This bread marks a milestone in my baking life. I bought the book ‘Hot Bread Kitchen’ just by looking at this bread on the cover almost a year ago. Ever since I would glance at it every once in a while and sweep my hands over the images trying to feel the texture of the bread through the pages. But I kept postponing the actual bake. I was very scared and somehow convinced I would make a mess of it. I read the recipe a few hundred times and would sigh every time as I slammed the book shut.
But I knew if I did not do it during this mega marathon, I would not get a better chance. I am baking breads almost every day for the past fortnight and felt a tad more confident, mostly due to very encouraging comments I got for my efforts so far. So I dived in and tried this phenomenal looking bread. Guess what, it turned out tasting simply divine.
Nan-e-Barbari is a Persian flatbread and is known to be one of the thickest flatbreads. It is usually almost 3 feet in length and nearly one foot in breadth. It is served with cucumbers, olives and feta cheese though I totally recommend biting into its crispy crust as soon as it is baked. The crisp crust is on account of a glaze applied over the dough before baking which is called the ‘roomal’. The roomal or glaze is nothing but a mixture of flour, sugar, oil and water heated to form a thick paste and this glaze is what gives the nan its to-die-for crisp crust. The traditional barbari oven is specialized for baking barbari breads. The oven, always built within wall, is a masonry, brick-domed, wood-fired oven with a circular hearth and relatively flat dome. A typical barbari oven has an internal floor diameter of 300 centimeters (118 inches) and internal dome height of 60 centimeters (23.6 inches), which renders it a low-dome oven. If you are interested, you can read this very detailed account on this bread here.
Country – Iran
Makes two 10″ breads
Recipe adapted from ‘The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook’
WHAT WE NEED
For the dough
All purpose flour 2 cups
Lukewarm water 1 cup
Instant yeast 1 tsp heaped
Salt 1 tsp
Olive Oil for greasing
For the roomal
All purpose flour 1 1/2 tsp
Sugar 1/4 tsp
Cool water 40 ml
Olive oil 4-5 drops
Toppings
Sesame seeds, caraway seeds and carom seeds to sprinkle
WHAT TO DO
- Mix the flour, lukewarm water, yeast and salt together and knead for 8-10 minutes by hand until smooth and elastic
- Transfer it to a greased bowl and cover with cling wrap and set aside till the dough doubles in size, about an hour
- Grease a baking tray or line it with parchment paper
- Take out the dough and divide it into 2 equal portions
- Take each dough portion and roll it into a rectangle approximately 10″ in length and 3 inches wide and place it on the baking tray
- Loosely cover it with cling wrap and set aside for 30 minutes
- In a small saucepan, combine the ingredients for the glaze – flour, water, oil and sugar.
- Turn on the heat at medium and whisk the mixture using a fork till it becomes a paste, less than a minute
- Set aside to cool
- Preheat the oven to 235C
- Lightly oil your fingers and make indents in the dough almost resembling 4-5 straight lines vertically
- With a brush, spread the roomal / glaze generously on the dough
- Sprinkle the sesame seeds, caraway seeds and carom seeds on top
- Bake for 18 minutes by which time the top should have turned golden brown. Else wait for a minute or two more
- Set it on a wirerack and let cool slightly
- Serve with cucumbers, olives and feta cheese or have it as is
- Enjoy!
NOTES
- The recipe prescribed bread flour for the dough but I used all purpose flour.
- The toppings can be other seeds of your choice – nigella seeds, black sesame seeds, cumin seeds, etc.
- The bread stays good at room temperature if wrapped well in plastic upto a week. To store for longer time, freeze it
This is my post for the mega marathon under the letter ‘N’.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 75
I saw the same bread at Pavani’s and fell in love , here comes yours , and equally well made . This is such an attractive bread , and I feel like baking it right away . Absolutely stunning bread.
Do try it Vaishali. It tastes better than it looks!
am loving ALL your breads, Sowmya ! look at the crumb … wow 🙂 am gonna slam MY baking books and head right to ur place and eat breads, while reviving my (LOST!!) baking mojo :-))
Come over right away Kalyani…added attraction for you is that I stay in Bangalore!! We can bake and eat all day 😀
Love that crumb, its been a while i baked this flat bread. Look at that crust how brownish and prefect it looks. Too tempting.
Thank you Priya!
The second one I’ve seen today and I’m in love with it! It’s beautifully shaped and baked, nice texture to it.
Thanks a lot Namratha
A very attractive and tempting flatbread, Sowmya. Good pick.
Thank you Harini
Sowmya, wow, you are simply rocking with your bread girl! I can’t understand how you are able to bake such complicated sounding bread on daily basis but thank you for doing it.I am having your entire list for bookmark and loved what you wrote about in your intro..there are so many such books that I keep drooling, never get the courage to bake..too good yaar!
I have few cook books like that too. Just drool over the pics, mark and plan but never execute. Kudos to your great effort. This bread looks awesome and that texture, wow
I think this is the first time we have made the same dish Sowmya. So same pinch. I loved how easy this dough is to work with and how delicious both this naan-e-barbari and the pizza turned out.
I had this in my list as well for N, but made a sweet pastry. Love the texture of your bread and all I need is some flavored oil to dip into!
Nan e barbari is in my to do list since very long. Now I know where to follow the recipe. Looks superb.
Indeed you really made a good use of this marathon by bringing in some loved breads!!