Homemade Naan

As promised on yesterday's post for Jamie Oliver's Pork Vindaloo, I'm sharing a recipe for a wonderful homemade naan.

Naan is a leavened, oven-baked flatbread from north India, typically served hot or warm and brushed with butter (or ghee).  It's the perfect accompaniment to Indian food and we love using the naan to scoop up our curry. 

As much as we love naan, I never really thought it would be something I'd be able to make at home, mainly because I don't have a tandoor oven, and for some reason I thought it would be complicated.  I did find a few recipes that looked promising, however, and set out to make homemade naan.  The first attempt was a "throw all the dough in the garbage, why did I even bother trying this" attempt.  I found a recipe on Allrecipes and it was a disaster.  Now I do realize the disaster could have been (and most likely) was me.  Somehow, somewhere I probably screwed up.  Then I tried a different recipe I found in one of my cookbooks.  It was...............okay.  I guess.  I'm trying to remember if we even ate it and I'm pretty sure we ended up eating the "back-up naan" I bought from the store instead.  So I'm thinking it wasn't even okay.  At least that batch actually got baked before being thrown into the garbage.

Third attempt - YES!  I love you Mark Bittman!  I recently purchased Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything cookbook.  I've seen this cookbook everywhere and finally decided I had to have it.  Thank goodness, because I finally got my naan recipe.  When I saw this recipe, I decided ONCE MORE to try and make naan and it was a resounding success.  Okay, I'm not great at shaping the naan into a teardrop shape (as you can see), but I'll get there eventually, I'm sure.  The taste?  Phenomenal.  This exceeded all our expectations.  Let's face it, no one in the family had very high hopes and yes, I did buy some back-up naan.  Just in case.  Guess what?  It only got eaten (grudgingly) when my homemade naan was gone.

This recipe is ridiculously easy and is so much better than the store-bought stuff.  In fact, I'm making it again tomorrow night for supper to have with Jamie's Chicken Tikka Masala (which I'm making for the second time in a month and which I'll be posting soon).  The naan is super-soft, it's chewy, it's heavenly eaten with a wonderful, homemade curry. 

I baked my naan on my hot pizza stone in a 500F oven.  You can use a baking sheet, but if you have a pizza stone, I suggest using it.  Not quite the same as a tandoor oven, but it'll have to do.

It only cooks for a few minutes each side so keep an eye on it.

I'm thrilled to have such an easy, delicious recipe for something that I typically would just purchase from the grocery store.  No more!

Enjoy!


Naan
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2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoon plain yogurt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus 1/2 cup whole wheat flour or 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus flour for rolling out the dough
1 egg
2 teaspoons salt
Neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn for the bowl (I used canola)
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted and still warm

Stir together the yeast, milk, yogurt, and sugar in a bowl and set aside.

Combine the flour, egg, and salt in a food processor.  Turn the machine on and add the yeast mixture through the feed tube (I used my KitchenAid stand mixer instead of a food processor as my food processor is quite small).

Process for about 30 seconds, adding 1 1/2 cups of water, a little at a time, until the mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky to the touch.  If it is dry, add another tablespoon or two of water and process for another 10 seconds.  In the unlikely event that the mixture is too sticky, add flour, a tablespoon at a time.

Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for a few seconds to form a smooth, round ball.  Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap; let rise until the dough doubles in size, 1 to 2 hours.  (You can cut this rising time short if you are in a hurry, or you can let the dough rise in the refrigerator for up to 6 or 8 hours).

Put a baking sheet (or preferably, a stone) on a rack on the lowest shelf of your oven; heat the oven to 500F.  Punch the dough down and, using as much flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking to the board or your hands, roll it into a snake, then tear the snake into 12 equal-size balls.  Let them rest for 10 minutes covered with plastic wrap or a damp towel.

Roll out one of the balls into an oval roughly 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide.  Open your oven door, grab the dough, one hand on each end of the oval, and give it a little tug with one hand to shape it into a teardrop, then toss it onto the baking sheet or stone.  Close the oven door and flip the naan after 3 minutes.  The naan is ready when it's puffed, mottled, and browned around the edges, 6 to 8 minutes in total.  You can cook as many naan as will comfortably fit at once.

Wrap the freshly baked naan in a kitchen towel to keep them warm and pliable.  Serve as soon as possible, brushed on one side with melted butter. 

Makes 12 naan.

Source:  Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

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