Tava

The Indian tava might have a handle or not, and it can be made of cast iron, aluminium, or carbon steel. It may be enameled or given a non-stick surface. The tawa and saj are used in the cuisines of South, Central, and West Asia, as well as of the Balkans. The tawa is also used in Indo-Caribbean cuisine.

Names by region

Taaba, tava, tawa

In Iran, the Persian word tāve (تاوه‏) is used which is derived from the Persian word taaba which means something that is curved or tempered. The root word taab in Persian is a verb which means to bend or temper or curve (but see here-below for the use of saj in Iran). It is cognate with tawaa, a word which in nearly all Indo-Aryan languages such as Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu means cooking pan. In Afghanistan, the curved cast-iron utensil used for cooking bread is known as tawah, but in Pashto it is more popularly known as tabakhey (تبخے/طبخی). The Georgian cognate is tapa (ტაფა).

Saj, sac

Saj (Arabic: صاج, lit. 'sheet-metal') is the equivalent of tava in Arabic, with the equivalent sac in Turkish, and is used in Southwest Asia. The name "sac" comes from Old Turkish "sāç". In Iran, saj is used for the curved iron plate employed in cooking bread (but see here-above for the use of tāve in Iran).

Variants, change of meaning

The word tava is also used in Turkish and all across the Balkans, and refers to any kind of frying pan. In Serbia and Bulgaria, however, a тава (tava) is a metal baking tray with raised margins (for the meaning of sach in those same countries, see here-below). In Romanian and Albanian too, tava and "tavë" can mean baking tray, such as employed for baking in an oven, but it can also mean tray, such as used for serving food and drink.

The sač is a saj-shaped lid used as a cooking utensil in the Balkans. In Serbia and Bulgaria, the flat ceramic сач (sach) or сачѐ (sachè) is used for tabletop cooking of thin slices of vegetables and meat (for the meaning of tava in those same countries, see here-above).