Trini Sada Roti hot off the tawa

 

Sada Roti hot off the tawa

Sada roti is a staple bread I had growing up. My dad liked to make this everyday with some takari for breakfast or lunch. My agee would make this almost every day also. Its a simple recipe just flour and baking powder. It originated from India where my ancestors came from over 150 years ago.

Sada roti now has become a national breakfast food where you can get sada roti and some talkari at any roti shop early in the morning in Trinidad. Usually it gets paired with fry aloo (potato), fry plantain, fry tomato, bygan or even curry chaitagne if you lucky. 

My favorite is sada roti and fry aloo but I have eaten so much sada roti in my lifetime, I am probably 80% sada roti 😂.

My first time seeing sada roti being cooked was when I went by my agee (paternal grandmother) to spend my holidays. I used to practically live by my agee up till the age of 11. I loved to spend nights by my agee because she would spoil me by making indian sweets like pera and kurma. 

So I was probably around 5 or 6 when I would see agee making roti and I would beg to beleh (roll out) the roti. Obviously I was too small to help cook the roti but my agee would let me beleh the roti. My roti though more often than not was more square than round but agee's was always round. Sada roti though simple is really an art. Agee's roti was always round and would always swell. If you watch my youtube video below, you would understand what I mean by swell.

So its been a long time since I was 5, and my roti making skills have become better. I do get my roti to swell though not all the time does my roti cooperate.

Sada roti after it was kneaded

Good sada roti is soft and fluffy on the inside and obviously it has to have swelled. If it doesn't swell its still delicious. Sada roti eaten hot off the tawa with some butter or cheese is one of the joys of life! Cold sada roti still is good but after more than a day its starts to get hard. It contains no fat so it gets dry fast. Paratha with its high ghee or butter content stays softer longer and so does dhalpourie but they are more for special occasions rotis.

You can add some fat to your sada roti to help it stay softer longer. Adding some yeast also helps.

This sada roti recipe will give you sada roti that is:

soft

fluffy

delicious and

easy to make

Three loyahs of sada roti resting

Recipe

Cuisine:        Trini-Indian

Type:             Bread

Time:             1 hours
Serves:            4 - 6   (Makes 3 rotis)

Skill:              Easy

Suitable:        Vegetarian, vegan

Ingredients:

2 ½ c               flour

½ c                  whole wheat flour

3 tsp                baking powder

1 ½ to ¾ c       water as needed

¼ c                  flour as needed

Procedure

1.      1.     Add flours and baking powder to a bowl and mix.

2.     Add water as needed to make a sticky dough.

3.     Knead for 2-3 minutes adding flour as necessary until a soft and smooth dough ball is formed.

4.     Leave to rest for half an hour.

5.     Portion into 3 loyahs or dough balls and rest these for another 15 minutes.

6.     Start heating the tawa (round iron griddle) You can use a pan of you like but saykaying the roti would be tricky due to the raised sides.

7.     Take a loyah and roll out to around ¼ inch thick.

8.     Place on hot tawa and wait to see when bubbles start to form.

9.     Turn over once you see bubbles on the surface of the dough.

10.  Let cook on the other side for less than a minute.

11.  Turn over again and let cook a little bit.

12.  Pull the tawa half off the heat and pull half of the roti over the exposed flame while turning it constantly so it doesn’t burn. This is called saykaing

13.  Turn over and repeat the saykaing until you see the roto start to swell.

14.  Keep turning the roti and saykaing until the roti swells. If it doesn’t that’s okay.

15.  Take off the heat and enjoy with butter or cheese or a nice takari (curried vegetable)

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