Tandoori chicken and Blackstone naan experiment

Its been a while since I've posted a cook. The egg has been lit many a time, just haven't made it to actually posting a thread about many recent cooks. But today was different, so I figured I would share.

We were invited to a friend's house for lunch, and they asked me to bring tandoori chicken. I cheated and used Shan Chicken Tikka mix, with added garlic paste, ginger paste, mayo, and just a tablespoon of yoghurt. Marinaded 7 skinless leg quarters (each cut into three pieces) for about 12hours in this stuff. Dusted with a homemade tandoori rub mixed with some Kissan Chicken Tikka rub (that @canugghead kindly sent me a while back, by way of Little Steven's little hands) after placing them chicken on the grid.Fired up the LBGE to about 400°F-ish and cooked raised indirect (foil pan, no stone).  This worked better than expected, since I had a direct zone where the pan didn't make it to the edge, and so I could get some char on the pieces by finishing them in this zone before pulling.

Pulled the chicken at about 150°F and put it in a foil pan, then in the Engel dry box. Took it over to my friend's house and let it keep warm in the oven while we fiddled with the naans.

A little naan background - most of the internet recipes are bastardized pizza dough recipes. I don't think naan dough is supposed to have yeast in it, because yeast is generally not used in Southwest Asia or the Indian subcontinent. These recipes make naans that are more " bready" than they should be. Yogurt is the usual leavening agent of choice. I've been lusting after the perfect naan recipe for years, but have not able to sit down and get it right myself.

I picked a naan recipe from a book I have, which did not include yeast or yogurt, but had baking powder in it. Figured I would try it since  I could then  judge whether yeast or yogurt would be the way to go next time. I convinced my friend to buy a Blackstone pizza oven a while back, with the ulterior motive of playing with it myself when I went to visit them, besides eating some kickass homemade pies. Today was the day to try making some naans in it.

Making naans in the Blackstone is a little tricky, because you can't slap the naans on the hot stone to cook, like you would in a tandoor. We tried placing the naans on the stone directly with a pizza peel, on a screen, with the bottom stone rotating, and with the bottom stone stationary. We cooked at about 400°F dome temp on the Blackstone.

Results were decent. First the stone wasn't hot enough, so the top cooked and almost burned before the bottom was cooked. Results were somewhat better once the stone soaked up more heat, and we kept the lower stone stationary, with the naan in the back left corner, and turned the burner off after a minute or so. Lessons learned - the naans can't be too thin, let the stone soak up some heat before cooking the naans, add some yogurt to the dough next time, and try cold fermenting the dough overnight.

Overall, it was a fun day. Enjoyed a great meal with friends, experimented with making naans on the Blackstone, and had fun cooking outside. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, eh?