Cape Malay roti recipe

Posted on 10 May 2012

I’ve just completed an assignment for Getaway on Cape Malay food (watch out for the article in the July 2012 issue of the magazine) and, after doing several Cape Malay cooking classes, I learned to make my own roti dough using this roti recipe,  and to roll my own rotis to accompany spicy Cape Malay curries. Roti-making does take a bit of work but I promise it’s worth it – just imagine flaky, buttery rotis next to a steaming bowl of curry.

 
Cape Malay rotis

 

Ingredients for Faldela Tolker’s Cape Malay rotis

Makes 12 to 15 rotis

  • 750 ml flour
  • 10 ml baking powder
  • 5 ml salt
  • 50 ml sunflower oil
  • Water
  • 250 g softened butter
  • Sunflower oil for frying

 

Mix flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Add oil and rub in with your fingertips until you form fine breadcrumbs. Add water gradually while mixing it in, until a soft elastic dough forms. Cover and leave in a warm spot for a few minutes.

Then take bits of the dough to form tennis-ball-sized balls and roll each one out on a floured surface to form a disc the size of a dinner plate. Spread a thin layer of butter on the discs. Cut a slit three quarters up the discs and then take flaps on either side of the slit and roll them up to form a long thin sausage. Roll up each end of the sausage to form an s-shaped roll and then fold one side on top of the other.

Put the buns in the freezer for 30 minutes. Roll out each bun the size of a dinner plate again and fry in oil until bubbles form, and then turn over onto the other side until bubble form again (around two minutes on either side). Take the roti out of the pan and clap it with your hands to make it flaky. Serve with curry.

 

Faldela Tolker offers Cape Malay cooking classes as part of the andulela Experience Cape Malay Cooking Safari. Faldela is hilarious, entertaining and warm – and peppers her cooking lessons with such quotes as ‘There are two ways to fold a samoosa: my way or the highway.’ In addition to the cooking class, on the andulela Experience Cape Malay Cooking Safari, you visit a spice shop and the Bo-Kaap Museum.

The half-day tour costs R660 a person. Tel 021 790 2592, email [email protected], www.andulela.com.

 






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