Roti sai mai

A paper-thin cooked-on-one-side wrapper rolled round spun sugar, assembled at the last second.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg.

Ingredients

wrappers

• 200 g plain flour
• 1 egg
• 350 ml water
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons oil
• a few drops of green and pink colouring

floss

• 300 g caster sugar
• 100 ml water
• 2 tablespoons glucose syrup
• 60 g rice flour, toasted

Method

1. ASSEMBLED AT THE LAST SECOND, and this is the one rule the dish lives by. Spun sugar pulls moisture out of the air and out of the wrapper; a roti rolled ten minutes early is a damp wrapper round a sticky lump. Wrappers in one pile, floss in another, rolled as they are handed over.
2. COOKED ON ONE SIDE ONLY. The wrapper must stay pale and pliable -- it is a wrapper, not a pancake. Turned over, it dries and cracks when you roll it.
3. Whisk the wrapper batter smooth and rest it 30 minutes. It should be very thin, like single cream.
4. Divide and colour it. Wipe a non-stick pan with oil over a LOW heat -- lower than feels right.
5. A small ladleful, swirled immediately to a 16 cm circle. 45 to 60 seconds, until the surface turns matt and the edge lifts. Off, onto a plate, covered with a cloth.
6. Floss: boil the sugar, water and glucose to 150C without stirring. Pour onto an oiled tray and leave until it can be handled.
7. Work it into a ring, dust it heavily with the toasted rice flour, and begin pulling: stretch, fold in half, twist, dust, repeat. Each fold doubles the strands.
8. Eight to ten folds gives fine hair-like floss. The flour between the folds is what stops it fusing back into toffee -- be generous with it.
9. HUMIDITY DECIDES WHETHER THIS WORKS AT ALL. On a damp day the floss goes limp as fast as you can pull it; there is no technique that beats the weather.
10. To serve: a wrapper, a loose nest of floss along the middle, rolled and eaten at once.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes