Murtabak: Delicious street food at home

I love food that's full of spice, not only when eating but cooking is fun too.

Murtabak (or Mataba in Thai) is one of my favorite street food, roti dough filled with aromatic spice filling and served with cucumber relish, you can find it in roti vendor everywhere in Thailand. The sweet and sour relish is the best companion to this rich fried snack.
I thought about making it a long time ago, ^^ well, there are still a lot of things that I want to try. Actually, it's not hard to make, and I have to admit that it takes time. Waiting 3 hours for the dough to rest seen too long, but you can make it the day before and let it rest overnight and the next day, it will be ready (sleeping while the dough resting is a good idea, right?). The filling and cucumber relish mixture can be prepared ahead of time too, so the day you want to serve, just frying it that's all. You can use any kinds of meat that you want, chicken, meat or pork is Ok. If you want to serve it at a party double the recipe (the resting time is the same anyway, haha), it's fun to cook with your friend too.

*Because I don't want to dough to have butter taste or fragrance so I use Rice bran shortening, but if you don't have shortening, and don't mind about the butter taste, you can use butter.

 Murtabak

Serve 3-4 people as snack

Roti dough
125 g ..................... All purpose flour
1/4 tsp .................... Salt
55 ml ...................... Water
30 g ........................ Eggs
15 g ........................ Rice bran shortening (non-hydrogenated rice barn oil shortening)
................................ Rice bran oil for covering the dough

Filling
2 tbsp ..................... Red shallots, sliced
1/8 tsp .................... Salt
1 tbsp ...................... Garlic, chopped
1 tbsp ...................... Ginger, chopped
1 heaped tbsp ......... Curry powder
100 g ....................... Minced meat (meat, pork or chicken is Ok)
1 1/2 tbsp ................ Fish sauce
1/2 tsp ..................... Granulated sugar
1 ............................... Egg
65 g .......................... Onion, finely sliced
3 tbsp ....................... Spring onion, chopped
2 tbsp ....................... Coriander, chopped
2-3 tbsp .................... Water
2 tbsp ....................... Rice bran oil for frying

Cucumber relish
55 ml ........................ Vinegar
50 g .......................... Granulated sugar 
1/4 tsp ...................... Salt
1 ............................... Coriander root, cleaned
2-3 tbsp .................... Water
................................. Cucumber, finely sliced
................................. Red shallots, sliced
................................. Chilli, chopped
................................. Coriander, chopped

Mix the water and salt together.
Put the flour into a bowl, pour the water and salt mixture and egg into the bowl.

 Mix until fully combine.

 Remove from the bowl and knead until smooth (the dough will be sticky).

 Rice bran shortening (non-hydrogenated rice barn oil shortening).

 Knead the shortening into the dough until smooth.

 Brush a bowl with shortening, and place the dough into the bowl, cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.

 Divide into 3 pieces, and roll each piece into a ball.

 Pour the oil into a bowl.

 Place the dough into the bowl, the dough should be fully covered
*Press the plastic onto the dough.
Let it rest for 3 hours (or overnight).

 Pound the shallots with salt, ginger and garlic into fine paste.

 Mix with curry powder.

 Place a pan over low heat, pour the oil into the pan.
Fry the curry mixture until fragrance.

 Put minced meat, and season with fish sauce and sugar, add water to the pan and fry until dry. 

 Remove from the heat, let it cool for 10 minutes.
Stir in the egg, onion, spring onion and coriander into the pan.

 Set aside.

 Put the vinegar, sugar, water, salt and coriander root into a small saucepan.
And place over low heat until the sugar dissolve.

 Remove from the heat and let it cool, remove the coriander root before using.

 Remove the dough from the bowl, press and roll to 20 cm square.

Spoon the oil from the dough bowl onto a pan.
Fry the dough for a minutes.

 Put 1/3 of the filling onto the center.

 Fold each side of the dough to cover the filling.

 Fry until fully cook on both sides.
Remove from the heat.

Put cucumber, shallot, and chilli into a bowl pour the vinegar mixture into the bowl, and place coriander on top.

Cut the Murtabak into pieces and serve hot with cucumber relish.

Murtabak: Delicious street food at home