Being Moroccan, love for homemade bread is in my blood. It’s something I grew up with. I vividly remember the aroma that filled the house as my mum was baking bread. We used to eat bread with almost every meal when I was growing up so we baked it every other day. If you consider that the house smelled amazing when mum used to make her ‘plain’ bread you can only imagine what it was like when she made her famous stuffed bread for us. We called this bread ‘boegensoe’ which simply means ‘stuffed’ or ‘with something inside’.
My mum would make Moroccan harira soup and this stuffed bread to go with it and we would be in heaven. Slices of this golden loaf would disappear in a hurry and if you didn’t pay attention you would be too late to grab a piece. I have a lot of siblings so one had to be quick at the dinner table. Kind of like survival of the fittest, or better yet, fastest. Every Moroccan mum probably has her own stuffed bread recipe, so there is not ‘one recipe’ but my mum’s recipe is so good you’ll want to stuff your face with it.
When I make this recipe for my kids it brings back so many memories, I only need to take one bite and I’m there again! Funny enough this bread is as common for me as pizza is for most people and I did not consider it a special recipe until I shared a ‘how to’ on Instagram. It turned out to be my most liked post ever. Especially the video where I show how to close the dough after putting the filling on it. I had so many requests for sharing the recipe after posting it, that of course I had to share it on my blog as well.
The filling in this version is made with minced beef, leeks, bell peppers and lots of fresh herbs and spices. However, you can vary your choice of filling. You can use different meat (lamb, chicken, even fish is possible) and you can also use different vegetables. It’s a very forgiving recipe…..… you can include almost anything, the bread makes a great ‘carrier’ for all the flavours. The only thing you will need to keep in mind is that you should cut the filling as small as you can. This ensures that the filling cannot poke holes in your dough causing it to leak on your baking sheet. You should also make sure you use enough, but not too much filling. What I’m talking about here is ratios. You need to have the right ratio of filling for your stuffed bread.
If you have made bread before than making this bread is relatively easy…………………..Remember the theory of relativity? Take this recipe for example. The bread gets stuffed, you get stuffed, but you’re relatively better off.
If you haven’t made bread before than you will need some practice to get it right. Make sure you use strong bread flour to get the best results. My mum always made it with regular all-purpose flour from the supermarket, but then again I don’t have my mum’s magic hands. I rely on good flour and a lot of practice. You will see that the more you bake bread the better it will turn out.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. If you try it, please let me know! Leave a comment, telling me what you think of it. You can also tag your photo on Instagram with @culyzaar or post it on my Facebook page so I can see it. I love seeing your takes on the recipes on my blog!
- 600 gr flour
- 11 gr salt
- 10 gr sugar
- 5 gr commercial dried yeast
- 400 gr of water (yes, in grams not ml)
- 500 gr minced beef (or any other meat you fancy)
- 1-2 leeks, about 400gr, chopped finely
- 2 bell peppers, chopped finely
- 1 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp ground koriander
- 1 1/2 tsp raz-el-hanout
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Pinch of pepper
- 10 grams of koriander
- 10 grams of parsley
-
Put all the ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer. Knead for 15 minutes in your stand mixer or knead the dough by hand until it’s nice and elastic. See how elastic mine was after proofing in my Instagram video. Let it proof for 45-60min until it doubles in size.
-
Chop all the vegetables finely otherwise it will poke holes in the dough when you use it as a filling. Heat up some olive oil in a large casserole and fry the leeks over a low heat for about 10 minutes. Add the meat and break it up with a spatula, than add the bell peppers and spices. Cook until everything is soft and cooked through. Make sure the filling is not too wet, if so then cook a bit longer so the moisture evaporates. Taste and add salt or any of the other spices until it tastes good. Take it off the heat and mix in the parsley and coriander and let it cool before you used it in the dough.
-
Divide the dough into 4 balls of approximately 250gr. Let it rest for 15 min. Press it down a little, enough to be able to add the filling. Put the filling on top and close the dough over the filling. See how I do that in above video in my blogpost. Close the dough firmly, let it rest for 20min to relax the gluten and then carefully flatten it into circles. Be careful not to tear it. Let the flattened disks proof for 30-45 min and bake in a hot oven 200C until golden brown.
Indian Naan Bread with Coriander
Don’t you just love fresh bread? There’s no smell better than the smell of fresh bread. I try to bake all sorts of bread so we can have homemade bread for breakfast in the weekend. Every now and then I make a small batch of flatbreads for dipping into hummus or soup, or as a wrap for things like shawarma or falafel. When we have curry I usually make some naan to go with it. Homemade naan involves a bit of work, but the effort is well spent. When you make it yourself you will never buy the naan from the supermarket again that look like stiff flip flops.
Naan bread is an Indian-style bread traditionally baked in a tandoori oven; a cylindrical clay oven. The great thing about a tandoori oven is that it can reach temperatures of almost 500c degrees which means the naan breads cook almost instantly. Even though I know they taste way better when cooked in a tandoor oven I don’t think I want to stick my hands in one of them to slap the dough on the sides of it. I’d rather use the next best thing which is my baking steel. If you don’t have a baking steel you can always use a smoking hot skillet. The naan should cook fairly quickly, about a minute per side, but again it depends on how hot your skillet is. You will notice that the dough will bubble up nicely as you cook it.
These naan are deliciously soft, pillowy, airy and have beautiful golden brown blisters on the surface. Make sure you finish them off by brushing them fresh-off-the-skillet with some melted butter. You will absolutely love them and if you are going through the trouble of serving an Indian-inspired feast, go the extra mile and make this naan bread spiked with coriander to add to the experience.
If you are scared of yeast or had trouble in the past making bread , flatbreads like naan are a great place to start. So let’s get in the kitchen and make some naan!!!!
Two things before you can start:
- I like to use yogurt in my naan recipe which will definitely make the bread a bit more chewy but also give it a mild acidity. Just so you know, because if you don’t like that you can leave it out and at a tad more water to replace it.
- You can use active dry yeast which you have to activate first, but you may also use instant or rapid yeast which doesn’t require you to dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and sugar. I always use the latter just because it’s easier to find here in the Netherlands and easier to use.
I remember the last time I made a butter chicken I did not have enough flour to make naan. I tried to borrow some from my indian neighbour, but he said he had naan left.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. If you try it, please let me know! Leave a comment, telling me what you think of it. You can also tag your photo on Instagram with @culyzaar or post it on my Facebook page so I can see it. I love seeing your takes on the recipes on my blog!
Source: adapted from ‘Felicity Cloake’s perfect naan bread’ – The Guardian website
- 300 g strong white bread flour, plus extra to dust
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1.5 tsp dry yeast
- 1 tsp nigella seeds
- 10 gr coriander
- 1 tsp salt
- 5 tbs natural yoghurt
- 2 tbs melted butter, plus extra to brush
- 150 ml warm water
- a little vegetable oil, to grease your skillet
-
Put the flour, the sugar, the yeast, the nigella seeds, the coriander and the salt into the bowl of a standing mixer. Add the yoghurt and melted butter. Mix on low speed and then gradually add the water until it’s well combined. Raise the speed to medium and knead the dough for 10 minutes until smooth. (If you don’t have a standing mixer put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it into a dough. Then you tip it out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 12 minutes until smooth and a little less sticky).
-
Put the smooth dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover and leave in a draught-free place until doubled in size: roughly 90–120 minutes. In the summer it will probably take less and in the winter more time so just judge your dough by looking at it.
-
When it doubled in size you tip the dough back out on to the lightly floured surface and knock the air out, then divide into eight balls. Meanwhile, heat a non-stick frying pan over a very high heat for five minutes and put the oven on low. Prepare the melted butter for brushing the fresh-off-the-skillet naan.
-
Flatten one of the balls and roll it into a flat circle. Pick it up by the top to stretch it slightly into a teardrop shape, then put it in the hot skillet (I used my bakingsteel for this). When it starts to bubble, turn it over and cook until the other side is browned in patches. Turn it back over and cook until there are no doughy bits remaining.