Priya’s Versatile Recipes: 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.

Taftoon bread which is also called Taftan Naan is a super spongy bread with rich ingredients in it. Cream, milk and butter are used in this bread, hence this bread smells too good.And this bread is a leavened one which is flavoured with saffron, a small amount of cardamom powder and often decorated by seeds like poppy seeds, onion seeds etc. Pakistani Taftan is quite a sweet bread, once baked or before baking this flatbread calls for a sugar,oil, milk and saffron or yellow food colour mix for toppings to make this bread more colourful and rich. This bread can be served with any sort curries or stews. If you are looking for rich flatbreads for a feast or for an get together, dont forget to give a try to this excellent flavoursome rich flatbreads.Am running a month of blogging marathon and here comes the final week of september, am so happy that i could make some delightful flatbread all around the flour to fit this theme.You might have noticed that am running this month’s Mega marathon with A-Z International Flatbreads as theme hence am posting this Taftan Naan for the alphabetic letter ‘T’.

International Flatbreads till now:

A for Aish Baladi from Egypt
B for Balep Korkum from Tibet
C for Crescentine/Crescentina Modenese from Italy
D for Dhalpuri Roti from Trinidad
Efor Emirati Khameer Bread from United Arab Emirates
F for Ftira from Malta
G for Gourassa from Sudan
H for Hönökaka from Sweden
I for Imeruli Kachapuri/Imeretian Kachapuri from Georgia
J for Jordanian Shrak Bread from Jordan
K for Ka’ak from Lebanon
L for Lefse from Norway
M for Matlou from Algeria
N for Nan-E-Roghani from Afghanistan
O for Obi non from Uzbekistan
P for Peinirli/Peynirli from Greece
Q for Qashqari Patir from Uzbekistan
R for R’ghayef from Morocco
S for Shelpek from Kazakhstan

Recipe Source: Here
3cups All purpose flour
1tsp Instant yeast
3tbsp Milk powder
2tbsp Sugar
3tbsp Butter
1tsp Salt

For Topping:
2tbsp Oil
2tbsp Milk
1tsp Brown sugar
1pinch Yellow food colour

Take the flour, milk powder, sugar and salt in a bowl.

Add the butter and luke warm water to the bowl, knead everything well. Knead again well on a floured surface until the dough turns super soft.

Drop the dough on a grease bowl, wrap it and let it sit aside for an a hour.

Once the dough is doubled in volume, remove it and punch down. Knead again.

Divide the dough into 5-6 balls. Roll the dough or shape the dough with your hands a circular disc.

Transfer on a baking sheet lined over a baking tray.

Prick the flattened dough with a fork.

Meanwhile mix all the ingredients given for topping in a bowl. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Brush the prepared topping on the top of rolled disc. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top turns golden brown.

Bake a Taftan Naan or two at a time. Continue the same process with the remaining dough.

Cover the naan with a kitchen towel until you serve them.