I’ve been wanting to make something with jackfruit for a while now, I’ve seen it come by on so many cooking programs, in chili’s, curries, pulled ‘meat’ buns, so interesting that a fruit can be used in so many different savoury dishes. The jackfruit you use in these dishes is unripe and doesn’t have any flavour yet, the texture is meaty, somewhere between a sturdy piece if fish and chicken breast.
When I make chicken roti, I usually brown the chicken and let it simmer in chicken stock, this way giving off loads of flavour. I was interested to see if the flavours would still be as good without the chicken or meat to simmer in it. I added extra garam masala and an extra maggi cube and I’m happy to say it was absolutely yummy!
I accidentally left the flame on under the pan with stringbeans after they were done, so they were a bit overcooked, such a shame! still very tasty though, sautéed with garlic and onion and simmered in a tomato & vegetable broth.
Surinamese Jackfruit Roti with Potato Roti Pancakes, Stringbeans (Kousenband) and Pickled Mme. Jeanette
Ingredients
- Roti Curry
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 large can jackfruit (300 g drained)
- 2 large tomatoes, cubed
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, grated
- 3 cm grated ginger
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 3 tbsp roti garam masala
- 500 - 600 g potatoes, peeled and cut into big chunks (see notes)
- 1 Madame Jeanette pepper
- 300-400 ml water
- 1 vegetable stock cube or 2-4 maggi stock cubes
- 4 eggs
- Pepper & Salt
- Mme. Jeanette pickle
- 2 Mme. Jeanette peppers, deseeded and finely chopped
- 1-2 tbsp white vinegar
- 1-2 tsp caster sugar
- Beans
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 400 g green beans or kousenband (Surinamese long beans) - See notes
- 1 small onion or shallot, finely chopped
- 1-2 garlic cloves, grated
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- ± 250 ml water
- 1/2 vegetable stock cube or 2 small maggi stock cubes
- To serve, choose between:
- Potato roti pancakes, for recipe see here. (Prep: 30 minutes / let dough rest: 1 hour / Cook: 20 minutes)
- Regular roti pancakes, homemade or storebought
- Rice
Instructions
Jack fruit curry sauce (Prep: 10 minutes / Cook: 40 minutes)
Drain the jackfruit from the can and pat dry with paper towels. Tear the pieces apart into bite size pieces.
To a heavy based stew pan heat a tablespoon of olive oil and add the onion, sauté until translucent and fragrant.
Then add the garlic and ginger, sauté for another minute.
Add the tomato paste and the jackfruit and give it a good stir, medium to high heat, ± 2 minutes.
Add 3 tbsp of your roti spices and make sure all the onions, garlic and jack fruit is coated. Make sure it doesn't burn or it will turn bitter. ±1 minute.
Add the chopped tomatoes and with the juices scrape all the spicy goodness from the bottom of the pan, sauté for 1-2 minutes.
Add the potatoes and enough water to just cover them, the potatoes can be sticking out a bit.
Add the stock cube(s) and the Madame Jeanette (leave whole!), bring to the boil and let it all simmer on low heat for ±45 minutes (see notes), stirring now and then.
In the meantime boil your eggs until medium soft (± 7 minutes), rinse under cold water, peel and add to the sauce.
Taste and season.
Just before serving take out 2-3 potato pieces, mash them up with a fork and add back to the sauce, this will give a lovely texture to the sauce.
Beans (Prep: 5 minutes / Cook: 15-20 minutes)
Clean and trim the ends of the long beans. Chop them into ± 4 cm pieces.
In a cast iron or non-stick frying pan heat the oil and add the onions, sauté for ± 3 minutes until translucent and fragrant.
Add the garlic, sauté for ± 1 minute until translucent and fragrant.
Add the tomato paste, sauté for ± 2 minutes, don't let it burn.
Add the beans, stir fry for ± 2 minutes, making sure they're coated by all the other ingredients, medium - high heat.
Add just enough water to cover the beans and stock cube, bring to a simmer and cover.
Let simmer on low heat for ± 7-8 minutes until the beans are cooked, but still have a bit of a bite. (See notes)
If the sauce is too wet remove the lid and keep cooking until reduced.
Madame Jeanette Pickle (5 minutes)
Simply chop 2 Mme. Jeanettes finely and add to an airtight jar, add 2 tbsp white vinegar and 2 tsp of sugar (caster or palm sugar). This keeps for 2-3 months in the fridge, and like most things, gets better with age.
Notes
- The roti sauce is ready when the potatoes are done. Depending on how big you cut your potatoes, it might take a bit longer. Potatoes take longer to cook in sauce than in water. If you want to speed up the process you could par boil the potatoes for 10 minutes in water and then add to finish off in the sauce.
- Surinamese long beans need longer time to cook than regular green beans. If cooking with regular beans, skip stir frying them but add them together with ±150ml water and the stock cubes to the onion, garlic and tomato mix and cook for ± 7 minutes.
Such a great idea to veganize meals from different cultures! 🙂 I haven’t tried this one yet, but it seems like a great version of roti.
I discovered your site as I was looking for recipes from random countries for my random vegan recipe picker ( https://arimotravels.com/random-generators/random-vegan-recipes-generator/ ). Looking for meals from Suriname led me to your site, so I added a link to this recipe to the generator.
Ah nice! Thank you for your message. Jackfruit truly is such an interesting ingredient to work with!