FOOD: Homemade Naan Bread

As you can tell I'm getting far more adventurers in my baking exploits - hence two baking posts in a week. Yet this baking was born out of necessity. America lacks naan bread. Stores don't sell it and unless you have a membership to Costco or live near an ethnic store chances are you'll only see it in an Indian [which metropolitan Detroit lacks in comparison to Thai restaurants]. We eat curry at least once a week so it was time to investigate making it myself. I don't have much luck with yeast, nevertheless this recipe seemed to work but there are plenty of non-yeast recipes on the internet. It takes around an hour to an hour and a half altogether, a lot of which is spent watching a timer, but its straight forward and makes eight tea plate sized naan breads. The basis is taken from this recipe website, but I adjusted it here and there.

WHAT YOU NEED;

1 cup of warm water

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 tablespoons of active dry yeast

1 teaspoon of salt

3 cups of all purpose flour plus extra for coating worktops and rolling pin.
A dribble of oil

HOW TO BAKE;

• Combine the water, sugar and yeast [after following the instructions to make your yeast active] into a bowl and leave to settle for five minutes.
• Add the salt and flour into the wet mixture, mixing until a dough is formed. Tip out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. You should then knead your dough around 20 times. 

The dough mixture after being left for 40 minutes in an oil lined bowl

• Place your worked dough into a oil lined bowl. Take a tea towel and soak in warm water. After wringing out the towel, place it over the bowl and leave to stand for 30 to 45 minutes in a warm place. Your dough will settle and will rise [but don't expect huge amounts of rising because it won't happen]. 

• Turn your dough out onto the floured work surface, gently rolling the dough with a rolling pin and divide into eight [or four for larger breads] sections. 

Rolling out the dough after dividing it into eight sections.

•  In turn roll out each section until they are around 3mm in thickness. 

• Place the breads into the grill for 1-2 minutes on each side, or until hardening and turning golden. In turn you can fry them in a very hot pan [as hot as you would have it for making pancakes] with a small amount of oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side.  

•  Eat straight away or leave to cool on a cooling rack, quickly reheat in the grill or frying pan when required. 

And as for how they taste? Mighty, mighty good. We shared them with our friend who came over for curry and we ended up being totally stuffed and we all had empty plates - that's the true testing of something tasting good and I would really recommend you trying this if you have the time.