My Daily Bread 2: bigger, longer and uncut
After a site re-host gone awry, my most popular article about making naan bread disappeared. This was a bit of a problem, as I think it's a great and easy way to make great naans. And since I had lost the original recipe I had tried it a few times but it didn't quite work right. So I rethought the entire recipe to improve it, in great part by increasing its size to make 8 naans instead of 6 (bigger), and giving dough more time to rise (longer). The "uncut" was purely a puerile addition on my part.
Equipment
- 1 cast iron griddle Optional, but with one of those you can cook the naans two at a time
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour for making dough easier to handle
- 2 tsp salt for finishing
Wet Ingredients
- 1.5 tsp traditional yeast
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1 cup warm water (~40C)
- 1 egg large
- 1/4 cup kefir yogurt or other plain yogurt
- 1/4 cup melted salted butter or ghee
- 1 tbsp butter for finishing
Instructions
Bloom the yeast
- Put the yeast and the honey into a bowl.
- Add the warm water and mix everything together.
- Let bloom for 15 minutes.
Prepare the wet ingredients
- Put the egg and the yogurt in a bowl.
- Pour the bloomed yeast mixture into the same bowl.
- Pour the melted butter/ghee into the same bowl.
Prepare the dry ingredients
- Put 3 cups flour and 2tsp salt into the large bowl and mix together.
Make the dough
- Pour the bowl of wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients.
- Mix the ingredients together until combined.
- When the items are combined, handle the dough into a ball. If the dough is too sticky to handle cleanly, add flour.
- Cover the large bowl and let rise for 2 hours.
Divide the dough into portions
- The dough should have roughly doubled in size. Remove the dough ball from the bowl and knead it a little to remove extra air within the dough. Again, if the dough is sticky, use flour to make it manageable.
- Cut the dough in two pieces, and make a ball out of each piece. Keep doing this until you have 8 roughly equal-sized balls of dough.
- Place back in the bowl and let rise for a further 30 minutes.
Cook the naan
- Use a cast-iron pan or (preferably) griddle, on the flat side. Pre-heat on low-to-medium heat for about 15 minutes so the temperature is steady.
- Cook the naan(s) on the first side for 2 minutes.
- Flip the naan(s) and cook for 90 seconds.
- Transfer the naan(s) to a cooling rack.
- Use a brush to spread melted butter on top of the naan(s).
- Sprinkle a little pinch of salt on top of the buttered naan.
- Once the naans are sufficiently cool to handle, place them in a bread box.
Notes
My recipe certainly is not low-fat, I prioritize taste. If you absolutely want you can replace the butter with a neutral oil, but this will affect the taste.
Something else that will affect the taste is the type of honey you use to bloom the yeast. Try several varieties and see for yourself!
Also make sure you use grain salt and not salt flakes for the dry ingredients mix. Salt flakes will not mix well with the flour and create salt "hotspots".
Naans go great with whatever you put on them, really, especially when they have that nice fluffy texture. One thing I used to do is use them to make little pizzas and lahmajouns. You can also spread garlic spread ("toum") on a warm naan for a super-tasty snack, but be mindful of your breath afterwards.