Indian Naan Flatbread in Words and Pictures

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Discussion

This recipe for Indian Naan flatbread is from Madhur Jaffrey's book "Invitation to Indian Cooking." I've used this book for many years and can honestly say that it is an excellent cook book. All the recipes are well presented and they all work just about as written. I'd warn you, however, that she calls for a lot of ingredients that most western cooks probably don't have just sitting on their shelves. Fortunately, there are many reliable sources for Indian ingredients on the internet.

Naan Bread is frequently baked in a Tandoor, an Indian oven that is built with the opening at the top. The interior is made of ceramic tiles. The baker/cook takes a piece of dough and slaps it on the side of the tandoor and puts the lid on the oven. Because the oven is very hot and the piece of dough is thin, the naan bakes very quickly. I don't have a tandoor so I've approximated a tandoor with my oven. I put tiles on the oven rack and turned the temperature to the highest setting. This seems to work pretty well. I also tried using the broiler after I had heated the oven as high as it would go, but that didn't work very well.

Ingred	Ounces	Grams
HK Flour	14	400
Warm milk	5 1/2	155
Dry Yeast	1 1/4 tsp	6 ml
Egg	1
Salt	3/4 tsp	4 ml
Sugar	2 tsp	10 ml
Veg oil	2 Tblsp	30 ml
Baking powder	1 tsp	5 ml
Plain yogurt	4 Tblsp	60 ml
Seeds	1/4 cup	60 ml

For seeds, you may use black onion seeds or poppy seeds.

Method

• Combine all the ingredients in a mixer and knead for 6 minutes. The dough will be smooth and just slightly tacky.
• Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let ferment for 1 1/2 hours.
• Remove the dough from the bowl and fold it.
• Return the dough to the bowl and let it ferment for 30 minutes.
• Place tiles or a baking stone in the oven. Heat the oven to 550F / 290C or higher.
• Divide the dough into 6 portions and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
• Shape each dough into 4" x 11" / 10cm x 27cm teardrops. Let the doughs rest 15-20 minutes.
• Slap the doughs on the stone or tiles and bake for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and use as soon as possible. You may keep them warm in a covered basket. They freeze pretty well if you keep them in an airtight bag and allow them to come to room temperature before heating them up.

Here we go:

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