Trinidadian Doubles
This recipe is based on Ria's own Trinidadian doubles recipe with minor changes. Doubles is a street food from Trinidad and Tobago, which is essentially two flatbreads (bara) filled with a curried chickpea filling (channa). I used active dry yeast instead of instant yeast in the original recipe. I also used canned as opposed to dry chickpeas.
Ingredients
Doubles Bara
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dry active yeast
- 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1 cup lukewarm water minus 3 tablespoons
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 cups vegetable oil for frying
Channa
- 1 540 ml can + 1 796 ml can of chickpeas drained
- 1 tablespoon cilantro minced
- 1 hot pepper minced
- 1 tablespoon garlic minced
- 2 teaspoons curry powder
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 1/2 teaspoons amchar masala
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
- Salt to taste
Cucumber Chutney
- 2 cucumbers peeled and grated
- 3 tablespoons cilantro chopped
- 1/2 hot pepper minced
- 3 teaspoons salt
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
To serve
- Tamarind chutney
- Hot sauce
Instructions
Doubles Bara
- In a medium bowl add flour, salt, turmeric, baking powder.
- In another bowl add lukewarm water, yeast, and sugar and let sit for 10 minutes to activate yeast.
- Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and gradually and mix to form a very soft, slightly sticky dough. Do not over knead.
- Rub the dough with oil, cover with plastic wrape and set aside to rest and rise for 3 hours hours at room temp or overnight in fridge.
- Divide the dough into 16 balls. Cover and allow it to rise another hour until doubled.
- Rub oil on a flat surface plate. Place the dough on the oiled plate and flatten to 4 inch rounds (oil hands as well).
- Make your desired thickness and width — keeping in mind it puffs as it cooks.
- Meanwhile, heat 2 cups of oil in a small pot over medium-high heat. When the oil is very hot, gently place dough in hot oil and fry on each side until cooked and golden brown — this takes seconds if the oil is hot enough. You are essentially dropping it in, flipping it almost immediately and taking it out of the oil after about 10 seconds.
- Place the fried dough in a bowl lined with paper towel or in a clean kitchen towel, stacking them on top of each other as they are done frying. This will allow them to flatten, steam and give them that soft chewy texture.
Doubles Channa
- Add your can of chickpeas to a pan and add water so chickpeas are fully submerged and simmer for 40 minutes until tender, adding water as needed. You want the chickpeas so get really soft.
- Add minced garlic, curry powder, cilantro and turmeric, minced hot pepper and mix well.
- Continue to cook for 20-30 minutes or longer if required. During this time, with a wooden spoon, stir moving back and forth breaking up and squishing some off the chickpeas to get the right consistency. This will take several minutes for the channa to thicken. Add water as needed to make your channa as liquid or as thick as you want.
- Taste for salt and add more if needed. Mix in amchar masala and garam masala.
- Serve with bara.
Cucumber Chutney
- Wash cucumber and grate using large holed side of the grater.
- Give the cucumber a little squeeze to get out any excess liquid and transfer to a bowl.
- Mix together salt, black pepper, lime juice, hot
- pepper and garlic.
- Mix seasoning with grated cucumber.
