A Passage to India

My friend, John and I went out on Sunday to catch up and eat good food. We went to a place on 8th street called "Little Nepal" and it was pretty good. I ordered a kick-ass super-spicy dish called Lamb Madras. I always order lamb if it's on the menu and it's a bonus if I can get it spicy. Indian spicy is how I ordered it. Oh yeah.

Well, I brought half of it home and stuck it in the fridge. Last night I ate half of that and tonight I thought I'd pull a little "Iron Leftover-Chef" and think of something creative to make with the other half of my Indian dish.

Have you every heard of roti? It's a type of Indian bread and you can stuff it if you'd like. In fact that's really the only way I've eaten roti. Tonight I made my own version. I don't have a Tandori oven. Actually I was told the other night by the Indian guy that waited on us that you'd need about $8,000 to get a really good Tandori oven. Then he went on how it had to pass the inspection, electrical specs...blah, blah, blah... I improvised using my grill pan set on high heat (and then lowered later).

Here is my version of roti using some pizza dough that my friend, Carmen was gracious enough to let me have. We made pizzas on Saturday when I took the new Jetta up to Highlands Ranch.

Lamb Madras Roti

1/2 cup give or take Lamb Madras leftovers with some basmati rice (or any good Indian curry, vindaloo, masala, etc.)
4 oz. raw pizza dough or about the size of a tennis ball (bread dough, refrigerated biscuits in the can that scare the bejeezus out of you when you pop them open, etc. - you can use wheat bread dough)
2-1/4" slices fresh mozzarella cheese (I added this because I love cheese)

Preheat your grill pan over medium high to high heat. You want it to be fairly hot so you can "sear" the dough and make it kind of crunchy. Remember, think Tandori oven. Think of naan. Yum...naaaan...

Mix the rice and Lamb Madras (cut any large pieces of lamb into smaller bits) in a small bowl and set aside. Take the dough and flatten it out into an oblong shape. You can roll it out on a board dusted with some flour if you'd like. I didn't because I wanted the dough to pinch close.

Tear up one slice of the fresh mozzarella and place on one end of the dough and spoon the leftovers on top and spread out but not all the way to the edges. Place the other broken up piece of cheese on top.

Fold the other half of the dough over and pinch the edges all around to get a good seal. Be careful not to put holes into your raw roti. If you do just pinch. You may have to force the air out and flatten the roti a bit.

Put the roti in your hot grill pan and turn over when you have a nice brown and crunchy dough. Turn down the heat to medium and cover it with a lid (domed if you have it) and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Be sure not to burn it. Flip over and cook again for another 3-5 minutes. The roti should be nicely browned and not doughy.

Wow, this was really good. The Lamb Madras was pretty hot and it tasted so good in this bread with the melted fresh cheese. This really would be great with any type of "gravy" Indian dish. You could make little mini rotis if you were up to it. Maybe I'll have to do that in the future and post that method.

Next time you bring home Indian food give this a try! You won't be disappointed! Lamstina, until next time!