At local roti shops, key ingredients are flatbreads, curries, and authenticity

From India, by way of Trinidad

At local roti shops, key ingredients are flatbreads, curries, and authenticity

By Jonathan Levitt, Globe Correspondent  |  May 9, 2007
http://www.boston.com/ae/food/articles/2007/05/09/from_india_by_way_of_trinidad/

Scents of toasted cinnamon and clove are in the air, and Hindi lyrics and Bollywood beats warble from giant DJ speakers. Walk into Nikisha's Roti Shop and you might mistake it for an Indian restaurant. And while the cooks may have Indian roots, the curries simmering here got sidetracked on their way from Madras to the New World.

Roti has several variations, all made with flaky flatbread (the word roti means bread), curried meat and vegetables, and pickles, all rolled together. The dish comes from India by way of Trinidad and dates back 150 years. In Boston, West Indians are making authentic rotis at a handful of spots. Trinidadians know which shops they like, depending on how close the dish is to the one they know from home.

The food came with workers from the subcontinent who went to the West Indies in the mid-1800s to Caribbean sugar cane plantations, where they became indentured servants. The migrations ended in 1917 but the workers stayed, along with their curries and culture. Indian spices like cumin and turmeric were in cupboards all around the islands. For the East Indians who settled in Trinadad, roti and curry became daily home cooking.

At Nikisha's in Dorchester's Codman Square, and at a handful of other Trini-style shops, homesick West Indians can hunker down with the rich curries they know well, wrapped in roti. Customers sip pineapple soda, peanut punch, or Irish moss with their meals and most don't leave without plastic bags of tamarind balls or coconut rolls for dessert.

With theatrical eye makeup and long black hair, owner Nikisha Bisnath runs Nikisha's with her mother, Gaida Singh. "Rotis is coming along pretty well," says Bisnath, a native of Trinidad, in her sing songy lilt. "All the people around here are into it by now."

Roti refers both to the bread and to the wrap itself. When you order a plain roti, also called dal-puri, you get a large tortilla-like skin piled high with savory curried chicken, beef, goat, shrimp, or duck. You can eat it like a burrito (careful of the bones) or break off pieces and dip them in the curry. Another specialty is the buss-up-shut, served with the same stew, in a flaky, butter-enriched skin. A third, more of a snack, is a double, which takes its name from the two deep-fried skins filled with stewed chickpeas, tamarind, chutney, and hot sauce.

Most Indo-Trinidadians are very particular about their curry mixtures and cooks are precise about preparing the meat. First, they sprinkle it with lime juice and dust it with flour, then rinse it with water. The meat marinates overnight with cilantro, thyme, onion, garlic, and pepper.

Just down the street from Nikisha's is Singh's Roti Shop. Behind the counter, the steam table is stacked with a feast for weekend diners: Jamaican peas and rice; fried chicken with cucumbers; Jamaican beef patties; curries of potato, chicken, goat, duck, shrimp, and fish with green mango; and sweet stewed chicken.

Kay and Ricky Singh run Singh's; he is Nikisha's brother, but the businesses are unrelated. (Ricky and Nikisha learned rotis from their parents in Trinidad. ) Chutney music plays on the boombox and Dillian, the Singhs's pig tailed 10-month-old , is in his playpen in the dining room.

A dal-puri roti here is topped with rich, bone-in chicken curry, curried potatoes, and plenty of hot sauce. To make each one, the Singhs roll out balls of a simple baking powder dough and fill it with ground yellow split peas scented with cumin and garlic. When the orders come in, the dough is cooked on a griddle until puffed and golden. Kay Singh offers me a small bowl of souse, which consists of cold, pickled pigs' feet and cucumbers. "You do eat pigs' feet don't you? " she asks.

In the kitchen at Nikisha's, Gainda Singh is puttering around. Until 1995 she had her own roti shop in Trinidad, but since seven children and 12 grandchildren live in New England, she spends the mild months here. "I never stop missing home," she says. "There is so much to miss -- the weather, the beach, the music, Carnival, the friendly people, my garden, the mangoes, coconuts, bananas ; you name it, I grow it. I only come here to look at my children and grandchildren. And to cook."

On this warm Saturday, most people are ordering buss-up-shut rotis. The dough is made from flour and butter rolled thinly and stretched like a pizza. Singh lays it on the hot griddle, drizzles it with oil and fries it until it's crisp. Then, while it's still on the heat, she uses two wooden paddles called dablas to break up (buss -up ) the dough, hitting it until it looks like crumpled wrapping paper, or an old shirt (shut). "A spatula don't do the job," she says. She transfers the broken pieces to a plate and spoons hot stew, curried potatoes, and cabbage on top. "Someone gonna be happy with this," she says.

Ali's Roti Restaurant has two branches, one on Tremont Street in Roxbury and the other on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan. The Mattapan shop on a recent weekend is very busy, with a long winding line, frazzled cooks, and blaring music to entertain everyone.

The owners are Muslim and the food is certified halal, so you won't find pigs' feet here. The menu lists the spices and their health benefits. Cumin aids digestion, turmeric tones the spleen, Congo peppers offer Vitamin C, and more. On weekends, Ali's makes doubles because that's what customers want. "This is what the Trini people come in and get," says Hanif Abrahim, the manager and head cook. The thin wrappers are deep-fried, then filled with curried chickpeas and topped with tamarind chutney and green mango pickles. "People can put away a lot of these at once," he says.

When the West Indian community began moving to the southeastern towns, roti shops opened there, too. "The West Indian population is still growing around here," says Sharon Ram of Ram's Roti Restaurant, which is near the Westgate Mall in Brockton. "People are moving out of Dorchester, out to where it's quieter."

Ram came from Trinidad in 1985 to study computer science at Quincy Junior College (now Quincy College). She thought she would get an education, work a while, and then move back home. "I'm way off computers now though," she says.

Four years ago, Ram opened her shop, which feels more like a home kitchen than its lively neighbors to the north. The same music plays, but at an inside volume, and Ram goes about her work mindfully. She learned how to cook from her grandmother, and mother, Cynthia, 77, who makes the rotis. "If you come from Indian heritage you make rotis every day. It's your bread," says Sharon. To keep things simple at Ram's, the two offer dal puri daily and doubles on weekends.

"Making rotis is nothing for us," she says. "This is home cooking. It's what we ate growing up. This is our food."

Ali's Roti Restaurant, 1188 Blue Hill Ave., Mattapan, 617-298-9850 and 1035 Tremont St., Roxbury Crossing, 617-427-1079

Nikisha's Roti Shop, 532 Washington St., Codman Square, 617-265-0076

Ram's Roti Restaurant, 27 Pleasant St., Brockton, 508-587-5535

Singh's Roti Shop, 692 Columbia Road, 617-282-7977, Dorchester