Naan bread is a really basic staple of any Indian meal. So easy to make at home using just a few ingredients, another “you gotta try this” recipe. I’ve taken some pictures at different stages in the process. I know you will enjoy these for dinner tonight. Serve it with some Butter Chicken or other curried dish, use it like regular bread and make a great sandwich, fajitas anyone?! Just use your imagination.
For the dough
1 cup All Purpose Flour
½ tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Sugar
½ tsp Salt
½ cup Milk
2 tblsp Vegetable Oil
Topping
1/3 cup fresh Coriander Leaves
3 (or more) Garlic cloves
Method
Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into a bowl
In another bowl, mix together the milk and oil
Form a well in the bowl much like you would when making pasta., pour in the liquid mixture. Gently mix incorporating the flour from around the well as you mix. Dough should start to form a ball. Add a little extra flour if the dough is too sticky. Knead for about 5 minutes incorporating additional flour as needed, the dough should be soft and smooth, not sticky
Place the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea-towel and leave in a warm place for 15 minutes
At this stage:
Preheat your oven grill to 500f degrees (yes I said 500, it needs to be good and hot)
Rub some vegetable oil onto a cast iron pan (I used a cast iron griddle large enough to let me do 2 at a time) and place it in your oven to heat up (I only had to rub the oil onto the surface once, my pan is well seasoned – also tried this at a friends house without the cast iron grill, and even without the cast iron griddle or the oven getting to 500, they still tasted and looked great. The secred is the hot, hot oven and hot, hot griddle)
Chop the garlic and coriander together, set aside
By the time you finish the above it should be 15 minutes, if not, slow down speedy, prepare your area for rolling out the dough – little bit of flour, your wooden rolling pin, glass of wine/beer/spirit – you get the idea
Break the dough into 7 even sized balls (this is an arbitrary figure based on the quantity, I didn’t want mine too big, these were about golf ball size, I took the picture when I had 3 dough balls remaining).
Roll the dough balls out thinly. Traditionally, naan is made in a long oval/tear drop shape, the ones I made are much smaller and easier to handle, about the size of your hand from wrist to fingertip.
Sprinkle the coriander/garlic mixture onto the surface of the dough pressing lightly (use a rolling pin and gently roll over the surface if it makes you feel more secure about the topping staying in place).
Place the naan onto the hot cast iron pan/griddle (be really, really careful – cast iron heats and holds a lot of heat throughout this process) and grill for just 1-2 minutes, or until puffy and lightly brown/blistered. For the true foodies, watching these oblongs of dough puff and rise in the hot oven is a thing of beauty.
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No, it’s not a miracle, the single naan didn’t multiply, I just thought this was a nicer picture with two rising in the oven.
Brush with a combination of butter/olive oil (these ingredients are not listed above but should be staples in every house so don’t panic, just melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the microwave for about 20 seconds or so – from this point on to be referred to as BOO) and cover with tin foil
Continue baking until all are done
Serve hot (can also be kept and warmed in a toaster oven or (heaven forbid) a microwave (short bursts of 5 second intervals)).
As always – enjoy!
