Diary of an Inconsistent Cook #30: Native American Fry Bread (Cherokee Style)

More bread! Every culture has their own version of bread.

I made flour tortillas the other day and I suddenly had a hankering for Indian fry bread–not from India, but from Natives of the Americas. Think First Nations. There are many types of recipes for fry bread so there is one for everyone’s taste.

Just like in other cultures, there isn’t just one type of fry bread (in some areas called bannock, I think). Some have leavening and some don’t. Some are made with diary, and some not. You can find several versions here at Cookin’ With Three Sisters (three sisters refers to the brilliant, production idea of cooking squash, pole beans, and corns together in a trifecta of magic.) I chose to make the Cherokee style because it used a very simple flour, milk, salt and baking powder mix. It is very similar to Indian Puri and I am pretty sure the North American Fair favorite Fried Dough is exactly the same thing–now you don’t have to wait for a carnival to get your Fried Dough fix! Dare I say that even funnel cake is a kissing cousin?

I didn’t deep fry mine, I pan fried it.

I found a rather nice video on YouTube:

Let’s Make Cherokee Fry Bread

The recipe called for:

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp baking powder

I did add about 1 tsp of sugar because I wanted a more golden brown color because I like them crispy! I used bread flour, but you’ll want to use all-purpose. There is too much gluten in bread flour and it was really hard to roll out and kept shrinking back to a smaller circumference. Roll out the dough thin and cook in oil.

I like mine cripsy!

This recipe is very simple to make and you don’t have to make perfect shapes. You can even just flatten with your hands instead of using a rolling pin, or cut them into strips as the linked recipe suggested.

Flaky goodness.

Three were gobbled up by myself and my minions before they were even cool. You can top them with whatever you like. Butter, Powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar is divine. Sugar and chocolate drizzle–wonderful. You can go with just cheese or do whatever you want. We ate half plain and the other half made Corn Salad Indian Tacos (I put some Sriracha on mine).