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From New Delhi to Naples

dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m

13 years ago

Naan is cooked in a tandoor, or clay oven, from which tandoori cooking takes its name.

The heat for a tandoor is traditionally generated by a charcoal fire or wood fire, burning within the tandoor itself, thus exposing the food to radiant heat cooking, and hot-air convection cooking and direct conduction heating. Temperatures in a tandoor can approach 480Ã¯Â¿Â½C (900Ã¯Â¿Â½F).

So how do you make naan in a home oven that goes only to around 500 F?

I am sure there are many ways. Here is how I do it.

You can use any recipe to prepare the dough and there are many different recipes for you to try.

1. First I set the oven to maximum temperature.

2. Then I put a heavy thick cast iron frying pan on the stove to heat it up to red hot.

3. Place the shaped dough on the hot cast iron pan and immediately place the pan with the dough into the oven.

4. In about a minute or two, the naan is done.

5. Do the next one.

Obviously it is a very good idea to have heat insulated oven gloves to make naan this way.

After I have made naan many times this way, it occur to me that there is another traditional food which requires an oven just as hot, namely Neapolitan pizza.

Neapolitan pizza are also made in stone/clay/brick ovens around 900 degrees F.

Here is one that I made somewhat (no fresh basil in the kitchen) in the style of Neapolitan pizza, in the same method I have outlined above for making naan.

Neapolitan pizza is nice. It is small so you have no leftovers, and by definition, the shape does not have to be perfectly round.

dcarch

Naan

Neapolitan Pizza, upskirt view.

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Comments (6)

glenda_al
13 years ago
You are some cook!!!

I'm from Alabma, and enjoying hoe cake.
Simple when it comes to my fixings.

Thanks to you for sharing.
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
Original Author
13 years ago
Posted by glenda_al "You are some cook!!!
I'm from Alabma, and enjoying hoe cake.
Simple when it comes to my fixings.
Thanks to you for sharing."

Thank you Glenda.

I have been to Alabama many times and I had hoe cakes a couple of times. I didn't know those were hoe cakes and didn't want to ask those who served me what were those delicious pancakes. I thought they were Southern ways of making English muffins. LOL!

Now I can look up recipes and try to make them myself.

dcarch
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Teresa_MN
13 years ago
It looks delicious!
spacific
13 years ago
Power of suggestion...
We had your pizzas tonight. The local Italian deli had really fresh buffala mozzarella. And I found just enough basil in the garden. Yum.
Rusty
13 years ago
So apparently it is the extreme high heat for baking
(along with shape)
That defines the difference between Naan and any other
plain yeast bread?
When looking at recipes the other day,
I only read ingredients,
skipped over the methods.

In the store earlier today,
I took a close look at some packaged Nann.
It looks nothing like your photos.
Honestly, it doesn't look like anything I
(or anyone else, for that matter)
would eat.

Yours looks very appetizing.
Makes me want to try it.
But I think I will stick with our version.
"Pan de Campo".

Thanks for another 'lesson', Dcarch.

Rusty
dcarch7 d c f l a s h 7 @ y a h o o . c o m
Original Author
13 years ago
Rusty,

Cooking is so much more fun once you understand the limitations and come up with ways to go beyond them.

The naan you get from stores in a package is not worth buying. Naan has to be served and eaten hot, just like when you go to an Indian restaurant.

It's interesting that if you play with it more, once in a while the whole naan balloons up like a pillow, you then have made a Chappati !

So quick and so delicious, to me, sure better than other similar flat breads.

dcarch

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