Traditional Naan Bread

We've been eating Indian Food for the past few days and I thought it was about time for me to make some Naan to go with it.  Naan is delicious and easy to make, in your home oven and if you're lucky enough to have a wood fired oven… well even better!

Naan

Naans are traditionally cooked in a Tandoor or earthen oven but can also be made in your oven at home. Serve this delicious bread hot, with Indian food, Tandoori Chicken or kebabs of different kinds. The dough for Naans needs to be made a few hours in advance.

Prep Time: 2 hours

Total Time: 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tsp. dry yeast

1 cup warm water (110f about like bath water)

1 1/2 tsp. sugar

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt (or to taste)

6 Tbl. ghee (clarified butter)

3 Tbl. yogurt

3 tsp. onion seeds

Preparation:

Add the dry yeast, sugar and warm water together and stir till the yeast is dissolved. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes or until the mixture begins to form bubbles. This indicates the yeast is active. Set aside.

Mix the flour and salt to taste and sift into a large mixing bowl then add the yeast mixture, 3 Tbl. of ghee and the yogurt.

Use your fingertips to mix into a soft, dough. Once mixed, flour a clean, flat work surface and knead the dough till it is smooth and elastic.

Grease a large bowl with a few drops of cooking oil and place the dough in it. Cover and allow to rest for about 90 minutes or until the dough doubles in volume.

Punch the dough down and knead again for 10 minutes.

Equally divide the dough into pieces and roll between your palms to form round balls.

Lightly flour, (if using a wood fired oven, use rice flour to allow the Naan to slide off the peel)  the work surface and roll out each ball until you have a circle, 7-8 inches in diameter and about1/2" thick. You can also pat it into a the circles with your hands.

Gently pull on one edge of the circle to form the Naan into a teardrop shape. Do not pull too hard or you may tear the dough.

Traditional oven;

Preheat your oven 200 C/ 400 F.

Cover a baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil and grease lightly with a few drops of cooking oil.

Place as many Naans as will fit without touching each other, on the baking sheet.

Brush each Naan well with some ghee and sprinkle with a pinch of onion seeds.

Put the baking sheet into the oven and cook till the Naan begins to puff out and get lightly brown. Flip the Naan and repeat.

Remove from oven and serve hot in a towel-covered bread-basket.

 

Wood Fired oven;

Push hot coal back away from desired cooking area.  Brush and clean well.  Slide the Naan into the hot oven and stay put, watching the Naan bread.  As it puffs up you may want to rotate the Naan if the side closest to the fire is rising faster.  As soon as it puffs up flip and brown the other side.

Remove from oven and serve hot in a towel-covered bread-basket.

Cilantro Chicken ala Madhur Jaffrey

Cilantro Chicken

Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey

Kathy made this last night… WOW!  There are so many cookbooks out there.  After a while you just get a sense what will and will not work. Madhur Jaffrey is one of our 'go to' food writers that pay off time and again.
This low fat dish is amazing!

One 3-inch piece of fresh ginger, coarsely chopped

5 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. Fresh squeezed, lemon juice

8 pieces chicken, skinned (whole, cut up chicken or 4 large breasts)

1 medium tomato, chopped

3 lightly packed cups cilantro leaves and small stems

3 Serrano chiles, coarsely chopped

1 tsp. Tomato paste

3 Tbl. olive or corn oil

1-cup yogurt, (Greek or regular) lightly beaten with a fork




1. Place the ginger, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, and the lemon juice into a blender. Add about 2 tablespoons of water and blend, working down with a rubber spatula if necessary, until smooth. Place the chicken pieces in a non-reactive bowl. Pour the ginger mixture over and rub it in. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (foil will react) and refrigerate for 30 minutes or for up to 24 hours.

2. Without bothering to clean the blender, put into it the tomato, cilantro, chilies, tomato paste, the remaining 3/4 teaspoon of salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Blend until smooth.

3. Pour the oil into a large, nonstick, lidded pan and set over high heat. When very hot, but not smoking, put in the chicken pieces, together with the ginger marinade. Fry, stirring, until the chicken pieces are lightly browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.

4. Add the tomato mixture from the blender. Continue to cook, stirring, until the sauce is thick and clings to the chicken and the oil separates, another 10 minutes.

5. Add the yogurt. Stir and cook until the yogurt disappears and leaves a thick sauce edged with oil, 4 to 5 minutes.

6. Cover, reduce the heat as low as possible, and cook for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the chicken is tender. If you think that the pan is drying out too much, stir in a tablespoon or two of water.

Serve with Basmati or Jasmine rice and Pita or Naan bread.

Mango Pickle from India

Subhorup Dasgupta

Is following this blog from India. He is an avid chile cook and food writer. He left a comment about our fire roasted chiles. This guy really knows his stuff, below is a recipe directly from his blog. Check him out and give this delicious recipe a try.

http://sitakirasoi.blogspot.com/

Here is the recipe

For 2 kg mangoes (made into 1/2 inch cubes including the hard inner core, wiped clean and dry with a damp cloth)
You will need:
The mango pieces (dummies like me would need this ingredient listed out here)

Ginger - 200 g (make a paste separately)
Garlic - 200 g (make a paste separately)
Chili powder - 200 g (we used Three Mangoes brand, which uses Warangal chilis)

Rock salt - 500 g
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Powdered Cumin or Jeera -1 tsp (freshly roasted and ground into a powder)

Fenugreek or Methi seed powder - 1 tsp
Sesame or Gingelly Oil - 500 ml
Whole cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1tsp
Whole fenugreek or methi seeds - 1/2 tsp
Preparation:
1. Heat the oil and when smoking, add whole cumin and mustard. Allow to sizzle and brown. Add whole methi seeds and immediately take it off the heat and allow the mix to cool down to room temperature.

2. Once cool to touch, add chili powder, salt, ginger paste, garlic paste, cumin powder, methi powder, and turmeric powder.

3. Mix well and then add mangoes, mix again, and transfer them into a glass jar.

You may want to add 20 to 50 cloves of garlic into this at the end of the process, or even a day or two later, if you are a garlic addict like me.

Make sure that all jars, spoons, ladles, mango pieces are totally dry, since any water that sneaks into the pickle will decimate its shelf life as well as taste going forward.

Keep a weekend free for this, it takes an entire day to prepare, in addition to time for procuring the ingredients and getting them ready. You will also want to catch some rest once you are done, not easy if you have to get to work the next morning.

Even though this is a pickle, and takes a while (about a week) to get there, do not forget to taste the fresh pickle with the very first meal after you have made it. It makes all the effort seem worth it.

This is what our pickle looked like a week later. Do let us know what you think in the comments.