foodpleasures

In my last  Naan post,  l was telling you about making Naan bread in a cast iron frying pan for lack of a Tandoori oven.  Here I bring this concept a bit further. In this recipe, after frying one side of the dough in a cast iron frying pan, you transfer them to an oven and put them right under the grill. When the top starts to bubble  and get color, they are ready.  The point here is to make Naan bread that is as close as possible to the real thing, without having a clay Tandoori oven.

This recipe is giving good results, not too difficult and brings you half the way to India. After making them, you are probably not going to buy the ready made version again..

I doubled the quantity to be able to have them ready in the freezer for accompanying any Indian style dinner. It has a soft texture on the inside, because of the yogurt.

• 500 mg all purpose flour
• 200 ml lukewarm water 
• plain yogurt
• 55 gr oil
• 7,5 gr sugar
• 5 gr dry yeast
• 5 gr salt

Put the yeast and sugar in lukewarm water. Let stand for 5-10 minutes until you see fine bubbles on the top.

Add the rest of the wet ingredients like yogurt and oil and when they are in, add the flour and lastly the salt. Start to work it by hand or in a kitchen machine until the ingredients are mixed together (by hand it will take you a minute,in a kitchen machine 15 seconds or so). Leave it for 20 min, (to allow the flour and liquid to mix better)

mix it again for 3 min just until it is get smooth, soft and come together (it is a wet dough but not mud sticky).

Take it out and divide it to 4 pieces after spreading a bit flour. (my frying pan is small so l divide to 8) Shape it to a ball and put on a tray.  Let it rise about 30 minutes until doubling in size.

Flatten the balls gently on a floured surface and flatten further with a rolling pin.

Put it on a warm cast iron casserole on the heating source.  When the dough rises and bubbles start to appear on the top, put them just under the grill in the oven on a tray. I found it more easy to remove the bread from the frying pan and transfer to the tray with out the pan.

As more bubbles will appear and as it get some color, remove from grill.

Naan is good as a base for various spreads,vegetables and sauces. Or you can put your meats, chicken or other ingredients on top – and enjoy yourselves.

Naan is good as a base for various spreads,vegetables and sauces. Or you can put your meats, chicken or other ingredients on top – and enjoy yourselves.