Naan - The Kurdish Flat Bread
On August 11, 2011, finally my mom baked Kurdish flat bread, aka Naan. Literally, it has been more than six months my sister asked for it. My mom has been baking this bread as long she could remember. The tools that were used are hand made by my father such as Teirok (rolling pin) and Missteqe.The sac( non-stick iron plate) and the mini table came from Kurdistan. Those two tools were giving to our family by our Kurdish neighborhood.
When I was doing research on this bread, several websites stated that this is a Turkish Bread. It is called Yufka. Although it has same procedures as Kurdish flat bread, this is not only considered as Turkish bread. Kurdish people have been making this bread for many and many years. It has long history behind it.
The recipe
- 4 cups flour
- 2 1/4 tsp of yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup or less water
Naan is merely made of flour, yeast, water, and salt. Naan is very thin, round, and unleavened shape.
The dough is cut into pieces, rounded (but not squished) and the dough is rolled into a circular sheet on mini table.
The Naan is continuously turned over with the Mistqeek (long flat wood), and it is also moved around frequently to bake the edges ( or areas that need to be baked more). This whole process is done by 1 to 2 minutes for each Naan.
Once the bread is baked, then Naan is removed from the flat plate. It is placed in a basket. The bread became very dry and it broke into pieces easily. Hence, it must be handled gentle when removing the bread. We made two different kinds of Naan (wheat and white).
National Geographic picture
"A Kurdish village woman stands with her Yufka (flatbread). Living in a rural area about 20 minutes outside of Şanlıurfa in Eastern Turkey, the women make about a months supply of bread at a time. This will later be sprinkled with water and reheated before it is consumed." Ben Ward
The interesting part of this bread is not placed in refrigerator, but instead it is covered by
a fabric. When is time to eat it, the bread is sprinkled with water and covered by with cotton fabric. It will become a soft bread. You don't even have to warm it up.
Since I love cheese so much, I told my mom to add cheese and folded . This was my first time making Naan with my mom.
