Roti

I have never made roti before but it turned out to be surprisingly easy and fun. The dough is just flour and water, and optionally some salt if you want. The recipe I have says chipati flour or, if you can't find that (as I couldn't), half plain and half self-raising flour. You sift the flour into a bowl, then make a well and add water, mixing it through, until you have enough water that all the flour has become dough and is left slightly sticky. Then you knead it for 8-10 minutes and leave it in a warm place, covered with a damp tea towel, for about half an hour.

Next you take the dough and break it into even pieces and make it into balls - each ball should be about the size of a golf ball. Then you roll them out into flat circles, which you can easily do by rolling in the one direction and turning the roti as you go. The cooking part is where it gets really fun. Cooking roti turns out be basically like cooking a pancake, at least to start with. You take a non-stick frypan, make it very hot, then turn the heat down somewhat and put in a roti. When it starts to bubble, flip it over and cook the other side. When the new bottom side has little beige spots, you can take it out. All of which takes less than a minute.

Then, you take a separate gas burner and turn it on and, using tongs, put the roti directly over the open flame, just resting on the stand thingy that you usually put a pot on. You only need to do each side for a few seconds. The roti will puff up immediately, it's pretty amazing actually, it just inflates like a balloon. Once it's puffy and has a few black spots on it it is done and you can eat it.