National Culinary Review

LET’S TALK TO FREEMAN MOSER III ABOUT . . .

tandoori ovens Describe the tandoori oven you and a friend built in a cabin by a lake? It is a really beautiful oven made out of common bricks and cement. We started with a 5-foot-square base of bricks, which we carefully leveled. Then we laid out a circle of 10 bricks in the center, and lightly cemented it to the base. On top of the first row, we applied a layer of bricks, again lightly cementing it together. We repeated the layering, adding half a block with each level, causing the shape to taper out like a wooden barrel. At 13½ bricks, we reduced the number of bricks in the same pattern until we got back to 10. We applied thin layers of cement on both the interior and exterior of the oven until we had a smooth taper. This was done over a period of two weeks. We used a total of 17 bags of cement ( 50 lbs. each, all mixed by hand) until we had the shape we needed. Once the cement had dried, we made a puree of yogurt and spinach. We started a small fire in the oven and began applying the puree to the inside to create the smooth surface that is necessary to apply the naan dough to the side.

Why did you build it? Mindful that Indian cuisine is one of the emerging cuisines in the U.S., I knew that if I was going to begin to learn more about it, I would need a tandoori oven. It is as fundamental to Indian cuisine as a saute pan is to French.

What skills does tandoori
cooking require?
I’m still working on that. I am still very
much an amateur at tandoori cooking, but
hope to improve my skills over time. For
the naan, you need to be able to make a
great dough that is highly hydrated. You
also need to have a tolerance (and the will)
to put your arm into a 700ºF oven.

What do you get that you can’t get from a regular oven? It’s a highly interactive oven that requires the ability to manage temperature by manipulating the intensity and location of the wood fire in the oven’s base. The oven’s flexibility is amazing. Bread cooks on the sides, and meats, poultry, fish and vegetables cook on the rods. It’s an amazing oven to cook in, as it can generate incredibly high temperatures, and it is fuel efficient.

What do you cook in it? Everything. I even cooked a turkey over Thanksgiving last year, and it turned out amazingly well. At this point, I am trying to stick with the basics—mostly naan, lamb and chicken marinated in traditional spice blends drawn from the cuisine.

Is it particularly good for
cooking something specific?
Naan—can’t make it any other way.

Describe the flavors. The light smokiness from the live fire is wonderful. Also, the intense high heat develops flavors that are not going to be achieved in a combi oven at 350ºF.

Are there challenges to using it? Limits to what it can do? You need a good supply of hardwood for the best control of temperature. Also, to achieve the great smoky flavors, you want the highest quality wood. The oven sits next to two cords of aged, hand-split hardwood.

So, a tandoori oven for
Indian cuisine?
Tandoori ovens are not commonly found
in most American kitchens. Without the
oven, you can’t really begin to explore the

cuisine properly. My advice is not to ignore this emerging cuisine. It includes flavors not commonly found in other cuisines and opens your eyes to new techniques. The food doesn’t present well, and I think this is why it is taking longer to emerge. I see chefs applying Indian flavors to nontraditional preparations that will result in great fusion.