chickpeas and stir well to coat.

Add the chickpea cooking liquid, plus extra water as needed to just cover all the chickpeas and potato. Also add the thyme, chives (and any shadow benny, also called culantro, if you have it - it's a Trinidadian herb) and salt to taste.

You can also add a whole scotch bonnet at this stage. It will add lots of flavour to the curry but basically no heat. You can make a small hole in it if you want some heat.

Cook until the potato is cooked and everything is well blended. This will take about 30 minutes. The curry should thicken nicely, but you can adjust the texure with water as you desire. Allow it to sit for ten minutes or so before you rush into eating it!

For the Trini curry powder
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
A few cloves
A few pieces of cinnamon
1 teaspoon turmeric

This is just a rough approximation of a Trini style curry powder. My favourite brand of Trinidadian curry powder is "Chief". It's very mild and aromatic. My theory is that people in the Caribbean who were originally from India remembered their roots and the use of spices, but forgot particular regional traditions. So they tended to use lots of different spices in their curry powders that just gave a general sense of "Indian-ness".

Roast all the spices except the turmeric till they darken a shade and become aromatic. Grind to a fine powder in a coffee grinder or spice grinder. Mix with the turmeric. You can also add chilli powder to taste, but as I said I was cooking for my Nan and wanted it mild!

For the dhalpuri roti

1lb (455g) white flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
145g unsalted butter
Salt

1 cup yellow split peas, soaked overnight
Oil
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
3 cloves peeled and crushed garlic
1 teaspoon turmeric

Mix the flour, baking powder and a little salt and rub in the butter. Add water to make a soft dough. Knead well until the dough is very springy and pliable. This is important for beautiful, soft roti! Roll into a ball and coat with a very small amount of oil to keep from drying out. Leave for an hour.

Meanwhile, make the split pea mixture. Drain the split peas and cook in boiling water until cooked but not soft - they should have a bit of bite to them. Drain well and dry off as best you can. Heat a little oil in a small pan and add the cumin seeds. When they start to sizzle, add the garlic and cook until just beginning to go golden. Add to the split peas along with a little salt and the turmeric and put in your food processor. Process without adding water till you have a fine, powdery mixture. This used to be done in a meat grinder!

When you are ready to cook the roti, separate the dough into eight balls of equal size. Set aside the rest and work with one. Roll it into a smooth ball, and make a deep indentation in it with your fingers.

Fill this with some of the split pea mixture.

Pinch the edges up to seal the ball. The above picture shows the pinched stage - you should then smooth the ball out in a nice round ball.

Roll the ball of dough out using a little flour, making as thin as roti as you can manage (the above pic is just the start of the rolling, it must be much thinner and larger by the end). If you have kneaded your dough well so that it is very elastic, the covering should not break and dal won't poke through. A few little blips won't matter too much though. Don't use too much flour or it will be dry and dusty.

Put the roti on a hot, slightly greased tawa. Cook on the first side till brown spots appear, then flip over.

It should puff up beautifully. This will separate out the layers and make it very light and soft.

Eat with the curry of your choice, plus hot pepper sauce and salad. A great simple salad is 2 or 3 small green mangoes, grated, mixed with a couple of chopped tomatoes and a chopped small red onion. Dress with a little lime juice and salt.

You can see that when the roti is torn to be eaten, the beautiful layer of split peas in the middle is revealed.

For bonus points, make your homemade roti into a roti-shop-style meal-to-go!