I am not going to lie and tell you that I liked making roti when I was growing up. The act was fraught with frustration and stress, from start to finish. The thing is, there was no pressure from anyone, not even my mother (rest her soul), to learn/know how to make roti. I figured that it was one of those things that one should learn. It’s such a big part of Guyanese cuisine. However, kneading or rolling the dough would give way to exasperation and I’d think to myself, what is the point… if I want roti to eat, I can have it anytime, my aunt makes roti daily, for dinner. And she’s not far away.
By the time I left Guyana in the late 90s, I knew how to make roti, but being away from Guyana, and the lack of ready access to roti (without having to make it myself), is when I began to truly appreciate the art and skill that goes into making Paratha/oil roti. It requires intuitiveness when kneading the dough. The dough should be soft and this is best determined when kneading by hand; and the dough should not be overworked because it would affect the texture of the roti when cooked. To overwork the dough would be to develop too much gluten causing the cooked roti to be chewy and stretchy, instead of light, leafy, and flaky.
