I told you we’ve been cooking a lot of Naan recipes lately.This particular recipe I am sharing today was kind of an afterthought. I was initially planning to make this naan pizza with paneer marinated in cilantro chutney, only to find out that I was out of paneer. Some meaty and cute looking mushrooms were staring back at me from inside of my refrigerator instead, so I picked them. Later I was glad I did. That’s the beauty of naan pizzas, you can play around as you want. Go wild with the flavors or can go as basic as you want.
The main idea of this recipe although was born on a day when there was nothing in my refrigerator except for some sad looking leftover cilantro chutney, a few cubes of paneer and some tortillas. We assembled them and popped in the oven later to drizzle some sour cream on them and crispy “tortilla pizzas” were born in my household. Slowly I kept playing around with the recipe or rather kept topping my leftover flatbreads with whatever was in my fridge. To be completely honest not all of them were well appreciated by the “food critics” in the family but this idea for using an Indian staple, hari chutney or cilantro mint pesto, stuck around.
I’ve tried tossing my aloo sabji with the chutney and topped on my pizza, palak paneer or lamb koftas do well with this kind of a pizza too. If you haven’t yet, try a dessert pizza. Its a hit amongst the kiddos. Caramelized onions, with goat cheese and a fruit, grapes or strawberries drizzled with balsamic and topped with whipped cream or just a layer of sweet mawa (solidified milk) and nuts are some great options. I will share more such recipes soon. For now enjoy this vegetarian Naan pizza with a thin layer of spicy cilantro mint chutney, meaty mushroom, crunchy bell peppers and creamy feta.
Ingredients: Serves 4
4 Premade Naans (recipe here)
1/3 cup cilnatro chutney (recipe here)
1/2 cup button mushrooms
1/2 cup bell pepper (red, green or yellow) diced
1/3 cup feta cheese (crumbled)
1-2 tablespoon olive oil
Method:
Mix cilantro chutney and olive oil together.
Preheat the oven to 400 deg. F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Line up the naans flat on the cookie sheet, bubbly side up.
Spread cilantro pesto over the four naans. The pesto can be spicy so use per taste. Sprinkle each naan with mushroom, bell pepper, and top with feta.
Transfer baking sheets to the oven, middle rack. Bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese melts a little and turns brown on the edges and the crust is golden. Pull out of the oven. Slice. Serve hot.
We are on a spring break here. That means the butterfly and I are getting to spend more time lately and getting to do things we love doing together. It’s another thing that she wants to squeeze in play dates with her friends and screen time everyday, some way or the other. But being the possessive mum that I am, I demand my share of one-on-ones with her and getting my way too. Good thing is, she is enjoying them too, until now!
We had a lot of fun “developing” a few naan pizza recipes the other day trying to use up all that leftover dough from the Naan recipe I shared recently. I am sharing one with you today which has been inspired by this spicy pizza served by a local pizza joint here. There will be quite a few recipes where we will be using more of the naan dough. We have at least 200 of them in our pocket, that’s how much naan we’ve eaten!
There’s this Pakistani- Indian restaurant in my neighborhood that makes THE most amazing “dhaba style food”. Unlike the food you get at a usual Indian restaurant in the US where every curry practically tastes the same, this one makes their bhuna gosht, murgh tikka lahori and dal fry just like they do at a roadside dhaba in India (or Pakistan). Now this place makes amazing naan. Soft, pillowy, huge in size but still not doughy or heavy. And they do not taste of yeast either. I went up to their chef one day, a tall, muscled, Punjabi from Pakistan who was throwing a cricket ball sized dough in the air and back came a flattened one in his hand. Pulling out more than ten naans from his tandoor in a minute. He said he doesn’t remember when was the last time they started the starter dough but they’ve been saving a small portion of the dough and using it to start a new batch everyday. But he did tell me to put everything from yogurt with milk in the dough to yeast with sugar and baking soda and egg. Although this sounded very similar to the recipe Madhur Jaffery shared in her book 
I wanted to save my culture for naan, so that whenever I plan to make I can dig into that reserve. But saving yeast in a box even in cool, refrigerator conditions was not working out because it’d explode in almost a week. Then mummy shared a tip. Yes, mums always come to the rescue! She told me how her friend, Aunty Sharma who was originally from the foothills of the himalayas, the state of Himachal Pradesh, used to save the culture. In regions of Himachal Pradesh, people prefer their roti dough fermented which makes lighter flatbread and have the same practice of saving the culture for the next batch. Only they save it in a container of flour itself. Just grab a portion of dough, make a ball and bury it to the bottom of the container you store your atta flour in. Flour pulls out all the moisture from the dough making the yeast inactive. Pull out the dry ball when you plan to make naan again. Break it to a powder, add to flour, mix with water and salt and knead the dough like you would normally do. Just make sure you save that last ball for next time. Neat, isn’t it? And easier. And no overpowering yeast flavor in your dough.
Palak Paneer one of our all time favorite Indian foods, not only because it tastes out of the world but also because its one of those dishes which is rich but you still you don’t feel guilty eating it. Recipe 
I often get asked what we normally eat at home. Is it the array of rich colorful curries the Indian cuisine if famous for, naans smothered with butter, biryani or what? Well the answer is this! Rich curries, naans and biryanis with a happy helping of butter is put on the table too but that is mostly for special occasions. On a normal day, this is what our dinner table looks like, a simple runny lentil soup with a quick tadka or tempering of very basic spices, hot fresh rotis and a simple vegetable stir fry again with some very minimal spices. Somedays if we have time in hand we’d make room for a simple dessert but normally plain yogurt (we prefer homemade but store bought does the job too) and pre-made papad (or popadum) is what plays the role of a “treat”.
Aloo Beans bhaji (stir fied potato and french beans) make regular appearances in my kitchen. Maybe because french beans are so widely available here in the US market, finding organic ones isn’t a huge task (unlike many traditional Indian vegetables), they are very easy to put together and cook in no time but mostly because both my girls love french beans and can eat it in any form, steamed, sautéed or raw! I usually follow my mummy’s recipe which is different from my MIL’s who cooks her everyday vegetable like this 
Ingredients:
