Roti Canai

Roti Canai banjir!

As a Malaysian living abroad, there are days when I long for the simplicity of a roti canai and dhal gravy. I'd banjir (translates to flood) my roti with tons of dhal and eat every last drop of it. No kidding. I love good dhal, especially the dhal from the Pelita chains of mamaks. Ravi's Canai&Such used to make good rotis and dhall but their quality has plummet since they made it big. Heh...typical of any organization really.

Roti Canai or Roti Chennai or Roti Prata is basically pan fried indian bread made from flour. Its texture isn't like bread though as the springiness of the roti depends on how much you canai it. The mamaks will flip them over and over until they become transparently thin before they fold them with lots of air bubble andghee inside that when they pan fry it, it becomes light and crispy on the outside and slightly chewy and springy on the inside...mmmh. Roti Canai is as Indian as it gets in Malaysia, Singapore and Kerala, India.

So last week or so, while i was recovering from a bout of flu, i craved roti canai. So as part of my kitchen experiment, I'm going to be making Roti Canai. I scoured the net to find a proper recipe and settled for Amy Beh's roti canai recipe. Funny ain't it? A chinese woman's roti canai recipe...but it's authentic, she probably got it off her Indian friend.

Anyway, I made it using her recipe. It turned out okay...it wasn't as crispy and fluffy like the ones back home...but that's probably because i can't canai it like those mamak fellas...everytime i try to flip, i get oil everywhere in my kitchen...ugh..so i used a roller and rolled it as thin as i could and then i flip it real gently with my knuckles till it's as thin as it can get....but it's still not thin enough! :( Oh well, I still got part of craving fixed anyway. I made dhal with green lentils too...it's notas yellow as dhal should be but green lentils are healthier, or so they say...ok it's the only lentil i had lah...

I made two types of roti - Bom and Canai :)