Priya Makes Roti Pizza with Cilantro Chutney

Honestly, Rhoda, you could tell me anything about food

and I would believe you.

[Rhoda] This is the kind of cheese

that comes from the moon.

Whoa, moon cheese?

[Rhoda] Moon cheese.

That's why it's yellow.

That is pretty awesome.

We're making roti pizza which is really exciting

'cause it is probably the most made dish

at my house in Dallas.

So, roti pizza is exactly what it sounds like.

It is pizza but instead of using a traditional pizza crust,

we use roti, the very traditional and basic Indian bread.

So, over the years we've gotten really creative

with our roti toppings so the type of roti pizza

that we'll be making today is my all-time favorite

and it is topped with red onions,

cheddar cheese, and cilantro chutney.

It is just this, like, wonderful flavor bomb

of, like, bright, spicy, zingy.

It's probably the furthest thing from

a slice that you could possibly imagine

but this is how we eat pizza at the Krishna house.

Okay, the first step is we are going to score our rotis.

This will prevent them, theoretically, from puffing up

in the oven but if they do, don't worry about it.

So, the thing to know about roti

is that back in the day we used to have a roti person.

Like, this lady who made rotis at our house

and so I remember after my piano practice,

my dad would drive me 20 minutes outside of the city

to this lady's house and he would send me to her door

and I would knock on the door, someone would open the door,

hand me a packet of rotis

and we'd get in the car and drive off.

This is totally normal to have a roti lady.

So we've scored our tortillas,

now we're going to just put a little bit of olive oil

on them and spread it out with your fingers.

Basically, this is the equivalent

of doing a blind bake when you're making pie.

This is to make sure that the roti crust gets,

like, nice and crispy.

If you don't do this step, it's likely

that the toppings, it'll sort of collapse under

the weight of the toppings.

But this way you're creating a really sturdy, crispy crust.

Also, everyone in the Krishna family likes

their pizza crust really well charred at the end

and so this is a way to ensure you're getting

a nice charred pizza crust.

So, I to use a perforated pizza pan

or just, I mean, a wire rack works too.

Just anything that gives some air at the bottom.

This, again, will, theoretically, prevent your rotis

from puffing up and also prevent them

from becoming like crackers.

Which, yeah, you're not looking for.

You want them to still be soft

even though the outsides get crispidy and crunchy.

Alright, so these go in

the oven for about five minutes.

Basically, you're just looking for them

to become golden, slightly golden,

not too, too golden and just to cook for a little bit.

Here we go.

[Male Director] Is it this oven? Yes.

You want these on the middle rack.

Top rack they'll get a little too burn-y,

bottom rack, they won't cook long enough, so,

middle rack is what you're lookin' for.

So I wanna tell the origin story behind roti pizza

because it's kind of sad.

Basically, when my sister and I were younger,

we felt really alienated by the fact

that my mom only made, like, daal chahol and subzi

every night for dinner and all we wanted

for her to cook was pizza and so, like,

every night we would just demand pizza

and my mom would be like, No, I'm not making you pizza

on a weeknight.

Like, she's very into healthy foods, she wanted

to make sure we were having Indian meals every night.

And then one night we saw her

sort of futzing around with roti, like,

taking mozzarella and tomatoes and tomato sauce

and we were like, What is she doing?

And we realized that she was attempting to make pizza

but she didn't have pizza crust, she didn't know

how to make pizza crust, she didn't feel like attempting it

so she realized that roti was round, kind of like a pizza.

So she just decided to try using roti as a pizza crust.

So she would bake the roti

then put our favorite pizza toppings on it

and what we realized is that roti actually makes

for a really amazing pizza crust.

Like, the edges sort of curl up and get crispy,

just like as it would in a regular pizza crust.

It's super sturdy, has this beautiful savory taste.

It's also really easy 'cause you're just buying roti,

putting the pizza toppings on, baking it,

and it sort of just makes for these beautiful, portable,

sort of like personal pan pizzas, essentially, Indian style.

Okay, has it been a minute yet?

Now I'm very paranoid?

[Rhoda] Five minutes and 40 seconds.

Okay, let's give it 20 more seconds.

Do we do a New Years style count down?

Five, four, three, two, one!

[children cheering]

Alright, yeah, these are good.

Alright, so you'll see that these kinda got golden,

a little crispy at the edges but they're still soft.

Like, they're not fully cooked.

You don't want them to be fully crisped now

otherwise they will turn into crackers.

So now we're gonna layer on our toppings.

So, first thing we do is thinly sliced red onions.

Rhoda thank you for slicing these onions

so beautifully for me.

I would not have done it so beautifully.

And you can just kinda go wild.

My mom does it in this very artful way

where they're fanned out, but, like, who has time

to arrange them like fans?

Yeah, so, through the years we've gotten

just really creative with toppings.

At first it was just tomatoes, mozzarella, basil,

very standard and then my mom just, like,

kinda let loose.

She went wild.

Oh, she's done a pesto one.

The pesto one is so good.

It's, like, pesto with mozzarella on top

and some cracked black pepper.

She usually just sees whatever is in the house

and then makes roti pizza based off of that.

I feel like most people think that the building block

of Indian cuisine bread-wise is naan 'cause

that's what you get in restaurants.

But I feel like what most Indian families I know

actually have at home is roti.

It's really simple, it's great for, like, gripping a subzi

or ripping up and putting into daal and apparently

for making into pizza.

Okay, so let's quickly talk about cheese.

You're gonna wanna find the sharpest cheddar you can get.

This is basically the main salty component of the dish.

You're not really salting it otherwise.

And you can kinda go as crazy with the cheddar as you want.

I kinda like a lot of cheddar but, you know,

choose your own adventure cheddar-wise.

When I was little, I had an incident in which

a waffle iron was heating up and I didn't realize

it was heating up and I thought, you know

how the things in a waffle iron often,

like, it is brown and it is these little squares,

I thought it was chocolate.

And, so, I was like seven and I was like,

Oh my god, there's chocolate on the waffle maker,

I need to.

And so I literally went in, and this part of my fingers

just got totally singed.

So now I'm afraid of touching hot things

but this is okay.

[Male Director] That's a very sad story.

But, like, I learned my lesson.

It was fine.

But those parts of waffle irons

really do look like chocolate.

Someone needs to tell young children.

Alright, so these are going in the oven

for another five to seven minutes.

Basically what you're looking for is the cheese

to be bubbly and crispy on the top and for the edges

to kind of brown and curl up.

Okay.

So, while the roti cooks I like to make my chutney.

We're making a cilantro chutney.

If you remember for the dahi toast,

it's really simple, just cilantro, lime, a serrano,

a little bit of sugar, salt, and then maybe a little

bit of water to get the blades going.

Remember to use the stems 'cause the stems have water

and that will kinda help to churn everything.

Oh, and I agree, with your mother.

It's definitely water in cilantro stems.

There we go, you heard it from Brad, it must be true.

Fact check!

[laughter]

So I like to make this while the roti pizzas are cooking

mainly because you want this chutney to be nice

and vibrant and fresh and after about 20, 30 minutes

or so it starts to lose its color.

We're good.

Who's calling me?

Oh, it's my mom!

My mom is calling!

[Shailendra] Hi mom! Where are you?

[Rhoda] You have 42 seconds.

Oh, God.

[Male Director] 42 seconds away.

I'm in the test kitchen, look!

What are you making?

Roti pizza! Oh my gosh, you are?

[Priya] Yes!

Hold on, dad always finds a way to be in Facetime.

We're making roti pizza.

[Shailendra] Very nice, that will, what kind of,

so you're making the onion chutney one?

[Priya] Yeah, the onion chutney cheddar one.

[Shailendra] Oh, nice, nice.

Are you, like, filming it right now?

[Shailendra] Yep. Yeah, look.

Hello! Hi!

Wow, this is great.

It's like having tech support.

[Shailendra] Oh. Oh yes.

[Shailendra] Those look good.

What do you think?

[Ritu] Good? It's so ready,

it's so ready. They're so ready?

[Shailendra] I think they could be just a little

[Priya] bit more crispy. Okay, more crisp?

[Shailendra] Okay, alright. Yeah,

slightly more. Back in.

Alright, let's see.

Okay, I think, I think these are ready.

It's like bubbling and the edges are super crisp.

[Shailendra] Okay, good, now then take it out.

[Shailendra] Okay. We don't want

them to burn.

Yeah I think they're looking good.

[Priya] These are good?

[Shailendra] Yeah. Yeah.

I think these look perfect, actually.

[Shailendra] Okay, bye. Bye-bye.

Bye to everybody in the kitchen.

[Male Director] Bye, Mr. And Mrs. Krishna.

[Ritu] Bye. Bye.

Wow, alright.

We gotta go back to this cilantro chutney.

We just left it in the lurch.

Okay, there we go, it's goin'.

Alright, this is almost there.

We're making it like the,

this is like the equivalent of hand-churning butter.

It feels like it's. It's just, like,

it's chugging right along, yeah.

Oh, there we go.

Oh wait, wait, wait, oh.

For some reason I thought it was going.

There we go.

[Male Director] Let it rip!

[Priya] Let it ride.

Alright, this is more like it.

Sorry, Rhoda, I just continue to fail you.

You want the pizza to cool down

for two or three minutes once it's out of the oven

so, so this worked perfectly.

Once your pizzas are out of the oven,

basically what you're looking for,

just like my mom said is for them to not, like.

So when you pick it up, they shouldn't curl over,

like, they should be pretty solid.

You're looking for crisping and browning on the edges.

You're looking for bubbling

and crisping of the cheese around the edges.

The reason this looks so easy is 'cause usually my mom

when she does roti pizza parties, she'll do,

like, five different pizzas with different toppings.

So, she's chopping stuff, she's cooking

some of the toppings, sometimes she'll caramelize onions

and put them on top.

We're doing, like, roti pizza light right now.

Okay we've got our chutney and we are

just going to kinda drizzle it like so,

Jackson Pollock style, over our rotis.

There's no, like, artsy way of doing this.

You can go crazy and do fancy swooshes

but I just do little plops.

It's very nice getting a big hit of the chutney.

It's like getting a little hit of freshness in a pizza.

You also don't wanna, you don't wanna

over chutney the pizza 'cause then it'll start to get watery

so don't under-chutney, don't over-chutney,

you want just enough chutney.

So now you're gonna cut each into fourths,

just basically mimicking pizza slices.

My mom, hilariously, uses an enormous butcher knife for this

so when I'm home I'm just used to butchering the pizza

but any kind of big knife works well.

You don't need to go crazy and use a butcher knife.

And this really great, it's really great party

and entertaining food.

I like to put it out kind of as an appetizer

before you get into the main courses.

People can kinda snack on a roti pizza,

they're really small, they're very snackable.

I'm gonna eat one and then maybe I'll offer 'em up

to everyone else, kind of like, you know,

when you're in middle school

and you're tryin' to make friends and so you just

bring around, you're like, Do you want a cookie?

Just trying to make friends in the test kitchen.

This is so freakin' good.

They just taste like little, like, Indian nachos in a way.

I'm just gonna have one more before I share them.

This is, like, I'm gonna be like,

please leave me alone with my roti pizza.

Hey, I made roti pizza, do you wanna try a little piece?

Yes! Obviously.

Oh my gosh.

I was supposed to be standing here,

I wasn't just casually waiting for you to come by.

Kat, you want a roti pizza?

Sure, this looks really good.

What's the green stuff?

Cilantro chutney.

Carla, do you want some roti pizza.

What? Do you want roti pizza?

Yeah, I mean, that was a rhetorical question, isn't it?

[Priya] Yum! Let's see if Gaby.

Gaby, you want some roti pizza?

Sassy. I would love

to try roti pizza.

[Priya] Oh my gosh. Chris, roti pizza.

Whoa. Where do you keep this?

I'm going for the little one.

The one I wanted!

Oh my God.

There's like, this one looks good.

This has got like all of the stuff.

There's a reason that roti pizza

is the most made dish in our house

and it's because it's easy to make,

you can serve it for lunch, wow,

I'm just doing Gaby's thing.

You can have it as quick weeknight dinner,

you can do it for entertaining.

It's sort of this, like, all-purpose party trick.

And, you know, if you don't cilantro or onions or cheddar,

you can choose your own adventure

with whatever toppings you have on hand.

But, yeah, make pizza with roti.

Spread the word.

[Male Director] And, cut.

[Chris] Bright and, like, really pops.

[Priya] Oh God, oh God, I got cilantro in my eye.

[Chris] Oh God, Oh God, cut cut!

[Priya] How did that happen? Cut!

[Priya] Oh, ow, oh my God, ow.

[Gaby] You want a paper?

[Priya] Oh, it burns.

Oh my God, it actually burns.

Oh God. Get some water,

[Gaby] get some water. Want a towel?

[Chris] Water, towel.

[Priya] Literally how did that happen?

[Gaby] What was it?

[Chris] Cilantro in the eye. It just, like,

flicked into my eye.

Okay, sorry, all good.

Or, like, remember those posters that used

to be in chemistry class that was like,

Sandy didn't wear her goggles.

[Male Director] Oh yeah, Carol never wore her goggles.

And now she doesn't have to.