I can bake but i am no good at something that requires kneading and playing with the dough.
Well that means i need to do lots of practising and experimenting before i can proudly claim that oh yes i can now make good bread, buns, kuih and the likes!
However last weekend i decided try out my luck and make roti arab, simply because a week before we just had the most fluffy and delish roti arab made by no other than my MIL..with assistance from SIL as well :)
So here we go the experiment! I've jotted down the recipe in my hp, and asked SIL on the basic steps.
600g flour
2tbp butter
2tbs sugar
a pinch of salt
1 egg
11 oz of milk + water - fresh milk or evaporated will do
Put the flour n butter into your mixer and let the mixer to do the kneading job until it forms crumbs. then add in sugar, salt and liquid ingredients gradually till the dough is smooth and doesnt stick to your mixer wall. Anyway this is the first time Mr Ken was assigned to dough-related job, what i can conclude is the mixer can't really handle a large amount of dough...bergegar2 ok. So after few minutes of kneading i decided to stop the mixer and knead the dough manually, dgn tangan ai yg comel dan kurus nih. Seriously it got my muscles to work at its optimum level, lenguh sgt ok. Now i almost give up and was telling myself alangkah bagusnya kalau ai buat kek daripada buat benda nih! :p
So after few rounds of uli-menguli and campak-mencampak (like what Jamie Oliver always do to his dough), i think the dough is good enough to go for resting. So i rest the dough for like 20-25 minutes and took my late brekkie, and when i took a peek at the rested dough i was like wallahhh...dough ai dah naik gebu2!!
take the dough, form small balls and roll them flat with your roller. In my case, i use my fondant roller to do the 'canai' job hehe belasah sajer!
here goes my 'gebus' dough...it should rise up double its original size after 20-25min
i got 15 pcs non-standard size of roti arab out of the above recipe. didnt use a dough cutter to cut the dough into similar size...so ade yg kecik ade yg semi besar etc..layanz!
dgn excitednya terus fry the dough using our canola sunflower oil..konon utk kesihatan di masa hadapan :)
Tadaaaaa! my very first roti arab paired with home-cooked chicken curry. However the one prepared by MIL was paired with dalca daging. I malas nk beli dalca...so belasah with kari ayam sajerlah :)
The verdict:
My roti arab unfortunately was not as fluffy as mak's version. Its texture was more like pau kacang goreng, or cakoi yg jual kat kedai tuh hehe. Hubby said probably the dough was over-rested. I texted my subject matter expert (SIL who else... nak sms mak macam malu :p) and informed her on the result. She said the correct steps should be this way:
uli for 10-20 min, rest the dough for 20-25min till it doubles the original size, form small balls, rest for 10min. roll flat the dough, rest again for another 10 min,then baru fry.
so now i see what went wrong with my roti arab! i cut short the last few final steps and terus goreng the dough..how clever! Instead of over-rested, my roti arab was actually kurang rested haha funny bila pk!
But anyway, Firas loved this piece very much, so did Idlan. Hubby said my roti arab also is best eaten with sardin (noted!). So with the response given, i determine to make my second round of roti arab within this near time. Dengan harapan kali ni berjaya...dan sedap macam mak punya! caiyo caiyo!!!
