Category: Recipes

This is a signature Malaysian Indian dish, and in general, a signature Malaysian dish.  We’re not quite sure how to translate the name.  Roti means bread, but the word chanai eludes us.  One thought is that it’s an alternate spelling for Chennai, which is a city in India.  If you’ve ever been to a Malaysian restaurant in the United States, you’ve probably seen this as an appetizer.  Basically, it’s a fancy, folded, flaky, fried bread, served with dhal or sometimes a pink onion relish (or both).  Here in Malaysia, you can also find it served with chicken or mutton curry. We tried to make it the other day, and were very pleased with the results.  We were less pleased, of course, with the ingredients.  Who knew that so much butter/ghee could go into one dish?  And then, after all that butter, you have to saute it in oil.

This makes enough for four people to gorge themselves on four rotis each.  We haven’t included our recipe of Malaysian-style dhal, but we will soon.  If you make it and have leftovers, they are pretty good in the microwave, but they will be a little soggy.

Also, for all of you roti chanai hawkers and authentic roti chanai chefs reading, we know this isn’t actually the way to make it.  We know that we are cheating with the second dough and all.  But really, we just don’t understand how those guys do it.  It’s a talent that we have yet to learn, like throwing murtabak.

Dough 1
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
4 Tbsp. butter or ghee, softened to room temperature
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk
5 Tbsp. water

Dough 2
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup butter or ghee, softened to room temperature

Vegetable oil
Salt

First, make Dough 1.  Mix together the flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.  Mix in the butter till distributed.  In a cup, beat together the milk, egg, and water.  Slowly add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients, a bit at a time.  As soon as the dough just begins to bind, stop.  Knead the dough on a floured countertop for 15 minutes.  Divide the dough into 8 balls and let rest for two hours, loosely covered with foil. Make Dough 2 by combining flour and butter.

After dough 1 is done resting, lightly flour a countertop.  Take one ball and flatten it with your fingers to form a chubby disk.  Place 1/8 of Dough 2 in the middle of the disk, and then wrap the rest of Dough 1 around it to form a ball with Dough 1 on the outside and Dough 2 on the inside.  Roll out the dough ball to form a large square.  Then, gently roll the dough towards yourself so that you form a long tube.  Pick up the tube and turn it 90 degrees so that it is facing away from you longways.  Roll this tube longways again, making it nice and thin and very long.  Now, roll this tube up longways, and cut in it half.  You should now have two dough rolls that look like cinnamon rolls.  Place the cut side of each one down and roll it out until nice and thin.  You should now have two rolled-out dough pieces with lightly-visible swirls.

Heat 2 tsp. of oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat.  When hot, add a dough piece and fry on each side for 3 minutes, taking care not to burn it.  If desired, lightly (lightly!) sprinkle each side with salt.  Repeat with other dough piece, and then for the other 7 dough balls, to make a total of 16 rotis.

This is a recipe for Fishball Soup (Sup Bakso Ikan).  We’ve been generally very hesitant to eat fish bought from the store since we left the States since we are always worried about quality.  This was especially the case in Indonesia, so much so that we never bought any fish while we were there, relying on trips out to restaurants for seafood.  In retrospect, this was probably dumb.  It’s far easier to tell if fish has gone bad than meat.  Look at the eyes of the fish–if they are clear, and the fish doesn’t smell bad, it’s good to eat.  Contrast that with ground beef or chicken thighs, which we have bought and which have made us sick, although not since we left Jakarta.

This soup is very obviously Chinese in origin.  In fact, the much-beloved bakso, or omnipresent Indonesian/Malay meatball, is Chinese in origin, but has become so ingrained into local cooking that it’s no less Indonesian than sate (satay).  You can’t overmix the meatball ingredients–it’s the exact opposite of the Italian style of making very coarsely combined meatballs.  What’s nice about this soup is it’s not so heavy (in contrast to Sop Buntut) and it’s quick to make.

Fish Balls
4 Tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
10 oz. mackerel or other white, oily, fishy fish
4 tsp. corn starch

Soup
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 thick slices of ginger
1 1/2 cups of clear fish or chicken stock (see note)
6 oz. bihun, cooked
4 cups bean sprouts
1 cup chopped cilantro or celery leaf
fried shallots
salt and ground white pepper

Sambal
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 red chilies, thinly sliced

To make the fish balls, cut the fish into small pieces and combine all the ingredients in a food processor.  Process until extremely blended..the goal is to make as smooth and uniform of a mixture as possible.  Bring a pot of salted water to a simmer.  Using two small spoons, make small balls out of the fish mixture and drop into the simmering water.  They are done when they float to the top.  This should make around 30 fish balls.

Make the sambal by combining the soy sauce and chilies, then setting aside.  To make the soup, heat the oil over high heat until shimmery, and then add the garlic and ginger.  Stir fry for 2 minutes until fragrant, then add the stock.  Bring the soup to a boil, cover and reduce heat, simmering for 45 minutes.  Strain to remove garlic and ginger pieces.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  In four bowls, make piles first of noodles, then sprouts, then fish balls.  Ladle the soup over these ingredients, then garnish with fried shallots and cilantro or celery leaves.  Serve with sambal on the side.  Here’s a picture.

Note on Stock: You want a clear but flavorful broth for this.  The authentic way to do it here is to take 100 grams of little dried fishies called ikan bilis, which you stir-fry with the garlic and ginger until just beginning to brown, and then add water instead of stock, so that you’re making the stock fresh.  Then when you strain, you’re straining out ginger, garlic, and little fishies. This makes an extremely intense stock that is best if combined with chicken broth in a 2 parts fish to 1 part chicken ratio. We can’t imagine that you’d find ikan bilis outside of Southeast Asia, though, so a nice fish or chicken (or combination) broth is good too.  Here’s what a bag of several thousand tiny fishies looks like, with my left hand to compare.