Trinidad roti

Ingredients

• Flour700 g
• Warm water400 ml
• Baking powder2 tsp
• Vegetable oil150 ml
• Ghee80 g
• Chicken for the curry — in pieces1 kg
• Curry powder3 tbsp
• Garlic6 clove
• Scotch bonnet1
• Potatoes400 g
• Thyme4 sprig
• Salt2 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Knead a soft dough from the flour, baking powder, salt and warm water, working it ten minutes.

   14 min

2. 2

   Cover it and rest it an hour; the dough should become pliable and stop springing back.

   62 min

3. 3

   Marinate the chicken with the curry powder, garlic, thyme and salt and stew it with the potato for forty minutes.

   50 min

4. 4

   Divide the dough into six balls, roll each one thin and brush it with oil.

   15 min

5. 5

   Roll the round into a rope, coil it into a spiral and let it rest twenty minutes.

   25 min

6. 6

   Roll the spirals out into rounds again and cook them on a dry pan a minute and a half a side, brushing with ghee.

   25 min

7. 7

   Move the bread onto a board and beat it into soft rags with two spatulas. Serve with the curry.

   8 min

About the dish

The finished bread is beaten and torn on the pan with two spatulas until it becomes soft rags. The name buss up shut is a slurring of "busted up shirt".

The dough is rolled, oiled, coiled into a spiral and rolled again. That double rolling is what builds the layers that separate when it is beaten.

Roti is eaten by hand, tearing pieces off and picking up curry with them. Cutlery is not used, and in Trinidad that is a rule rather than a habit.

Worth knowing

• — Beat the bread while it is hot. Cooled, it does not separate into layers but breaks into pieces and the look is lost.
• — Do not stint on the oil between layers. A dry spiral fuses into a single sheet with nothing to beat apart.
• — Stack the finished roti under a cloth. In the open air they stiffen within five minutes.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

38 g

Fat

30 g

Carbs

76 g

More from Trinidad and Tobago

• Doubles — Two soft fried breads called bara with spiced chickpea channa between them. Trinidad's street breakfast.
• Callaloo — A thick purée of taro leaves with okra and coconut milk. The Trinidadian Sunday table.
• Pelau — Rice with chicken, pigeon peas and coconut milk, browned in burnt sugar.