Naan bread

I've tried several recipes for naan bread, but this one is the best for my taste buds! They go really well with all curry dishes, mint sauce and mango chutney.

For this recipe I use dried yeast. I've noticed this works best and 'speeds up' the time a little bit compared to fresh yeast breads.

This recipe is for 6-8 breads.

Ingredients:

- 1 sachet instant dried yeast (is 7 grams), or 15 gr fresh yeast

- 1 tsp sugar (not necessary when using fresh yeast)

- 200 ml lukewarm milk

- 500 gr High Grade (strong) flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 150 ml yoghurt or sour cream

- 1 egg

- 2 Tbsp ghee or melted butter

- dried coriander flakes

- olive oil or canola oil

- extra flour for dusting

Utensils:

- big mixing bowl

- small bowl

- spoon

- tea towel

- measuring spoons

- scale

- working space, e.g. a bench top

- knife

- pastry brush

- baking tray

- baking paper, optional

- oven

Preparation:

Mix the sugar in the milk and stir until dissolved. Add the dried yeast and stir a couple of times. let is sit for 10-15 minutes until the mixture becomes frothy. (That means the yeast is activated and a layer of foam appears in the surface of the milk.) When using fresh yeast, dissolve the yeast in the milk. You can either do this with your fingers or with a (tea)spoon. This mixture doesn't have to stand to activate, it is ready for use now.

In the big bowl mix the flour, salt and baking powder together. Make a little well (hole) in the middle and pour the milk, egg, yoghurt or sour cream and the melted butter in the well. Now comes the fun part; with your right hand (or left if your left-handed) dive into the well and mix and knead everything together. Make sure all ingredients are combined properly. After a couple of minutes a dough will form. Try using one hand only. This in case the phone rings. Trust me, it will make a huge sticky mess when answering the phone with a hand covered in dough!

Dust a working space with a little bit of the extra flour and scrape the dough from the bowl onto the floured bench top. Scrape the sticky dough off your right hand with some extra flour and start kneading the dough. If you're a novice, use both hands. Otherwise try using one hand only. Knead for approximately 10 minutes or until the dough feels smooth and satiny and when pressing with a finger it should bounce back. If the dough feels too sticky, add a little flour. be careful not to add too much otherwise the dough will turn out dry and tough. Shape the dough in a ball.

Clean the bowl and rub the inside of the bowl with about 1 tsp (olive) oil. Put the dough in the bowl and cover with a tea towel. Let it rise for about an hour or until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Dust your working space with flour again and turn the dough onto the flour. Gently flatten the dough with your hands until about 1-1.5 cm thick. Cut 'tear drop'-shapes from about 25 cm long and 15 cm wide. Shape with your hands and try to avoid kneading the dough too much.

Line a baking tray with baking paper or rub the tray with (olive) oil and dust with plain flour. Put the breads onto the baking tray. Brush the tops of the breads with (olive) oil and sprinkle with dried coriander flakes. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Let the breads cool for about 5 minutes before moving onto a cake rack to cool completely. You can also eat them while still warm.

They freeze pretty good. Before serving, make sure they're thawed completely. You can reheat them for about 3-5 minutes in the oven (180-190ºC) or simply put them in a toaster.

Variations:

- Instead of the coriander flakes, try onion seed or some crushed garlic. Be careful not to burn the garlic when baking the breads. Burned garlic will leave a bitter taste. If the garlic browns too quick, cover the naan breads with some tin foil.

Flat egg cakes

The pantry almost exploded with eggs from our lovely chookies, so the decision was easy; egg cakes!

This is a yummy Dutch treat that goes very well with people on a diet and is a good solution when you have left over eggs or too many eggs in the pantry. There is no butter or oil in this recipe and a very low amount of sugar.

Ingredients:
- 5 eggs
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 100 g sugar
- 100 g flour

Utensils:
- 2 mixing bowls
- measuring spoons
- electric mixer (or a hand mixer if you're into some exercise)
- baking paper
- baking sheet
- big spoon

Preparation:
Separate the eggs and place the yolks in one bowl and the egg whites in the other bowl. (Make sure no yolk comes in the egg whites otherwise the whites wont stiffen up.) Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and gradually add 50 grams of the sugar spoon by spoon. Mix until the sugar has completely dissolved. You can test this by rubbing a little bit of the mixture between your fingers. If it feels smooth, then the sugar has dissolved. If not, beat a little longer. Set aside.
Add the rest of the sugar and the lemon juice to the egg yolks and beat with the mixer on high until the mixture looks pale yellow and has a creamy consistency. Mix with the metal spoon the flour and baking powder through the egg yolk mixture. Add the egg whites a little bit at the time and gently combine. If you stir too rough, you'll loose all the air and the cakes turn out flat and chewy. It's alright if some specks of whites are still visible. Leave the mixture to rest for 5 minutes, this gives the egg whites time to 'recover'. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Put some baking paper on a baking tray. Take a big blop of egg mixture and spoon on the tray. Make sure to leave some space between each cake, because the mixture will expand in the oven.
Bake in 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

When the cakes have cooled, store in an airtight container.

Variations:
- Add 1 tsp of vanilla essence to the egg yolk mixture before mixing in the egg whites.
- If you're into raisins or currants, add some to the mixture.
- Try adding 1 tsp cinnamon.
- For more cakes with a zing, add 10 grams of lemon zest.
- Add 2 sachets (is 16 grams) of vanilla sugar. (You can buy vanilla sugar, but is very expensive. It is fairly easy to make yourself; put a vanilla pod in a jam jar and cover with caster sugar. I used a vanilla pod without the seeds after using the seeds for another dish. It still turns out great.)