Cooking

Nena is teaching me how to roll out rotis despite our not sharing a common language. First you mix the flour with a bit of salt and water until the dough is sticky and stretchy. Then you take a bit of the dough, slap it against your palms, roll it into a ball, and press it between your hands to flatten it. Then you dip the dough into the shallow bowl of flour so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin.

It is very hard to roll the dough into a perfect circle, especially when your teacher does not speak English and can only demonstrate it to you. I’m slowly, very slowly getting the hang of it, but it will take a couple more lessons before I can actually claim to make good rotis. The first day I tried I made a heart-shaped roti; today I made a rectangular roti. Nena hooted in laughter, and soon the entire household knew of my latest adventure. Nena pressed my rectangular roti together into a ball of dough and rolled it out perfectly to Auntie Williams’ liking.

If the dough is not rolled out properly, the roti doesn’t puff up well when it is heated over the fire. I don’t know if that affects the texture of the roti much; I ate my slightly deformed rotis today and they were fine, but the Indians might be more critical about it, the same way I’m critical about Maggie Mee. I’ll keep working at perfecting my rotis, and by the end of this trip I’ll get it right!