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Surinamese Chicken Curry with Potato filled Roti

15 October 2020

Chicken Roti is a staple dish in our household. The luscious curry sauce is full of flavour and spiced up by cooking a whole Mme Jeanette along with the sauce. But be careful to not burst it open while stirring or it might become too spicy to eat 😉

For a little extra heat I always serve it with a Mme Jeanette pickle, which gives just the right sweet, tangy spiciness to the dish..

Usually I buy the roti pancakes at the toko as I find them quite a hassle to make with with chickpea flour, but I saw a recipe come by the other day to fill the roti with garlic & cumin mashed potato, and I had to try it. Glad I did, super yummy, I must say!

Print Recipe

Surinamese Chicken Curry with Potato filled Roti

(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Dinner

By Saffron – Serves: 4

Prep Time: 30 minutes + 1 hour letting dough rest – Cooking Time: ±45 minutes – Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

The Curry
500 g chicken thighs or breasts (see notes)
2 large tomatoes, roughly cubed
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tbsp roti garam masala (or homemade)
3-4 cm grated ginger
600 g potatoes, peeled and quartered (see notes)
1 Madame Jeanette pepper
± 300 - 400 ml water (just enough to cover the potatoes)
1 chicken stock cube
1-2 maggi stock cubes (optional)
Pepper & salt to taste
Beans
1 tbsp vegetable oil
400 g green beans or kousenband (Surinamese long beans) - See notes
1 small onion or shallot, finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, grated
2-3 cm grated ginger
1 tomato, diced
2 tsp roti garam masala
1 tbsp tomato paste
± 150 ml water
1/2 vegetable stock cube or 2 small maggi stock cubes
Pancake dough & filling (optional, see notes):
500 g self raising flour
250 ml water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
250 g potatoes
2 tsp cumin powder
3-4 garlic gloves, grated
Pepper & Salt
Pickled Mme. Jeanette
2 Mme Jeanette chilis, finely chopped, seeds left in
1 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp White vinegar
4 tbsp Water

Instructions

Chicken curry sauce (Prep: 10 minutes / Cook: 40 minutes)

To a heavy based stew pan heat a tablespoon of olive oil and add a chopped onion, sauté until translucent and fragrant. Then add the chopped garlic and minced ginger, sauté for another minute.

Add the whole chicken thighs and brown on all sides

Add 2 tbsp of your roti spices and make sure all the chicken, onions and garlic are coated. Make sure it doesn't burn or it will turn bitter.

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), potatoes, the Madame Jeanette (leave whole!) and let it all simmer for ±40 minutes (see notes), stirring now and then.

In the meantime boil your eggs until medium hard (± 8 minutes), rinse under cold water, peel and add to the sauce for the last 5 minutes so it can soak up some of the flavours.

Taste the sauce and season to your liking

Just before serving take out 2-3 potato pieces and a few spoons of the sauce, mash them up with a fork and add back to the sauce, this will thicken up the sauce slightly

Beans (Prep: 5 minutes / Cook: 7 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.

Grate the garlic and ginger into the pan, sauté for ± 1 minute until translucent and fragrant.

Add the tomato paste and the roti garam masala, sauté for ± 2 minutes, keep stirring so it doesn't burn.

Add the tomatoes and let them sizzle, scraping all the goodness from the bottom of the pan.

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 add the 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.

Potato roti pancake (Prep: 30 minutes / let dough rest: 1 hour / Cook: 20 minutes)

Mix flour, water, 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp olive oil and bring together into a dough, as soon as it comes together you’re done, ± 3 minutes. Divide into 4 balls, cover with a tea towel and let rest for 1 hour.

Peel and boil the potatoes until done, 15 minutes.

When done mash with a potato masher, add in 1 tsp cumin powder and 2 grated garlic cloves. Mix well.

When dough has rested for an hour roll out one of the dough balls.

Lay a 1/4 of the potato mixture in the middle and fold over the sides so all the potato is encapsuled.

Gently roll out the ball again into a pancake, ± 20 cm diameter.

Heat a cast iron skillet or a frying pan and add a drop of olive oil.

Add the pancake and cook ± 4 minutes on each sides until starting to char.

Keep warm on a plate covered by a tea towel.

Repeat with the rest of the pancakes.

Pickled Mme. Jeanette

In a small sauce pan add the vinegar, water and sugar and slowly heat until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the Mme Jeanette into a sealable jar and pour over the pickling juice.

Seal the jar, shake and set aside.

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.

You can also slice the chicken in advance if you prefer, but I generally like to keep chicken thighs or breasts whole while cooking and slice / shred at the end, this way the chicken keeps its flavour stays juicy.

Curries always taste better the next day, so I would recommend to make this ahead of time or make a bog batch so you have left overs.

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 ± 5 minutes.