Trinidad Roast Bake
One of our Friends of New Hall Mill spent twenty years living in Trinidad. She took some New Hall Mill flour home recently and used it to cook some authentic Trinidadian bread known as 'roast bake'. Doesn't it look delicious?
Trinidad’s traditional cuisine is a vibrant fusion of African, Indian, Creole, Chinese, and European flavours. Street-food staples include doubles — curried chickpeas nestled between two flaky bara (fried flatbreads) and aloo pies — deep-fried pastries filled with spicy mashed potatoes, a cross between samosas and pasties. Hearty one-pot meals such as pelau combine rice, pigeon peas and caramelized chicken in a rich, savory stew, while callaloo, made from dasheen leaves, okra and coconut milk (often with crab), offers a creamy, comforting taste of the sea.
Caribbean curries are often served with some kind of bread, and there are many different types, brought to Trinidad by immigrants and indentured labourers. Three come from the Indian subcontinent. Roti is a simple, thin flatbread that you can roll up, dhalpuri is similar but stuffed with spicy lentils, and “buss up shut” paratha is rich, flaky and buttery.
But for a truly Trinidadian treat with Creole origins, try this roast bake. It's a soft leavened bread cooked on a stove-top, about half an inch thick, which cannot be rolled like a flatbread.
Here's the recipe.
Ingredients
- 125 g / 4½ oz New Hall Mill wholemeal flour
- 125 g / 4½ oz plain flour
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons butter
- water to mix
Method
- Sift the flours, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Add the sugar and stir it in.
- Rub in the butter and knead to make a smooth dough, adding water as needed.
- Cover the dough with a damp cloth.
- Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes or more.
- Divide the dough into two halves and shape them into balls.
- Allow them to rest for another 15 minutes.
- Using a rolling pin, roll each ball of dough out on a floured worktop until it's about half an inch thick.
- Dry fry in a heavy pan or skillet until it rises and browns. Flip it over and cook the other side. It can cook quickly, so take care not to burn it.
- Serve warm and plain as a snack, slathered with butter and perhaps lightly salted. Or split it open like thick soft pitta bread, and fill it with your favourite hot Caribbean dishes, such as saltfish or fried chicken.
We hope you enjoy your roast bake. Let us know how it goes!