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Comment by mholmes680 | Hacker News Reader

recipe? I've never tried Indian at home, mainly because its intimidating and seems time consuming to learn what each of the cooking words means (for this very limited american palate at least). I dont necessarily have time to remember when atta or maida should be used (or what they are again), and what my convenient american-kitchen equivalent of a tava or tandoor could be...

Now... "put some yogurt, milk, water, AP flour and X,Y,Z in a cast-iron pan and fry it"? Yes that I can handle...and will probably come back to.

I guess I've never found the right "bridge" to Indian cooking... any links would be helpful.

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I might have the quantities off, but I use something like, 14 oz of AP flour, 1/2 cup of yogurt, 3/4 cup of water, 1 tsp of yeast, 1/8 tsp of baking powder, 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tsp of salt. Activate the yeast in water, mix all the ingredients until combined, but don't need to knead. It should be quite wet. Let rise for 2-4 hours. Then split into 6-8 balls, flatten by hand and/or with a rolling pin, around 9" wide and 1/4" deep, and fry in a skillet on medium.

As for curries, they're a little tricky to do traditionally (ask me about burning whole spices in oil!), but you can make plenty delicious "American-style" Indian food in a crock pot. One of our favorites is crock pot chicken tikka, google it.

A trick I was taught in an Indian cooking class is to turn off the heat while frying the spices. Then turn it back on again when you add more stuff.

Kenji Alt has a recipe at Serious Eats, but naan is really simple: it's a yeast-leavened 65% (water/flour) dough where the liquid is some kind of acidic dairy (milk, buttermilk, yogurt) --- about 4% fat.

A trick my wife showed me that has sort of changed my life is that you can roll it out between two silpats to get it very thin without having it stick to the roller.

Huh, never heard of a silpat. Rolling out is always the biggest pain, I'll have to pick some up and try that.

They're like infinitely reusable silicone parchment paper sheets that you bake directly on. They're incredibly useful.

From Googling "translate Indian recipe": http://www.indianfoodforever.com/glossary.html , which says that, for example, 'maida' is 'refined flour', and 'atta' appears to be an umbrella name for various kinds of wheat flours.

You make a yeast dough with lots of butter or yogurt and milk, wait for it to expand, then flatten it and grill it. Works well on a barbecue grill, or of course a tandoor if you have it.

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