Weekend Cooking: Roti Recipe

Roti is a dish from Suriname that I always used to make from a package like this:

This is a processed package of mix for roti that include the marinade for the chicken (which I don't use), sauce and roti pancakes. It is fairly costly too and you still have to include all the fresh ingredients yourself. That and it is less healthy because of all the add inns, hidden sugar and fat that they put in processed foods. So when I came across a recipe on how to make your own roti stuffing on Kook je vegetarisch met mij mee?, a Dutch blog with all kinds of easy vegetarian recipes, I was eager to try this myself. She features three different kinds of stuffing, but I only made one because of the contents in my vegetable bag. For the Dutchies: go here for the recipe, for the rest I will translate below. I adapted it a bit, but not much.

Roti Stuffing with potatoes, beans and egg (serves 3)
- 600gr potatoes, peeled and in large cubes
- about 200gr green beans, ends removed in small pieces
- 3 roti pancakes (buy in an international supermarket or make your own)
- 1 tbsp mashed tomatoes
- 2 tbsp garam masala (spice mix)
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 cube for vegetable broth
- some oil
- fresh parsley
- eggs, boiled (optional, without the eggs the recipe is vegan)

Bake the onion and garlic shortly in some oil. Add the vegetable cube, masala and cumin and bake for about a minute. Then add the tomato mash and bake again shortly. Add the potatoes and 3 cups of water, mind you that these are coffee cups or so, not the measurement cups. Let it simmer until the potatoes are almost done. Then add the beans for about the last 10 minutes. Make sure that you add some more water if it gets to dry or else the potatoes will burn. Add the eggs in the last 5 minutes so they can absorb the sauce. I also added some fresh parsley at this point. The end result shouldn't be too watery but it must be a thick sauce. If it is too watery, just remove the lid and if it is too dry, add some more water. Serve with the roti pancakes.

This is a neutral version that is non spicy and suitable for children too. For the spicy version add a Madame Jeanette pepper, or part of one. These are very tiny spicy peppers. Be careful when you prepare them and never touch them with your bare hands, because the pepper gets between your fingernails easily and can stay there for hours.

The first time it might be a bit more expensive if you haven't got any of the spice mixes, but if you buy them they will last much longer and it will all be cheaper in the end. And because it is just as easy as making it from a box, I see no reason not to make it fresh :) Because I already had all the spices in my pantry, I only had to add the fresh ingredients, which made this a low budget one. If you are interested in cooking more whole foods and out of the box, check out my review for the Kitchen Counter Cooking School on my other blog Uniflame Creates.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking, a meme for all things foodie. Please take a look at the other posts as well.

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