Tuesdays With Dorie: Oasis Naan

Two weeks ago, one of my dear middle school friends visited from France with her husband and adorable 11 month-old baby. We hosted them for dinner on a weeknight so making a meal from scratch seemed too daunting a task, especially with my hectic work schedule these past few weeks. We brainstormed good take-out options and decided to order from our favorite Indian restaurant, Royal Taj, a place that we’ve visited on a couple occasions with Indian friends. Then Dave had another brilliant idea – I would make the naan for the meal. How perfect was it that the next TWD recipe happened to be naan?

This naan is called Oasis Naan in Baking with Julia. I tried to search for the origin of the name but did not come up with anything. I made the dough the night before and let it rise in the fridge. I had a bit of trouble shaping the dough and may not have prickled it enough before baking. As you can see, mine are quite puffy while the ones photographed in the book are much flatter. They were still very tasty but likely more hearty than intended (although it seems that for many other TWD bloggers these came out thicker than in the book as well) and made for a very fine vessel to scoop up all the curries we had that night.

Oasis Naan
You can find the recipe at Maggie’s blog – Always Add More Butter  – or at Phyl’s  blog – Of Cabbages & King Cakes. The recipe calls for 5 cups bread flour and for me it came out to be exactly 2 pounds.

Royal Taj (link)
8874 McGaw Road
Columbia, MD 21045
(410) 381-1111

Island Paradise – A Guide to Bermuda, Part I

With a population of about 65,000 and with offshore finance as its primary sector, Bermuda not only boasts beautiful turquoise waters but also one of the highest GDP per capita in the world. It doesn’t come as a surprise then that island living is fairly expensive, the average house costing around $900,000. It was claimed as a British territory in 1609 but as was rightfully pointed out to me by a taxi driver at the airport, it was actually first discovered in 1505 by Spanish sea captain Bermudez. Bermuda is perhaps most well-known for being the easternmost point of the Bermuda Triangle. And indeed, you can find a lot of shipwrecks around the islands and even take shipwreck snorkeling trips (we did go snorkeling but didn’t get to see any shipwrecks).

Overall, we had a truly wonderful time discovering the main island. But what struck me overall was how friendly everybody was. Of course since tourism is so important for Bermuda’s economy, you’d expect people to be welcoming but on more than one occasion, people really went out of their way to help us. The bus driver let us ride for free when he saw we didn’t have exact change, people got out of their cars to ask if we needed directions when we looked lost, and our Couchsurfing host Angelo welcomed us into his home as if we were old-time friends.

So in honor of Bermuda and Bermudians, here’s the first installment of a two-part guide to Bermuda (addresses at the bottom of the post). I can’t wait to visit again!