Tag: bread

Pan Fried Naan

Just about a year ago, I made homemade naan for the first time.  I was pretty excited, but the naan was missing some flavor.  So I tried again and made Roasted Garlic Naan, which had a great flavor but poor texture.  Dough can be tricky, so I tried that recipe again for some for friends last year.  The consensus was that it was good, but didn’t taste like naan.

So I went back to the kitchen this weekend for yet another try.  This time I used this naan recipe from Budget Bytes.  The dough is much richer because it contains oil, yogurt, and egg.  It was easy to work with, and rose perfectly.  To cook the dough, you roll out 6″ circles and fry them one at a time in a hot pan coated with cooking spray.  When the first one was done, I was in heaven!  The naan was soft, fluffy, and had a nicely fried flavor.  I could have eaten it by itself standing over the stove, but I happened to have a batch of chana masala ready.

 

 

I am pretty sure that this will be my go-to naan recipe now.  There are just two things left to do.  First, I want to try adding either garlic butter or butter with fresh herbs next time, which might make this naan perfect.  I’d also like to try cooking these 4 at a time in an electric fry pan, because standing over the stove to cook them one by one was a little time consuming.  And of course, I need to get some people to taste test this version!

Whole Wheat Hamburger Buns

When I eat a burger at home, I usually just grab a piece of whole wheat bread from the freezer and pop it in the toaster.  But you know, when you’re serving burgers to other people, they generally expect a more traditional bun. 

And so late one night, I found myself in the bread aisle of the grocery store looking at all the hamburger rolls.  I know that’s not the best time to shop for fresh bread, but I was not pleased with my choices.  There were very few buns that were 100% whole wheat, and most of those contained high fructose corn syrup.  One roll even had partially hydrogenated oil (i.e. trans fat)!  It’s not that I have sworn off HFCS entirely, but is it too much to expect to find one brand that uses more natural ingredients?

And that’s why I decided to make my own, using this recipe from Heavenly Homemakers.  The ingredients are simple: whole wheat flour, water, yeast, honey, milk, butter, and salt.  Like many bread recipes, there are a lot of steps but you have plenty of free time in between.  I halved the recipe, and made 8 rolls which I baked in a 13″x9″ glass dish.  And isn’t this towel lined basket a whole lot nicer than the plastic bag from the grocery store?

The rolls had a fairly light texture, and they tasted great!  The real test though was how they held up when used for an actual burger.  The rolls were thin, and could be overwhelmed by heavy burger toppings, so they are best suited to those who like more burger than bun.  (Count me in!)

At the end of the day, I was really happy I made these.  I realize that it won’t always be practical to make your own buns, and your cooking time might be better spent on other aspects of the meal.  But if you were to make a couple batches of these in the spring and then freeze them, you’d have homemade hamburger rolls ready for an impromptu BBQ!