Food From Northern Laos

Photo: Ketchup with Linda Mataba: The Stuffed Roti Pancake, Sweet and Savory On a hot griddle in a Thai Muslim shophouse, a ball of dough is stretched paper-thin, filled, folded into a neat parcel and fried until golden and crisp. That is mataba — Thailand's stuffed roti pancake, and one of the clearest, tastiest signs of the Arab and Indian Muslim cooks who shaped Bangkok's food. Savoury mataba comes stuffed with spiced minced beef or chicken, onion and egg; sweet mataba hides sliced banana and egg inside the same crisp shell. Cut it into squares, spoon over sharp cucumber relish, and you have a snack, a breakfast and a light meal all in one parcel. A traveller that settled in Bangkok Mataba is Thailand's version of murtabak, a stuffed pancake found from Yemen and India through Malaysia and Indonesia. Muslim traders and cooks brought it along the old sea routes, and in Bangkok it took root in the city's Thai Muslim neighbourhoods — most famously along Phra Athi...