Nan: bread baked from wheat dough

1What it is

نان is baked by sticking the dough to the wall of a tunur or other oven, or by putting it in a pan or oven. It is not one particular bread but a generic term. The most common kind is a flatbread with a thicker crust, made with wheat flour, salt, water and vegetable oil and sometimes topped with sesame or black cumin seeds. There is also a ring-shaped bread with a hard crust.

A tunur is an oven built in a half-sphere shape from clay or brick. A fire is lit inside to heat the walls, and the dough, its underside dampened with water or salt water, is stuck directly to the wall. It turns golden in a few minutes and is taken off the wall with a long tool.

2Ingredients (one example)

3How to make it (one example)

1. Make the dough and let it rest for a few hours. This is one way to get close to a tunur in a home oven.

2. Put a baking steel in the oven and heat it as high as it will go (about 550°F, roughly 290°C, in this example).

3. Divide the dough into two balls. Push down the centre and lightly pull the ring around the outside to make something like a pizza, about 10–12 inches (25–30 cm) across.

4. Puncture the whole centre with a special bread stamp, or a fork. This keeps the centre from rising, so it bakes thin and crisp.

5. Dampen the top, turn the bread upside down onto a plate of sesame seeds, then turn it back. Onion can be used instead of sesame.

6. Slide it onto the hot steel. The thin centre burns easily from below, so switch to the broiler. It bakes very fast; watch it and turn or move it as needed.

4Eating and variations

Breakfast may be nan and milk tea, with jam or honey, raisins and walnuts. Guests are offered tea, nan, pastries and fruit before the main dishes are ready. In restaurants, nan is used as a kind of plate for كاۋاپ skewers, or cut into wedges and topped with a stew. Besides baked breads there are steamed and fried ones.