Sada Roti

Sada Roti

I’m often asked what my favorite American food and cooking magazine is and that’s an easy one to answer - Saveur.  I sure miss Gourmet but Saveur is the only food magazine that both Bones and I love unconditionally and will buy no matter what’s on the cover.  Alas, it’s not always easy to find Saveur here in the BVI.

Our local supermarket, Riteway, carries the magazine - but only one copy per issue and only sometimes.  I gave Bones a subscription for Christmas a few years back, but someone at our mail service in Miami is apparently also a fan.  We never received a single copy, though the folks at Saveur confirmed that they were being shipped.  We’ve had the same problem with National Geographic.  Interestingly, Audrey’s Teen Vogue always gets through.  At least we know our magazine thief has good taste in reading material.

I like Saveur because I rarely encounter the shiny pretty people living impossibly pretty lives that seem to litter the pages of some food magazines.  No movie stars, hipsters, socialites or celebrity chefs.  Saveur is never too trendy, never too chefy, never too hip.  Just real people cooking real food.  My favorite thing.  And the photography is first-rate.

This month Saveur put out their sandwich issue and Bones managed to score a copy.  Who doesn’t love a good sandwich?  There are sandwiches from around the world, though Caribbean is somewhat under-represented.  There is mention of Trinidadian dhal puri roti in the bread section but, if you’re looking for a sandwich roti, I suggest you start with a simple Trini sada roti.

Sada roti is the easiest roti to make and as it cooks it swells, creating an nifty pocket inside, much like that of a pita.  Perfect for cutting in half and filling with something savory.  When Audrey was little, Devica used to make her sada roti sandwiches for lunch.  They were filled with spiced tuna, salmon or mashed curried pumpkin and Audrey loved them.  A favorite breakfast is sada roti with tomato choka or baigan (eggplant) choka.  A warm, split sada roti sandwich filled with sliced avocado and some choka would set my world to rights.

Sada Roti

My Trini food guru, Devica, taught me to make sada roti and this is how she does it.  As the roti cooks, it should swell like a little balloon and create a pocket inside, perfect for sandwich fillings.  Mine don’t always swell and Devica assures me hers don’t either.  In any event, I usually still end up with a usable pocket inside.

I?ve also heard that if put the sada roti in the microwave on high for 15-30 seconds after it comes off the tawa, it will swell beautifully.  I haven?t tried it and would love to hear from anyone who has.

4 cups all purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups water (or more)

Place the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk to combine the dry ingredients.  Add the water and use your hands to mix everything together.  Knead the dough for 4 or 5 minutes, just until you have a soft, pliable dough.  You may need to add a little extra water to get everything to come together nicely but you don’t want the dough to be sticky.  After a few minutes of kneading, form the dough into a ball and transfer to an oiled bowl (or wash the one you kneaded in, oil it and use that).  Cover the bowl with a tea towel or some plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Remove the dough from the bowl and cut the dough ball into six evenly sized pieces.  Form the six pieces into small balls, roll them in the oiled bowl so they each get a light coating of oil, place them back in the bowl.  Cover the bowl again and let the dough rest for another 30 minutes.

Working with one ball of dough at a time, remove it from the bowl and flatten slightly with your hands.  With a rolling pin, roll each ball of dough into a circle about 1/4″ thick.  Depending on the consistency of your dough, you may need to dust the rolling surface with a little flour to keep them from sticking.  Don’t worry if your roti are not exactly round.  Perfection is highly overrated.

In Trinidad, roti is cooked on a round metal griddle called a tawa.  I don’t have a tawa but I find my iron flame tamer/heat diffuser does the job admirably.  You could also use a non-stick or cast iron frying pan or a non-ridged cast iron grill pan.  Whatever cooking vessel you use, put it on the stove over medium-high heat until it’s nice and hot.  You need a fairly high heat to get the water in the dough to turn into steam and make the roti swell.

Place a roti on the tawa and heat until it’s cooked on the bottom and flecked brown in spots.  Turn the roti and cook on the other side.  Your roti is now cooked and may or may not have swelled like a small balloon.  In any event, you now have a perfectly good sada roti.  You could stop here if you like.

If you’re working on a gas stove, you can try an additional optional step called ”sakaying” of the roti.  There’s a good photo of the process by Trini food blogger Chennette that you can see here.  Sakay is, I think, designed to help the roti swell and brown the outside edges.  Carefully push the tawa to one side of the burner and slide the roti so it’s half off the tawa and has one outside edge directly over the flame.  Carefully turn the roti, so each outside edge spends a little time over the direct flame.

Remove the roti from the tawa and continue until all the roti are cooked.  Stack them on a plate and cover with a tea towel until ready to serve.  Makes six sada roti.