Not-quite-Roti

On our sabbatical trip to the Caribbean we tried local cuisine whenever we could. In the British Virgin Islands one dish that was on many menus was "Roti".  Our experience with Roti was that it was a curry mix wrapped up in a tortilla.  Today we had a "Caribbean" party and I wanted to serve Roti, so I tried to google a recipe.  It turns out "Roti" is a naan like bread.  In the Caribbean it's filled with a savory curry and served as a ready to eat sandwich,colloquially called Roti, but not really the Indian Roti.

No matter how much I love them, I wasn't up to making individually shaped bread for 30 people.  I settled for making 2 curries and letting folks fill a tortilla with them.  Being me, I didn't follow a recipe, although I looked a few for inspiration.  Here's what I  made.

Beef Coconut Curry

 one beef roast, ~3lbs, whatever is on sale this week
Put in slow cooker with a jar of salsa and cook on low for 6-8 hrs.

You could stop here because that roast beef is pretty good just like this. Pull off bones and fat.  Eat it strait, or shred it and put a little vinegar on it, put it on a bun, and called it a pulled beef sandwich.

If you still want curry, chop or shred the beef and read on.

3 lbs potatoes, cut into chunks (~1.5 in)
 Put in pot, cover with water, salt if desired
Boil to not quite crunchy anymore, but not yet soft.

1 large onion coarsely chopped
4-8 cloves minced garlic
Fry onion and garlic in olive oil or butter
Add curry spice - ~3-5 teaspoons - it should taste good, but stronger than you want the curry to be
 I used Sunny Caribbee's Madras Curry, but just use what you have/like.

Put chopped beef, drained par boiled potatoes, and onion/garlic/curry mixture in crock pot.  Pour one can of coconut milk over the top. Stir it together and taste test.  If you want more spice add it, add salt and peppter to taste.  If you accidentally made your curry to spicy, add extra coconut milk.

Cook on low for a couple of hours.  Serve wrapped in tortillas, or in real Roti if you had the time to make some.

Vegetable Curry

 3 lbs chunked par boiled potatoes

2 cans of cooked beans, or equivalent amount of cooked dry beans, drained

1 large onion coarsely chopped
4-8 cloves minced garlic
Fry onion and garlic in olive oil or butter
Add curry spice - ~3-5 teaspoons - it should taste good, but stronger than you want the curry to be
 I used Sunny Caribbee's Madras Curry, but just use what you have/like

1 large can (2.5 lbs) yams, drained and chopped

1 jar salsa

Combine all ingredients into crock pot heat on low for 2-4 hours, serve wrapped in tortilla.



Notes and modifications



This looks ugly.  I know.  It tastes great though.  Wrap it up and you won't have to look at it.

I made up the pots of curry the night before, put them in the fridge overnight, and then just turned on the crock pots in the morning.

I used beans to add protein to the vegetable curry.  Lentils would have been more authentic, but I was out.

Both crock pots need water after a while, as they started to get a bit dry.  That was after cooking for most of the day, so for a normal meal I don't know that extra water would be needed.

Pumpkin instead of, or in addition to, yams would have been good, as well as authentic.

I think cooked carrots would be good in either curry. ( I don't know if that would be authentic.)

I used salsa because it was easy, and I have a lot of jars  from last years canning.  You could also use fresh onion, pepper, and tomato if that's what you have.

I think the secret to this curry is par boiled potatoes and fried onions/garlic with curry.  After that you can add whatever you fancy, or what left overs you have in the fridge, and it will probably be pretty good.

I have a few curry mixes I use, and I think any would have worked here.  It's just what you prefer.

I'm going to try freezing my leftovers, some pre-wrapped so I can just pop it in the microwave for a quick lunch, and some in a big tub for a family meal.

Buttermilk

I like eating real foods. The more I move beyond my own reasons (it's cheap and tastes better) the more I'm finding it's also healthier than what's become the norm for the American diet.

I read Nourishing Traditions recently. Now I'm the sort of person who reads a cookbook like a novel, but this was a book that anyone could read for pleasure. Half of each page was commentary. I didn't check out references, but even if it was all bunk (which it wasn't), it was good bunk.

I was inspired. INSPIRED I say! So I made buttermilk. First I started with store bought cultured butter milk and the 1% milk we always have around. (We have it around because a lovely young man drives up to my house once a week and leaves some at my front door. How cool is that?) It worked. !!! Then I used the buttermilk I made to make - more buttermilk. That worked too! Man this is so exciting. !!! I got wild and crazy and asked the young man to leave a quart of cream and I made buttermilk with that.

Now I have died and gone to heaven. The cream turned into the absolutely best sour cream ever. Really. (Ask my husband, I let him have some. That's how much I love him.) I put a cup of my homemade sour cream in a jar and put it in the fridge to use with blueberries and pancakes. I left the rest out to finish curdling to see if I could make cheese.

Maybe this weekend I'll get wild and crazy and make my own yogurt.

I did ask the lovely young man to leave me a half gallon of whole milk this week.

Notes and Modifications:

4/2/10
I have felt perfectly justified in buying the cheapest cream cheese I could find, since I never noticed a difference in the quality of cream cheese.

Now I know better. I finished making cream cheese last night. The cream cheese I made by adding cultured buttermilk to cream (1:3 ratio) is amazingly delicious. Cost wise it works out about the same as what I'd pay at the store, so while this is a huge improvement on quality, it isn't a cost savings.

The cream cheese I made using purchased yogurt was as good as store bought, but not better. However, it was actually cheaper than store bought yogurt. I wonder if homemade yogurt works as well and if I'll notice a taste difference?