Naan Bread

Naan, Naan, Hey, Hey, Hey...Good Bread!

Did you notice the food pun in the caption? It's supposed to refer to the song that you hear at baseball games (for a history of the song which I have not verified, read this blog).  

Speaking of hilarious food puns, I'm going to do my first ever giveaway on this blog.  Whoever most accurately describes my humor in the comment section of this blog post wins ten bags of my charisma valued at $19.99 each and one exclusive picture of Littlest.  To help you understand just how valuable of a prize this is, I present to you the second most adorable picture of Littlest that I took today.  Just imagine how great first prize will be.

How can you resist those big blue eyes? You cannot.

Now that I've tempted you with a giveaway, provided link bait to another one of my posts, and generated value add content, I've almost completed my blog post to do list.  The only things left are to provide a second outbound link (Here's one to my favorite Buzzfeed of the week), and describe the drool-worthy food featured above.

Onto the real purpose of this blog post (is the recipe the point, or the link bait? You will never know).

Let's talk about Naan bread for a minute.  When most people eat Naan or a closely related flatbread cousin, they think, "I want to eat all the bread!!!!"

It's so delicious that for a long time, I thought that there must be some complicated trick for making it.  It turns out that it requires no trick at all.  Not even patience, which for those of us still growing in our Fruits of the Spirit, this is a great thing. 

For something that is incredibly simple to make, its perfectly divine to eat. Many areas of the world are more well known for their bread making expertise, but I think that India has gotten the shaft on that front.  I personally believe that Naan is the best unsweetened bread experience, anywhere, ever, period.

The soft chew of the interior and light crisp of the air bubbles make this bread the perfect texture.  Naan has all the flavor of freshly baked white bread, but the exact perfect density of the bread along with the complete lack of crust thrusts the entire Naan into exclusive space that it shares with only the interior of a French baguette.  Yes, the part that I tear out and bunch into a ball before eating. You do that to, so don't lie.

The best part about homemade naan is the ease with which you can make it.  It's a single rise dough, so you can go from dough to bread in about an hour and a half max.  Additionally, the ingredients are so...normal.  There is not a special thing on the list (unless you don't eat yogurt or keep yeast on hand).

Do yourself a favor and make this bread today!  You will thank me.  Oh, and if you comment below this post, I'll send you a free bag of charisma too.

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Homemade Naan Bread

by Hannah Rounds May-7-2014

This is the easiest recipe for delicious homemade naan bread, and it contains no weird ingredients at all.

Ingredients

• 2 Teaspoons Yeast
• Generous 1/2 Cup Warm Water
• 1 Tablespoon Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup Full Fat Plain Yogurt
• 2 Teaspoons Salt
• 3 Cups Flour + More For sprinkling

Instructions

1. Combine Yeast, warm water (1/2 cup only to start), and sugar in a large mixing bowl and allow yeast to bubble for about ten minutes. Caution- If your yeast isn't bubbly its dead (or you might have killed it with too hot of water. Start over now, or you will feel sad).2. Add egg, olive oil, yogurt and salt to the yeast and mix thoroughly.3. Slowly add the flour until you have to knead with your hands. To add all three cups of flour you may need a bit more warm water. The dough should be moist but not sticky, and it should be fairly easy to knead.4. Set your dough aside for a minute, give your mixing bowl a quick rinse, then rub the interior with some oil.5. Put your dough back in the bowl, and cover your dough with plastic wrap. Place the dough in a warm location and allow it to double in size. On a warm day this could be just 45 minutes, but on a cold day it could take two hours.6. Divide dough into 6 sections, and roll each dough to about 1/4 inch thick on a well floured surface.7. Heat butter or olive oil in a very hot skillet.8. Add one dough section to the pan and let it cook for about 45-90 seconds (long enough for large bubbles to form but short enough so it doesn't burn). Flip the bread and let it cook for about 30 seconds on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough, adding more oil to the pan when necessary.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 1 mins Total time: 2 hour Yield: 6 Naan

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Pita Bread

Warm pita bread- fresh from the oven. Delicious and actually easy to make!

I did it! I actually created a baked good that is worthy of sharing on this blog!  Okay, I did make these pretzels and this grapefruit quick bread but those don't count because sugar hides a multitude of sins (except gluttony).

This pita bread is actually quite easy to make and the hands on time is minimal, but it is about a day and half long project and requires storing the dough in the fridge, so be sure you clear out space before you embark on this journey.  You might also consider bringing some friends along for the ride.  I brought Littlest. He ate frozen peas while I mixed the dough, and by the time he finished his peas, I was done with the hands on part for the day.  The next day, he took a nap and I finished the pitas.

The inspiration for these came from a repin of a recipe that is no longer available on Damn Delicious but I'm linking there anyways because that is some good food (or at least good food photography which I appreciate more every day).  She apparently used to have a recipe for a pulled pork Gyro, which is a great idea because really who knows how to cook lamb.  Not to mention that's like $27 a pound around here (possibly slight exaggeration, they don't actually sell it at the two closest grocery stores, so I wouldn't really know the price).

Anyhow, the Pin inspired me to make homemade pitas, and for once in my life it worked.  I had to adapt this recipe from Smitten Kitchen because my first few didn't turn out like I would have liked.

Once I got the technique down, the pitas poofed beautifully with a pocket of steam and a single slice yielded that traditional pocket that just waits to be stuffed with all kinds of Greek goodness (or lets be honest here, turkey and Sriracha work nicely too).

Deb of Smitten Kitchen compares the process of making these to the process of making pizza dough, but I disagree somewhat.  If you've ever done the "wet dough" technique associated with artisan bread in 5 minutes a day (sorry no link, to lazy and I'm not Amazon affiliate so there's really no point in my Googling this on your behalf) its more like that.  The basic difference is that with pizza dough, the rise really isn't that important, but with pita bread the rise is very important.

Also, before you start you're going to need some essential tools.

1. Large 2 Quart Mixing Bowl (Ice cream buckets work too)
2. Rolling Pin
3. Plastic Wrap

Homemade Pita Bread

by Hannah Rounds

Pita Bread- It's like a carb pocket ready to be filled with Greek goodness

Details

Prep time: 1 hour Cook time: 4 mins Total time: Yield: 6 Full Pitas

Ingredients

• 3 Cups +1/2 Cup for sprinkling Flour
• 1.3 Cups + A few teaspoons for sprinkling Warm Water
• 2 Tablespoons Sugar
• 2 Teaspoons Yeast
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Instructions

1. Mix water, yeast and sugar and allow yeast to proof ten minutes. 2. Add three cups flour, salt and olive oil and mix well. Then knead the dough briefly (2-3 minutes) and allow dough to rest 10 minutes 3. After resting, flour surface generously and begin kneading the dough. You may find that the dough gets too dry or to sticky. Add more water when the dough is too dry or more flour when its sticky. Knead for about five minutes 4. Oil a bowl and put dough in the bowl to rest. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least eight hours (but don't ignore my next instruction)5. For the first four hours of the rise, punch the dough down about once per hour. 6. When you are ready to make the pitas, flour a large surface, then grab a chunk of dough and make a ball about the size of a tennis ball. Flatten the ball into a disk (about the size of a CD) 7. Cover the disk in oiled plastic (reuse the covering of the bowl) and then repeat for all 6 pitas. 8. Allow dough to rest under the plastic for about 10-20 minutes. 9. Using a floured rolling pin on a floured surface roll out on pita disk at a time. The dough should be thin but not see through. Put the flat dough on a plate to rest. Generously rub the dough with water. If the dough starts to tear, you screwed up and you should start back on step 6 with that particular ball of dough. 10. Heat oven and a baking tray to 475 (ie put the baking tray in the oven while it preheats) 11. Place one pita on the hot baking tray and bake for four minutes and 15 seconds (basically for 45 seconds after the dough poofs, but the pita shouldn't be brown yet). 12. If you resist eating it right away, it's nice to cover these with a clean tea towel

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Panzanella Salad

Panzanella Salad: It looks like bread, but its called a salad so it must be healthy.

These days, I am learning to bake, and that involves a fairly steep learning curve.  If you've never baked anything except cookies or brownies from a box, I can't say that I blame you. That was the extent of my baking knowledge just a few weeks ago.  Since then, I've attempted a lot of baking: biscuits, cupcakes, dinner rolls, hamburger buns, baguettes.  You name it, I've tried it.  The only things that have been successful so far are the cupcakes, the pretzels, and the grapefruit quick breads (ie the desserts, I must pay special attention to those).

All this failure, I hope, is paving the path to a glorious baking career, but until then, I have an overwhelming amount of mediocre bread.  I don't want all of this to go to waste, so here is a list of five things that I've made with mediocre bread that will make your mouth do the happy dance.

1. Croutons
2. Egg Bake
3. Stuffed French Toast
4. Bread Pudding
5. Panzanella Salad!

A lot of people don't know about Panzanella salad, probably due to the overwhelming popularity of Paleo diets and not becoming fat.  Panzanella salad is not healthy at all, but it is extremely delicious.  The sweetness of the bread contrasts perfectly with the lively acidity of the lemon balsamic dressing.  The bread soaks up this dressing and then mingles with the bright notes tomatoes, cilantro, feta and green onions.  Mediocre bread no more, this salad will rock your face off.

Panzanella Salad

by Hannah Rounds

Recycle old bread into a delicious flavor explosion

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 30 mins Total time: 40 mins Yield: 6 Reasonable Servings

Ingredients

• 1 Baguette chopped into crouton sized pieces
• 1/2 Lemon Lemon Juice
• 2 Tablespoons Balsamic Vineagar
• 3 Tablespoons (increase if you prefer less acidic dressings) Olive Oil
• 1 Teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• 1.5 Teaspoons Sugar
• 1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
• 1/2 Pint Grape Tomatoes Halved
• 2-3 Green Onion Chopped
• 1/4 Bunch Cilantro Chopped
• 2 Ounces Feta

Instructions

1. Whisk lemon juice, olive oil, Italian seasoning, sugar, and garlic powder. Test to ensure the dressing is to your liking. Adjust proportions as needed 2. Pour dressing over bread and allow bread to marinate for at least 30 minutes but no more than 2 hours 3. Add tomatoes, feta, cilantro and green onions and serve. 4. Leftovers are pretty good for about 1-2 days.

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