Trinidad Doubles Recipe: How to Make Doubles Channa and Bara from Scratch

Trinidad doubles is the most popular street food in Trinidad and Tobago, especially enjoyed for breakfast. One can cost about $6TTD ($1USD), making it one of the cheapest, tastiest, and most economical meals you can buy on the islands.

Here’s everything about what is Trinidad doubles, what is in doubles, how to order, plus how to make bara and doubles channa from scratch.

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What is Trinidad doubles

Trini doubles are a popular vegan street food that consists of two soft, yellow, flat, deep-fried dough called bara with a runny, flavorful chickpea topping (called doubles channa).

Additional condiments can be requested like cucumber chutney, pepper sauce, roasted pepper sauce, tamarind sauce, sweet sauce with mango, chadon beni sauce, and coconut chutney.

Doubles is sold by roadside vendors and you can ask for doubles with heavy, medium, slight or no condiments. You can also request a singles if you want one bara or a triple if you want three.

Doubles is served on wax paper and is often eaten on the spot, roadside with your hands. After eating one doubles, you can signal to the vendor to have another and pay after when you are full.

To eat doubles, you lay the wax paper on one open palm and use the fingers of your free hand to lift the bara to your mouth. Or you can use your fingers to break a piece of the bara and scoop up some chickpeas before placing in your mouth.

If you are taking away the doubles, the vendor usually rolls the wax paper up and places them in a brown paper bag.

https://youtu.be/aszRrT3J3jw?t=61

Trinidad doubles ingredients

These recipes are for the bara and channa only. For the sauces, be sure to stop by these posts on cucumber chutney for doubles and tamarind sauce.

Bara

For the bara, you need all purpose flour, yeast, sugar, salt, turmeric powder (adds the characteristic color), ground chadon beni (culantro), water for kneading and oil for frying.

Long ago, ground urdi was added to the batter. It created a more filling but slightly chewy bara. If you want to try it out, this urdi bara recipe if you like.

Doubles channa

For the doubles channa, you will need channa (chickpeas), dhal (yellow split peas), baking soda, chadon beni (culantro), garlic, fresh pepper, geera (cumin) powder, amchar masala powder, turmeric powder, salt and water.

I usually use dried chickpeas here, which will require soaking and precooking steps. You can skip these by using canned chickpeas.

How to make doubles from scratch

Bara dough

To a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, yeast, salt and turmeric powder. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the ground chadon beni and half of the warm water. Knead and continue adding a little water at a time.

You’ll want to form a very soft, smooth dough. At that point, coat the dough with some oil (about a teaspoon). This prevents the dough from drying out and forming a ‘skin’.

Cover the dough and set aside in a warm spot to rest for an hour or so.

After the time, coat your hands with some oil and divide the dough into 20 parts. Roll them into dough balls and place on an oiled baking tray. Cover and set aside.

Form and fry the bara

Add a large pot to the stove on medium-high heat. Leave for a few minutes to heat up and then add enough oil for deep frying – two cups of oil should be fine. Allow the oil at least five to ten minutes to heat up.

Once, you’ve divided the dough, spread about a teaspoon of oil onto a flat surface like your countertop. Coat your hands too.

Remove one dough ball from the tray. Press down and out to spread the dough as thin as possible. If a couple holes form, that’s perfectly fine. Make sure the edges are stretched out and have the same even thinness. It should be somewhat rounded in shape but it does not have to be perfect – the thinner, the better.

Lift the stretched bara and place in very hot oil.

Once the stretched bara is added to the oil, it will puff and float almost immediately. Flip over as soon as it floats. I’m talking about 2 seconds here – do not wait for much longer. Once flipped, wait another second or two then remove the bara from the oil. It is fully cooked at this point.

Place the fried bara on paper towels in an airtight container and cover to trap the heat and steam. Straight out of the oil, the bara will be crispier. But, the covered bara, after trapping the heat and steam, will be pillow-soft and fluffy.

Repeat the process for all the other dough balls. You could stretch out a few at a time since frying is so fast.

Channa prep

I have an entire post dedicated to making doubles channa that you can check out.

I used dried chickpeas so soaking is required. But you can use canned chickpeas and skip the soaking steps. I also pressure cooked the peas so it finished quickly.

Place the channa in a large bowl, removing any odd or bad peas. Wash the peas several times until the water runs clear. Fill the bowl with water. Mix in the baking soda and cover. Set aside for the channa to rehydrate overnight (or at least 8 hours).

In a smaller bowl, add the yellow split peas. Remove any bad peas and rinse a couple of times, again until the water runs clear. Then, half fill the bowl with water, cover and set aside (baking soda is not needed here).

Once rehydrated, the chickpeas should more than double in size. Drain the water for both the chickpeas and yellow split peas and rinse several times.

Cook the channa and season

Add the rinsed and drained peas to the pressure cooker with the water, salt and baking soda. Place on the stove on high heat and cover to allow the cooker to pressurize. Once steam flows out of the top, reduce the heat to low and place the cooker’s weight.

Leave to pressure cook for 15 minutes. By the way, I love my Hawkins pressure cooker! I use it for all my peas and beans recipes.

After pressure cooking for fifteen minutes, remove from the heat and allow the cooker to depressurize. Once fully depressurized, remove the weight and cover.

Place back on the stove on low heat. Add all the other ingredients like chopped chadon beni, garlic, pepper, turmeric, cumin powder and amchar masala powder.

Cook for another 5 minutes. Crush several of the chickpeas for a thicker consistency. Taste test and adjust the flavors to your liking. Serve with your hot bara and favorite doubles toppings.

Bring the Trinidad doubles together

Place two bara on wax paper or a plate with one slightly offset from the other. This is often done so the channa is covered by the second bara when wrapping the doubles for takeaway.

Add a large spoonful of the doubles channa over the bara. And, on top of the channa, add your favorite toppings. I didn’t add any here but you can add homemade pepper sauce and some chadon beni sauce.

That’s it! Now enjoy this delicious street food with your fingers.

What is the difference between roti and doubles

Roti is a simple flatbread, mainly made with all purpose flour, salt, baking powder and water. It is cooked on a flat cast iron pan called a tawaa and served hot mainly with vegetable sides. Roti is not deep fried and usually does not contain yeast. Doubles, on the other hand, consists of deep fried, yeast dough called bara and a well seasoned channa (chickpea) filling.

There are several types of roti like sada roti which is simple and plain, buss-up-shut or paratha roti which is cooked with butter and oil, and dhalpuri which has a seasoned, ground yellow split pea filling. All are delicious and very different to doubles.

What do doubles taste like

Doubles has incredibly satisfying tastes and textures, which will depend on the condiments you choose. For a plain doubles with bara and channa, you will have a herbaceous, mildly spicy, slightly salty chickpea flavor with melt-in-your-mouth, herbaceous fried dough.

Layer in some mango sauce and you’ll have an incredible sweet and mildly spicy taste added to the already delicious doubles. Pepper sauce provides extra heat and bitterness; cucumber chutney gives a crunchy texture and cooling taste; chadon beni sauce amplifies the herbaceous, slightly sour flavor; and coconut chutney adds a smoky element.

Essentially, doubles satisfies the salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy flavor profiles.

Do doubles have meat in them

Usually doubles do not have meat in them. But, Trinbagonians are true innovators and “gourmet doubles” are slowly making their way into the mainstream. You may be able to find some street vendors that sell doubles with chicken, shrimp, pork and sometimes beef.

Recipes you’ll like

• urdi bara
• doubles channa
• cucumber chutney
• tamarind sauce
• aloo pie
• saheena
• kachori
• baiganee
• pholourie

Doubles recipe

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