Saturday, March 24, 2012

An Experiment With Naan

For those of you foodies out there that Love Naan... and don't own a tandoor!!! Home cooked naan can be a serious problem.

I love the taste of home made Naan, but not having a tandoor! I have resorted for years to a smoky house and pulling all the batteries out of the smoke detectors before I commenced cooking.  Cooking it in the oven just doesn't cut it. Stove top cooking is do-able but also lacks that cooked over coals flavor.  So today I have played around with Naan and Tandoori Chicken  (You will have to wait for my next blog post to find out how I faked a tandoor with my roadside grill).  Today's Blog is about Naan that chewy, lovely, yummy, buttery, garlicy, super special bread from India... I love so much!!!

You may notice my missionary style grill... its a roadside recycle :-) a gift from a man with a truck, who knew we didn't own a "real" grill... we added the bolted on handle and rearranged the stuff inside to make a recycled charcoal grill.  Also, I love my Tortilla griddle but alas it does have a crack in it and I have a new griddle I don't love as much, so I keep my old one around. Because its so handy to use in these types of situations and my Mommy gave it to me, and I think of her when I use it. Thanks Mom!  

Use your favorite Naan Recipe and if you have my old one could you send it to me??? I didn't like this recipe as much as my old one from 2003 but alas my email server purged it and Recipezaar seems to have become some other website! So I'm not sharing the recipe here, just the technique on how to cook Naan without a tandoor.

1. Get coals nice n' hot
2. Put on a griddle so you have a good flat surface for the naan to stick too. Close lid and let the griddle get really hot.
3. Roll out naan, open up your grill and toss naan on griddle, close lid.
4. Pre roll another naan peeking at your naan, half way though your rolling out the next one.
5. Flip naan if it is starting to puff, and it looks happy.
6. Brush on butter, close lid.
7. Finish rolling out naan... if you can before the one on the griddle finishes cooking...
8. Open grill and pull off perfectly cooked naan.
9. Use tongs and wet towel to remove any burnt flour or butter from griddle.
Repeat till your out of dough.

Special Thanks to my Knight in Shining Armor for stitching together all those segments of naan cookery. 

No comments:

Post a Comment