October 12, 2022
Dinner is done, but the air is thick with flavors. I have noticed that in a multi-level house, smells can stratify. As I walk up from the basement, I feel comforted by the lingering warmth.
To make this dish, a ginger-garlic paste is cooked in hot oil before onions and spices join the party. The quantities will seem absurd. Eight cloves of garlic? Halloween is near, but no vampires have been sighted. I have never used 50 grams of grated ginger! I worried that the oil would spatter when the tomatoes and chicken hit the pan, but the spices (9 teaspoons) soaked up the hazard.
There is only one thing that I would do differently if I had tonight to repeat: Start this dish first! It happily reduces for forty-five minutes. I started with what I knew (roti and rice pudding) when I could have knocked those out in the down time and had dinner on the table earlier.
Biggest win, everyone finished all of their portion. My potato-haters forgot to complain. Some extra salt was asked for, extra roti would have been appreciated, but this reminds me of why I keep cooking.
There are nuances in bread that can be missed. If I posted pictures of roti, tortillas, and naan would you be able to identify them correctly? You might wonder if it is worth the trouble, considering that you can buy tortillas at the grocery. I find roti more pliable than tortillas; they are excellent for dishes when you might use the bread as your utensil.
Making roti took flour, boiling water, and 1/2 a tablespoon of oil. It is so very simple, and there is real joy in kneading the hot dough. It came together beautifully. I portioned mine into five pieces for obvious reasons, but in the future I would double this recipe (at least). Generously flour your surface because the warm dough sticks more easily when rolling. Also, take the time to roll all of your roti first, or have a second chef doing the rolling. They cook so quickly that you do not have time in between to roll the next one.
Last night when I saw the leftover rice, I told Ben that I wanted rice pudding. I was thinking that I would make it just for me, but since there is a recipe from Fiji, I served it to everyone.
Truthfully, I didn’t use the Fijian recipe because my rice was already cooked, but I took comfort in knowing there was some rational for serving it tonight. Also, lactose-free milk has become our lifesaver. I love a creamy dessert, and I love my husband. His lactose intolerance meant that I needed to leave those recipes on the shelf, or apologize to him for making a dessert he couldn’t eat. We have tried this several times, and I don’t notice a taste difference in the end product.
Water
This felt absurd, but fun. Jakob claimed that he tasted a difference. Great. David wanted to know how we could verify that it came from Fiji and not some drinking fountain. My little sceptic.
Dinner and a Show
Equally absurd was our program. The boys saw World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji as the best choice. Upside: we saw a lot of Fijian scenery. Downside: we learned nothing about the culture. Strange Bonus: we talked about risks and respecting the limits of the human body. I don’t know that we will make it through all ten episodes, but I want to start making room for their passions within this project.
The Roberts Family’s Worldwide Adventure 
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