Oven-baked Naan

Because of the Indian blood that runs through my veins, I occasionally wake up craving strange things like naan bread. Or butter chicken. Or spiced lentil stew.

My naan craving hit at 9pm on a Sunday and I did not want to leave my warm, Indian-heated (30˚C+) home to trek in the snow to buy some from the Indian restaurant a half hour away. The internet is awesome, and my faith in it was validated when I found a recipe for making naan at home in an oven. NOT a tandoori oven as it typically is.

However, the recipe I found called for a heated stone (granite or marble or something) to cook the naan on. I just graduated, I live alone, I am unemployed, so obviously I do not have slabs of marble lying around the house. So I simply used my Baker’s Secret cookie sheet and this worked just fine.

This is the recipe I used. It’s actually the first result on Google if you search “how to make naan in an oven”. Thankfully it actually turned out awesome.

Okay: things I did wrong the first time around that you shouldn’t do.

• Do not use expired yeast. Yeast lasts for a year or something so throw out your old shit and buy a new package. 
• Do not think you can just proof the dough in the oven and hack this recipe because you are probably not a pro, but if you are, go ahead, amaze me and then tell me how you did it.
• Do not overcook the bread. Naan bread is soft, chewy and buttery.
• Do not attempt to just “press the dough” with your hand. This isn’t pizza. It’s naan. Buy a fucking rolling pin or use a wine/vodka/rum bottle.

You’ll want to start by making your dough because the annoying part about making bread is that it needs to rise and that isn’t a quick process. So if you’re looking up this recipe an hour before dinner, you’re better off ordering your naan on Justeat.ca, because dough that doesn’t rise will not make delicious naan. Trust me, I hate following recipes, but I learn from bad experiences.

To make your dough, you’ll need

• A big bowl – remember your dough will rise so it needs to hold it all, once it’s gotten huge.
• 3/4 cup lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast (Fleishmann’s is a good brand, but any will do)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 pinch baking powder
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (feel free to use canola or any flavourless oil)
• 2 1/2 tablespoons of plain Greek yoghurt

Add the yeast to your water and let it stand for about 10 minutes until it’s frothy. If nothing happens, your yeast has died, and I hope you have a store close by where you can pick up new yeast. While your yeast is frothing and doing it’s thang, make the other stuff.

To a bowl, add your flour, the sugar, salt, baking powder and whisk to combine. Make a little well in the middle and plop in your yoghurt and olive oil. Stir it cutely (like, with small little flicks of your wrist) till it’s sort of got this crumbly texture. Once your yeast has gotten nice and frothy, add this water to your dough and stir, and then knead with floured hands till the dough is smooth.

I have no idea how to knead, so I usually just get my sister, who is studying to be a chef, to knead the dough. Here’s a quick video on how to knead dough by hand for breads, in case you do not have a chef-to-be in the family.

Once it’s kneaded, plop the dough back into the bowl and place a damp cheesecloth, or a damp paper towel on top of the bowl. Let it sit in a warm place. Since my apartment is hot all the time, I just left it out. In 3 hours, your dough should be ready to be made into delicious pieces of flatbread you can dip, wrap, or munch within minutes.

About a half hour before you cook your dough, preheat your oven to something stupid like 500˚F, if your oven doesn’t go that high, just stick to 400˚ and if it doesn’t even go to 400˚ just make regular bread with your dough. And buy a new oven, it’s 2013.

Put your baking tray in about 15 minutes before you put your dough in. I do this because metal heats up much faster and my baking tray sort of made strange cracking sounds so I was too afraid to put it in before. When you’re ready to cook, bring the baking tray out and grease it with olive oil.

Tear off golf ball sized pieces of your dough and roll them out however you like. I did them sort of oblong because it felt authentic (ha ha) and brushed some butter and parley flakes on top. Stick it in the oven and literally let it cook for 5-10 minutes. Keep an eye on it – it should bubble and get some spots of brown but for the most part it should just look white and soft.

I know my pictures are much browner, but that’s because I over cooked them cause I am an idiot. The next batch I made looked more like the picture in the recipe I linked, but they were so yummy I scarfed them down before I could think of taking pictures.

I WAS HANGRY, okay?

Shrek Juice

I hate greens. That’s kind of a lie, I hate leafy greens. So I’ll eat broccoli and brussels sprouts and cucumbers, but I will not touch Swiss Chard, Kale, lettuce, etc. However I’m getting old and I need to start taking care of my health, so I figured juicing greens was the best way to get my nutrients naturally. I read up about it and apparently greens are full of super awesome things that purge all the toxins from your body and all sort of vitamins that help you get wonderful shiny hair and nails and also help you poop better because of how fibrous they are.

It’s also what my mom used to do – when I hated eating something she’d blend it into a juice or a soup so I couldn’t tell what was in it. That’s the only time I’ve ever eaten peas. In a soup. And this green juice is the greatest way to get your greens in without hating your life. The fact that its raw makes it even better – all the natural nutrients are intact.

Here’s what I put in mine:

• Kale
• Spinach
• Swiss Chard
• Cucumber
• Green Apple
• Banana
• Coconut Water
• Ground Chia seeds
• Flax Oil

Here’s alternatives you could put in:

• Avocado
• Lettuce
• Ginger
• Pears
• Mango
• Berries
• Flax seeds
• Oatmeal
• Kiwis

Literally the only prep you need is to chop everything into bite-sized pieces. Chop up your greens so they don’t get caught in your blender blades and chop up the apples, bananas, just because it makes it easier to blend. Instead of coconut water, you could use regular water, orange juice, apple juice or lemon juice. I use a hand held blender to make mine, and it’s kind of very thick and chunky, but you could just use a Magic Bullet or a regular blender. I suggest NOT using a juicer because it takes all the fiber out of the juice and that’s one of the things that you do want, it helps promote good digestive health. You could add agave, stevia, honey or sugar, but I find that the apples and bananas give it enough sweetness. It’s a great breakfast smoothie, I find that

And this is why I call it Shrek Juice:

Realish Molten Chocolate Cakes

I’ve posted about a quick molten chocolate cake before, but a) I kind of messed that up b) here’s a real recipe c) that’s mostly a sort of uncooked cake.

I don’t remember when or how I came across this recipe but as every recipe on here, it’s edited from Nigella Lawson’s version that can be found here. If you want the Youchoob video (if you’re into Nigella’s chocolatey voice and her ample marshmallow bosoms like me), I’m going to try and embed it at the end of this post!

When I tried this recipe, I baked 3 different ramekins for 3 different periods of time. Obviously only one of them turned right. And I mean really, really, really, decadently right.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (or 1 stick) of butter + 1 tablespoon to grease the ramekins with

4 ounches semisweet chocolate

2 eggs

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4th cup of condensed milk

4 table spoons all purpose flour

Cream the eggs and sugar and condensed milk together. Melt the butter and the chocolate in a double boiler (a bowl with the chocolate in it placed over a pot of boiling water so it isn’t touching the heat directly). Slowly temper the egg-sugar-condensed milk mixture. Tempering is basically ensuring that both liquids are the same temperature. In order to do this, you add a little bit of the hotter liquid into the cold liquid. You keep doing this and mix the hotter liquid little by little just so the eggs don’t cook. Once you’ve combined the two, add the flour. Pour this liquid into as many ramekins as you need and bake. Keep checking but I believe it takes somewhere between 15-20 minutes to bake perfectly. If it sinks, don’t worry, that’s awesome. My sunken one was my best.

Here are my lovely pictures!

This one is the one that had juuust little bit of molten-ness to it. It kind of broke in the ramekin because there wasn’t enough butter. Not fun.

This is the sunken one, and it was perfect.

Hopefully yours turn out like my last one!

Super delicious.

Here’s the video to Nigella’s: