Trinidad Pepper Roti
Pepper roti is a delicious take on a stuffed roti, made by sandwiching a well seasoned spicy potato filling between 2 flaky rotis, and cooking it on a hot tawa or griddle until crisp and cooked through.
Pepper roti is quickly becoming a favourite East Indian street food, but has been around for decades. I remember hearing stories from my mom, when she was a little girl, where she said they would go to the neighbours to help with the cooking for Hindu weddings. The men would be making these huge paratha or buss up shot rotis; about 2-3 feet in diameter. During their cooking time, they would throw together some potatoes, fresh garlic, onions and sometimes carrots, paste it within one of the parathas , cover with another and allow to cook on their tawa or hot griddle. The work of making roti was an enduring one, and they would make this to help when they start becoming a little hungry.
I can’t even remember the first time I tasted it, but I do remember the first time making it. It was for a Divali at my parents home. My mom would usually wake up at around 3 am to start making her own roti as she normally did for any other Divali; at that time, ordering roti was not readily available as it is now. We decided that we would make our own pepper roti this year. So we concocted a recipe by eyeballing boiled potatoes, minced hot peppers, pimento peppers, onion, garlic, bhandania (chadon beni), grated carrots and lots of cheese. The hardest part encountered, was flipping that roti with all the filling inside. Up 'til this day, we have to be psyched up to do this flip, praying that all the fillings will not fall out of the roti in the midst of the flip. To our surprise, this was the best pepper roti we ever tasted! After that, making pepper roti on Divali day has become a tradition that will never be phased. When it’s for a large amount of people, we usually order it from our favourite roti maker Sandra. She makes THE best pepper roti I have ever tasted, and she is consistently good!
During the years, my mom and I have tried different methods of making the filling. Some involved using grated raw potatoes, some incorporated sauteing all the aromatics first, before adding to the potatoes, and some even used unusual ingredients such as tomatoes. But this recipe is the one that is the easiest, least amount of prep work, and results in substantial flavours.
Tips for making Pepper Roti
You don’t need to follow this recipe for the roti if you already have a traditional one that you use. Go ahead and use that one with this filling :).
For the filling I like to add just a touch of ground geera, so that it is not overpowering. You really don’t want this to taste like aloo pie.
For the Roti dough-
My mom adds a little powdered milk which helps with the softness of the roti.
The dough will seem very soft and unmanageable after kneading, but that’s what you want! When it’s this consistency, then you know you are doing it right.
When pasting the loya or ball of dough, you can use all butter, a combination of butter and oil, margarine mixed with shortening or even all ghee (clarified butter). All of them will enhance the flakiness of the dough itself; so change things up depending on what you have on hand.
This recipe has a few different steps since it involves making the roti from scratch. So the sequence I follow is putting the potatoes to boil, then kneading the flour and finally make the filling. By the time the filling is done, the roti is ready to be made.
You can put the pepper roti together on a counter or table before putting it on the tawa, but because of limited space in my kitchen, we usually put it together on the tawa while on the lowest heat.
Use butter/margarine to paste the roti with when cooking on the tawa. This adds a little extra flavour to the roti’s exterior.
Yield: 2 medium sized pepper rotis -about 12-15 inches in diameter each, so make sure your tawa is large enough.
Ingredients
For the Roti :
5 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon powdered milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups water
1 1/2 tablespoon oil divided -I use olive oil
2 tablespoons butter/margarine, softened
2 tablespoons shortening, softened
More flour for dusting, and rolling.
For the filling:
1 pound of potatoes- about 3 small ones, boiled.
15 leaves of bhandania/chadon beni/culantro
2 medium pimento peppers, or 1 large
1/2 of a medium carrot
1/2 medium onion
4 large cloves of garlic
3 hot peppers- adjust to your preference
2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground geera/cumin
3 cups of grated cheddar cheese
For cooking the roti:
About 4 tablespoons softened butter/margarine- more depending on your preference
A utensil for flipping the roti - dabla as we call it in Trinidad
Method:
Make the dough for the roti
Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a hole in the center, and add the water. Using a swirling motion with your hand, combine the flour and the water from the center, outwards. Once all the water has been absorbed by the flour, knead for about 3 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon of oil and continue kneading for another 2 minutes. Form dough into a ball, coat with the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of oil, and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
After resting, divide the dough into 4 equal parts and form each into a ball. In Trinidad we call each ball , a loya. Mix the softened butter with the shortening, and have some loose flour close by. Take one of the loyas, place on an oiled surface, open it to form a circle using your hands. Paste the dough with 1 tablespoon of the butter mixture, sprinkle with a little flour and follow the steps below. Repeat for all the balls of dough or loyas.
Make the filling.
Mash the boiled potatoes and set aside. Add the garlic, onion, bhandania, pimentos, chopped carrot and hot peppers to the food processor, or mini chopper, and finely chop. Add this to the mashed potatoes, together with the ground geera/cumin and salt, and combine thoroughly.
Making the Pepper Roti!
Put your tawa on low heat. Take one of your loyas (balls of dough), flour your surface generously and roll out to form a 12 inch circle. Keep adding flour if it becomes too sticky. This can be slightly larger, depending on how thin you want your roti. Butter the tawa, and place your roti on the tawa- make sure the heat is on the lowest.
Paste the roti with the filling, top with half of the grated cheese, and roll the other loya. Cover with the other roti and seal the edges by pressing with a fork or your fingers. When the base of the roti is a nice golden colour, it is ready to flip. You can flip using a dabla, long spatula or basically anything that is long enough to do the job. Top the roti with some softened butter/margarine/oil before flipping, and paste some more butter/margarine on the hot flipped side. Continue to cook until the base is golden brown, and the roti is cooked through on the ends.
Remove the roti onto a workable surface, and cut into the desired shape.
