Jan 6, 2009

Lazy Naan

In my Hot Chana recipe, I said I'd post a recipe for lazy naan. Well here it is.

Naan, in it's very literal sense, is a flatbread that's been cooked in a tandoor, or clay oven. It's delicious and doughy and stretchy and a little bit toasted on the outside. You basically rip pieces of it off the big piece and then use the bread to grab a bit of food (mainly Indian, for us) and then stuff the whole thing in your mouth. It's a bit messy but that's just the way it goes.

Now we don't own a tandoor, and sometimes we're too lazy to make puri or chickpea pancakes, flatbreads that don't require a tandoor. So instead, we've got a lazy flatbread that we call naan. We buy a bag of pitas (any kind of flatbread will do, basically, but we like those greek style pitas. the nice thick ones. we buy ones that actually are called 'naan'), and cover them in a butter/margarine mixture and then toast them in a frying pan. So easy. The following recipe is for 4 pitas.

Lazy Naan/Flatbread
Effort: very easy
Ingredients: pretty easy

Ingredients:
  • 4 flatbreads of some kind
  • ~1/2 - 1 tbsp margarine or butter (if butter, soften a bit)
  • sprinkle of tumeric (less than 1/4 tsp)
  • sprinkle of cumin (less than 1/4 tsp)
  • sprinkle of garam masala (less than 1/4 tsp)
  • sprinkle of cayenne pepper (less than /1/4 tsp)
  • any other spices you think would go well

Directions:
  1. Mix the margarine/butter with the spices until nice and uniform and soft
  2. Spread the mixture on each side of the pitas
  3. Fry each pita on medium to medium-high heat until slightly toasty and brown on both sides (flipping halfway through).

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