Keema + Naan

This is a very special dish.

Some years ago, Dev's family was in town & we spent one evening cooking together. His family is a riot! They are so much fun - I've never seen Dev laugh so hard, where he is practically in tears! I love them!

Dev's mom Erlinda, cooked Keema and Chipatis. She didn't use any precise measurments : dash here, spoonful there - cooking from the heart and by feel. Dev and I have made this dish many, many times since, but it has never tasted as good as his mom's. I still have the piece of paper with my notes from that evening (pic: above right).

Chopped onion, garlic, ginger, sauteed in butter.

One addition I made was: a little tomato paste.
Add spices: garam masala, curry, turmeric, paprika...etc.

Ground beef & potatoes...

Peas...

Yogurt! And, SERVE!

MadaNAAN

Dev and I usually just pickup store-bought Naan, but I wanted to try and bake some tonight.

There are so many variations on the recipe, I didn't know where to begin. Some called for water over milk, oil vs butter, bread flour vs all-purpose, Baking powder or not, 2T yogurt vs 1 cup, the addition of egg or not, pan frying, baking, grilling, broiling... it was endless.

I followed one recipe and ended up throwing away because the texture was very tough and not elastic at all - I didn't add enough liquid. (Don't you hate that when that happens? It's so wasteful. It kills me) I ended up merging a few different recipes... what 'sounded' good. Butter? Yes! More yogurt? Sure! Baking powder? That sounds like it might help it rise more... sounds good! So, I guess you can say, this is a MadaNaan!

MadaNaan

1/2 tsp yeast

2 T warm water

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 t salt

1/2 C warm milk

1/4 C melted butter

3/4 C yogurt

3 C all-purpose flour (not bread flour)

Preheat broiler.

Set racks in the middle of the oven.

Proof yeast with the warm water and half of the sugar for 10 minutes.

Make sure the yeast bubbles up. If not, the yeast is dead. Throw it away and start over.

Mix flour, salt, remaining sugar and baking powder.

Add butter, yogurt, warm milk and yeast to dry ingredients. All at once.

Mix by hand until combined.

Knead for about 6 min. until elastic.

Let rest for at least an hour, or until nearly doubled in size.

Pull off 6-8 balls of dough, lightly flour and let rest again under a towel for about 10 min.

Roll out to about 1/4" thickness. Not too thick, but not to thin.

Flip the dough back and forth between you palms to get rid of excess flour.

Lightly grease baking tray.

Broil for 2-3 minutes per side. Keep and eye on them... get ready for super PUFFAGE!

Oooh! Ace and Karl are ready to dig in!

Brush the tops with clarified butter.

I was surprised at how well these turned out. I feel silly now, for feeling so intimidated to make them. It really doesn't take much time or effort. Give it a try! I think you'll enjoy them too.