Naan, Pie Crust

Hey Folks - (Mark post)

I have made the jump to one of my favorite breads, Naan. You've probably had naan before at an Indian restaurant. I just found some random recipe online, but I realized while I was making it that it's a lot like pizza dough: flour, yeast dissolved in lukewarm water, a little salt in the flour and sugar in the water, but the major difference is the addition of a few healthy tablespoons worth of yogurt and some ghee. I used some organic greek yogurt from Whole Foods, and I made a ghee-like substance by cooking plugra on low heat and pouring off the separated oils.

I let my dough rest in the fridge overnight so that the yeast can rise slowly, and then for the next few days I simply cut off a small chunk to cook when I wanted to. It's important to roll it out super thin, and to get the good pillowy texture I try to work the dough mostly with my hands and not a roller, creating that baker's window pane which results in a lot of air pockets. I cooked the naan on a pizza stone with the oven on broil. It only takes about 2 minutes and it's as close to a tandoor oven experience as I can achieve, haha.

puffy goodness, with garlic, brushed with ghee


Pie crust, I've been told, is hard to make, but I've recently had a few good experiences, all of them successes.

My first try was with the pot pies a few weeks ago.

Then, on Thanksgiving, I made pie crusts for Wendy to make pumpkin and coconut pies.

It helped a lot to have a food processor to make the crusts come together. Also, I gleaned a lot of good tips from Smitten Kitchen.