Dhalpourie!

Guess what I did with our brand spanking new Kitchen Aid mixer?! I made dhalpourie!! :D It wasn't as great as my mom's, but it was dhalpourie. It was only my first try and it didn't turn out like a professional Trini would make it but, there's lots of room to improve! Dhalpourie is probably the most difficult kind of roti to make and it takes the most time! It took me and my sister about an hour to cook minus the few technical difficulties we had with our mixer!
We bought the Kitchen Aid because we eat a lot of roti in this household. And since I discovered that it can knead dough I knew I had to get my hands on one. I was so excited to use it for this recipe that I had to take pictures and post about it. :)

To start off, boil 2 cups of dahl (yellow split peas) in some water with 2 tablespoons of saffron. 

Boil it for about 15 minutes. The peas can't be too soft.

Then, with the use of my handy dandy Kitchen Aid, I used the grinder attachment to grind the peas into a powder along with 3 cloves of garlic.

After the dahl is all ground, toast some ground cumin and add about 2 tablespoons to the dahl mixture.

Now set that aside and it's time to knead the dough!

The recipe I used was 6 cups of flour and 6 tablespoons of baking powder with about 3 cups of water. Add more water if the dough is too dry and add more flour if the dough is too wet. Let it sit for about 20 minutes.

Divide the dough into equal parts. We got eight dough balls that were a little smaller than a baseball.

Make a bowl out of the ball of dough and add some of the dahl mixture.

Close it in by pinching the edges together.

Set it aside and repeat with the other dough balls.

Roll it out like a pizza.

Place it on the tawah (flat cooking dish made of metal used for cooking roti). 

Brush some vegetable oil and flip. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side.

Roll it up and break it in half. I ate mine with curry lamb (made by my sister) and curried potatoes.

This is one of my all time favorite foods and now that I know how to make it I will be eating it all the time. :) Like I said earlier, it wasn't THE best dahlpourie (the dahl needed to be boiled a little bit longer) but I will be practicing a lot since the Kitchen Aid makes it so easy! 

Hope every one has a happy holiday season no matter what you celebrate! :D

My Big Fat TRINI Family!

For those of you that don't know, my family is really big. I mean really, really big. Both my mom and dad have a lot of aunts and uncles so that gives them a lot of cousins. I can't even begin to count how many there are. But this is normal. All Indian families have ginormous families. I meet new family members very often and now, thanks to Facebook, I meet them even more often!
Our family is also spread out all over the world. From California to England, Canada to Trinidad, every where I turn, there's someone I'm related to! If you think about it, I probably have ancestors in India that I don't know of. If my great great grandfather migrated from India to Trinidad, what if he left behind some brothers and/or sisters in India? If so, that means I have distant cousins in India! I could be related to the Bachchan family! I wonder if that would make me rich...
Before I forget, I love my family and I love being part of my family. I don't mean to call anyone fat by the title of this blog. I just wanted to emphasize the amount of Indians there are that are related to me. However, I do see a trend in big bellied Indians as age increases. This is only because we have delicious food. Here's a new word to add to your Trin-glish dictionary: 
Dahl-belly Indian: [dall beh-lee indian] equivalent of a beer belly or beer gut in the US.
But that's a whole other post! :)
The following picture was taken this summer. This is probably not even a quarter of my family. It would be very difficult to get everyone in one spot from both parents' side. 

There is never an end of the line to your family. It keeps going on and on and on whether we know about it or not. 
So how far back have you gone into your family tree? Feel free to share your experiences!

You Know You're a Trini When...

You make a drink and ice cream with peanutbutter but you never put it on your bread.

You put ketchup and pepersauce on your pizza.

You show disappointment by sucking your teeth (steupsing).

You know what is a "zaboca."

You call fries "CHIPS."

You dip your bread in your morning coffee.

You call all hard candies "sweeties."

You respond "Doh mamaguy meh" when someone pays you a compliment.

You know what "mamaguy" means.

You know the meaning of several indian words: eg. "dahl", "bahgee","channa", "barra", "chunkae", "bowgee" and use them in every language. (and actually believe them to be the correct "English" terms).

http://www.stouteweb.com/trini/jokes.htm

Trin-glish

It's the country where there is a song about everything, the curry is amazing, and there is a holiday almost every week. My "sweet sweet T an T!" I left Trinidad when I was only seven years old. I don't remember much, but I do wish that I could jump back into the memories I do remember. There are so many things about Trinidad that I could write about, but I figure I'll take it one subject at a time. Most Trinis speak the language of Trin-glish. The official language of Trinidad is English, but Trinis have their own version of certain words. Yep, we are just that cool! Just kidding. For example, before we left to come to the US I remember my mom telling me that in the states, the word for 'sweet drink' is soda. From then I started practicing using the word soda instead of sweet drink. It was so weird at first but I stopped using the word soda and started using the names of drinks instead like coke, sprite, etc. To someone who is not accustomed to hearing this blend of English and Trini everyday, it may sound like a different language. Words like baigan, shatine, maco, and giddy are just a few that are not normal to the American ear.

Here are some of my favorites:

Allyuh: [all-yuh] you all; Allyuh comin' by we today?

Bonx: [boncks] to hit or slam; Oh lawd, ah bonx meh head on de cabinet dey.

Chook: [chuk] to pierce or poke; Oh god-oi, ah chook meh hand wit de knife!

Dotish: [doh-tish] stupid; Yuh dotish o wah?

Gyul: [gee-ul] girl; Aye gyul, wha goin' on?

Lime: [lime] a party or get-together; We limin' on de beach today.

Maco: [mako] to be nosy; Why you so maco in meh business?

Mamaguy: [ma-ma-gai] to suck up to someone; Raj Kapoor: Gyul yuh lookin' nice. Shaniqua: Boy doh mamaguy meh.

Steups: a sound made by sucking air through one's teeth; used to express disapproval; Husband: Dat dotish man gone an bonx meh car again. Wife: He guh pay fuh dat eh, steups.

Tabanca: [ta-bank-ah] a love sick state; Sally have tabanca, she husband leave she fuh another woman.

For a full list of Trin-glish words, go here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_Trinidadian_English

Peace! :D