Recipe
Non (tandir bread)
Round bread with a stamped centre, baked on the wall of a clay oven.
- Time
- 2 h 30 min
- Serves
- 8
- Home region
- Samarkand
The story
Bread is treated as sacred. It is never put face down, never thrown away and never cut with a knife — it is torn by hand and shared. When someone sets off on a long journey, they bite a piece from a loaf, and the rest is kept until they come home.
Non is baked in a tandir, a clay oven, slapped onto its hot inner wall. Before it goes in, the centre is pressed with a chekich, a stamp of nails or pins, which makes a pattern and stops the middle from puffing up. Every city bakes its own kind; Samarkand's heavy, shiny non is famous for keeping for weeks.
How it tastes
A thin, crisp, shiny crust with sesame or nigella seeds, a soft, chewy rim and a flatter, crunchier centre, with a light smoky note from the oven.
Ingredients
Serves 8
- 1 kg flour
- 600 ml warm water (or half water, half milk)
- 10 g dried yeast
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp salt
- 30 g butter or 2 tbsp oil
- 1 egg yolk or a little milk, for glazing
- Sesame and nigella seeds
Method
- Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water and leave for 10 minutes.
- Add the flour, salt and butter and knead for about 10 minutes, until smooth.
- Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour.
- Divide into four, shape into balls and rest for 20 minutes.
- Flatten each into a disc with a thick rim and a thin middle. Stamp the middle with a chekich, or prick it all over with a fork.
- Brush with yolk or milk, scatter with seeds and rest for 15 minutes.
- Bake at 250 °C on a hot baking stone or tray for 12–15 minutes, until deep golden.
