Tandoori Roti

Description

Tandoor breads are popular in northwestern Indian regions, especially in Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab regions, where naan breads are baked in tandoor clay ovens fired by wood or charcoal. These naans are known as tandoori naan (Gujarati: તંદૂરી નાન, Hindi: तंदूरी नान). Tandoor ovens are not prevalent in the average Indian home because they are expensive to fabricate, install and maintain. Authentic tandoori cuisine in urban areas can often be found in specialty restaurants. However, in rural areas in India such as Punjab, the tandoor oven is considered a social institution, for a tandoor oven is shared among the community. Women would go to the oven place with atta along with their marinated meats to meet their neighbors and friends, so they could converse and share stories while waiting for their food to cook. The people in cities once engaged in this social activity, but as businesses and commercialism grew in these areas, communal tandoor ovens have become rare. Not uncommonly, people bring food to their local bakeries to cook it there at a fair price.

Because of the growing inaccessibility of a tandoor oven in urban areas, especially in cities outside of Southern Asia, people have developed ingenious techniques to replicate the cooking process and the food without the use of the oven. Common alternatives include an oven or a grill fueled by charcoal or wood so the food will be infused with the smoky flavor.

Tandoori roti is commonly consumed in South Asian countries such as Pakistan and India This bread is served in restaurants, hotels, industrial canteens and at home. It is also gaining popularity in Asia, North America (outside of the Caribbean) and Europe due to migrants during British colonalism.