Taftan Naan/Taftoon Bread/Pakistani Flatbread

Pakistan is Islamic Republic country in South Asia. Its one of most populous country with Islamabad as capital. Pakistani cuisine is a blend of various regional cooking traditions of India, Central Asia. Pakistani cuisine is quite flavoursome rich cuisine with western part of the country is strongly influenced by Persian and Central Asian style while the eastern part is more similar to Northern Indian cooking. Located between Afghanistan, India and below China, Pakistan have a rich history with wonderful food and culture. The unique thing about Pakistani food is its changes from season to season. People of Pakistan are fond of eating specific types of foods depending upon the weather and season.Meat plays an important role in Pakistani Cuisine, the National dish is Chicken Biriyani. However lentils,meat, vegetables,flour and wheat products are abundantly used in this cuisine. Coming to my today's flatbread, its a flatbread which is quite common in Persion, Pakistani and Indian cuisine especially in Uttar Pradesh. Taftan Naan is a spongy flatbread which is prepared with simple ingredients available in our pantry.

Iranian Barbari Bread/Noon Barbari/Naan-e-Barbari

Barbari bread is a type of flat bread which is quite popular in Iran and its neighbouring Armenia. Barbari means our fathers or else related to Barbars in Persian language. Barbars are a group of people who lives in Eastern borders of Iran. Obviously not need to explain that this bread comes from this group.Coming to this Bread, its often eaten with cheese with herbs, jam, or else simply with a cup of tea for breakfast. Its almost like our Indian Naan bread,and this bread is also known as Naan-E-Barbari or else Noon Barbari. However Persian also makes this bread as much as like Iranian. This bread is usually shaped as a longish oval and this bread calls for roomal, a flour paste prepared using flour and baking soda. This flour paste helps a lot to stretch the yeasted dough and this paste is also used to spread over the bread to give a deep brown colour after baking.

Komaj - Eggless Persian Date Filled Turmeric and Cumin Buns

Komaj, this Persion buns are flavoured with turmeric and cumin seeds which is stuffed with chopped dates, the addition of cumin and turmeric makes this Komaj very different from other bakes,and the most interesting part is these Persian buns are stuffed with dates, so both cumin,dates combination while having this buns sounds very much unique. I have already uses cumin in breads when its comes to savory,but this bread is very much different.Cumin is very much used in Persian cuisine as they are grown abundantly, obviously local Persian dishes are often flavored by cumin in combination with turmeric powder. This sweet and savory bread is served with tea and you can find them in heart shaped buns, this is the way these buns are eaten in Iran. Komaj is this month's bread for We Knead To Bake, a monthly baking event by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen. After 'Pain au lait', a French milk buns we are travelling towards Iran for making this interesting buns Komaj.

Persian Saffron Tofu Kebab

I love cooking different cuisines eventhough my favourite always goes to Thai cuisine. Today we are landing towards to the flavoursome Persian or Iranian Cuisine. This cuisine have some mutual culinary influences from many cuisine especially Indian, Central Asian. Fresh herbs are usually used along with fruits like prunes,apricots,raisins and pomegranates. Typical Persian main dishes goes for rice with meat, mostly chicken and lamb. Persian flavourings such as saffron, dried limes, cinnamon and parsley are mild delicately and used in some special dishes.

For this month  International Food Challenge ,a monthly event started by two wonderful food bloggers Sara and Shobana, Savitha of Savitha's Kitchen who is the host of this month chosed delicious and beautiful Persian dishes. From the list of recipes she gave i chosed to cook this fantastic grilled saffron tofu instead of chicken as per the original recipe went for. Trust me, this tofu is an incredible starter to enjoy simply with a pickling sauce or you can truly enjoy this saffron tofu simply with some salads. If you want to make with chicken, just go on am sure this Persion saffran chicken kebab aka Joojeh Kabab will tastes simply awesome too.

Fereni - Iranian Rice Pudding

Fereni, a famous Persian/Iranian pudding quite a popular dessert that people make for various occasions, u can serve chilled fereni as dessert, also at the same time it can be served warm when feeling sick or for sore throat.. This pudding is prepared with milk,rice flour,sugar, rose water and decorated usually with cinnamon powder and pistachios..Quite an easy dessert which gets really ready very fast and definitely a delicious dessert to enjoy, personally i loved the chilled fereni..Sending this delicious pudding to AWED-Iran guest hosted by Vanessa, event by DK..



2cups Milk
2tbsp Rice flour
1tsp Rose water
3tbsp Sugar
Few pistachios
Cinnamon powder as per need

Heat the milk in simmer, add the rice flour, sugar, rose water to the warm milk, whisk well until the sugar gets well dissolved..Gradually increase the flame and stir continously until the pudding turns thicks...Pour this delicious pudding in a serving bowl, topped them with cinnamon powder and pistachios..

Serve warm or chilled..

Salad Shirazi - Persian/Iranian Cucumber & Tomato Salad

Salad Shirazi is quite a popular Persian salad which is prepared just with cucumber, tomatoes and with few chopped onions, this salad finally served with a dressing prepared with lemon juice, mint leaves, salt and pepper powder, i tried this quick and easy breezy salad sterday for our lunch, the addition of mint leaves gives a superb flavour to this salad..Its seems  Persian people serve this salad along with rice or with meat dishes.



2cups Cucumber (peeled &cubed)
2nos Tomatoes(chopped)
1no Onion(chopped)
2tsp Lemon juice
2tsp Mint leaves
Salt
Pepper powder

Mix the cubed cucumber, chopped tomatoes,chopped onions,chopped mint leaves in a bowl,while serving add the lemon juice, salt and black pepper..mix well and serve immediately..