Spicy Beef & Vegetable Stuffed Gothamba Rotis and Beetroot Curry

Both these recipes were from the Sri Lankan section of Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey book and I chose them because I still had quite a lot of Unroasted Sri Lankan Curry Powder left from recently making the Sri Lankan "Curried Eggs".

The Spicy Beef and Vegetable Stuffed Gothamba Rotis are what is known as street food and are eaten hot with sweet chilli sauce. To make the roti bread you simply make a dough from plain flour, warm water and a little ghee or vegetable oil. The dough needs to rest for half an hour before being divided into balls which are placed in a little oil (which makes them easier to shape) and then spread onto a dinner plate into a thin disc shape. You can just cook these discs in a little ghee to serve with curries.

To make the filling you fry onion, garlic, minced beef, crushed dried chillies, curry powder, cabbage, leek, carrots and peas. Once cooked you season with salt and pepper and mix in mashed potato. The mixture is placed on the roti bread and rolled into a rectangular block shape which is cooked in a non-stick pan until all sides are browned. Mine were a little overcooked but still very tasty with the nice crisp outside and very flavoursome filling.
Rating 8 out of 10.

The beetroot curry looked and tasted very unusual! To make it you cut fresh beetroot into batons. Next you fried some cumin seeds, black mustard seeds, crushed cinnamon stick and curry leaves then added onions, garlic and green chillies, Finally you added the curry powder, turmeric, chilli powder, beetroot, chopped tomatoes and salt. The curry was cooked until the beetroot was tender but still had a bit of crunch. The result was a mixture of a stir fry and curry. Before serving you add some lime juice. The curry was tasty and did grow on you but I wouldn't rush to make it again.

Rating 6 out of 10.