The Husband and I love curry so occasionally we treat ourselves to a takeaway from our local Indian restaurant. The takeaway comes mainly in foil trays delivered in a paper bag so it’s generally fairly good on the plastic free front, it’s not quite so good on our wallets (or waistline) though so I tend to stick to making my own. For the curry I stick everything – usually a combination of lentils, sweet potato, mushrooms and peas plus a jar of sauce – in the slow cooker and let it cook for several hours. The lentils and peas are packaged in plastic – I’m yet to find a plastic free alternative to the bags of frozen peas – so we’re not perfect on that front, although I do get quite a few meals out both foods. We decided to stop having naan breads as they only ever seem to come packed in plastic and I thought that making them from scratch would involve far too much effort, that was until I discovered a fab simple naan bread recipe on the internet. It only takes 5 -10 minutes to make the dough and they cook really quickly.
Simple Naan Bread Recipe:
200g self raising flour
150ml warm water
2 dessert spoons melted butter
Nigella seeds
Extra melted butter for cooking
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and knead for a few minutes – I normally need to add a little bit extra flour and so it’s not too sticky. The original recipe says to cover the bowl and let the dough rest for half an hour – I try to do this but it still turns out fine if I don’t.
Separate the dough into 6 little balls and roll out on floured surface. Place the rolled out dough on a greased baking sheet and brush the breads with a little melted butter.
Put the baking tray under a very hot grill and cook until golden brown – this only takes a few minutes. Take out the tray and turn over the breads, brush with melted butter and return to the grill for a few more minutes.
Eat straight away.
Eco Family Life 