Since we have no oven at the moment, I am experimenting a lot with our BBQ. Baking on the BBQ is not generally recommended, but I’m stubborn.

On Saturday night, I had planned two curries made in the slow cooker: chicken and chickpea. For starch, home made naan bread. I followed the Joy of Cooking recipe for the naan up until the part about the “preheat the oven for 45 minutes”.

Turned all BBQ burners on high, and waited quite a while for the temperature to go up to somewhere close to 450F. On a -15C evening. The recipe called for a pizza stone, which we don’t have. I used the backside of an old cookie sheet, covered with aluminum foil. I rolled out two of the four dough balls, and placed them on the foil. Brushed melted butter on top, and slid the whole thing into the BBQ as quickly as possible to avoid losing the heat.

Time to set the table, get the chutney from the basement, and call the troops. As I came up from the basement, I saw the BBQ with large and leaping flames coming out of its back. The troops were called (very efficiently, I might add) with “flames!”. I opened the BBQ and found two flaming, charred naans. The foil was burning, the naans were burning…even after putting it all in the snow, the naans were still burning.

We were already running late on dinner, so this was looking pretty bad. Tried again with the last two balls of dough. Stayed focussed. No extra activities. Pulled out very decent naans, and learned some lessons about adjusting baking times for the BBQ.

Next time: apple pie on the BBQ.