Homemade naan recipe

At the January Dessert Exchange, I mentioned that I had a good homemade recipe for naan. In the interest of sharing, here it is. It's quite easy, and a lovely accompaniment for homemade curries -- it only takes about 25 minutes to bake 8 of them, so you can do them right before serving.

Makes 4 naan. Double or triple this recipe fits easily into our 6 qt Kitchenaid mixer.

3 cups (16.5 oz/470g) unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup lukewarm milk
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 to 3 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tbsp sesame seeds or kalonji seeds
3/4 tsp salt
A few tablespoons melted butter (ghee would be better but I never have it on hand)

Mix everything together except the melted butter, either by hand or in a stand mixer, just until it comes together (do not overmix.) Scrape dough into an oiled bowl and allow it to rise covered for ~1 hour (full flavor option: then refrigerate it overnight).

Preheat the oven to 450, with a baking stone on a shelf around 6" from the top of the oven.

Divide dough in 4, flatten each into a disc and let rest for 10 minutes. Roll each piece out to around 9-10" across on a lightly floured counter, then brush both sides with the melted butter, placing them 2 to a greased half-sheet pan.

Place one pan at a time on the stone for 5 minutes. When it looks puffy (they should swell up like balloons; this makes the inside hollow like a pita) and is starting to turn golden brown, turn on the broiler for a minute or two to get the nice brown spotty appearance. Turn the broiler off and repeat for the next 2 naan.


IMG_0141 by mamagotcha, on Flickr

This is a good base to start with; you can do things like add freshly crushed garlic to the top with the brushed on butter, for instance, to make garlic naan.

Enjoy,
Chouxfly

Nice.
I am SO gonna do this one in the next few weeks.

seebee wrote:Nice.
I am SO gonna do this one in the next few weeks.

Yep what he said. The last time I made curry at home, New Year's Day, the store bought naan just didn't cut it.

looks great

pairs4life wrote:

seebee wrote:Nice.
I am SO gonna do this one in the next few weeks.

Yep what he said. The last time I made curry at home, New Year's Day, the store bought naan just didn't cut it.

Whenever I'm up on Devon, I always load up on paratha and naan for the freezer. The storebought stuff just cannot cut it, and it seems that any place not on Devon charges at minimum two bucks a piece. I normally get paratha from Gareeb Nawaz (cheapest on the strip, I think.) Their naan is oddly processed flavored, so I buy that elsewhere - grenerally anywhere that it's a buck a throw. The naan doesn't freeze as well as the paratha, but I prefer the texture of greezy paratha more, so it works out. Freshly made naan is generally always the best naan. If it's this easy, I will actually attempt it. I'm a cook, not a baker, + I'm a guy, so I just can't follow the directions that baking requires.

seebee wrote: If it's this easy, I will actually attempt it. I'm a cook, not a baker, + I'm a guy, so I just can't follow the directions that baking requires.

Hilarious. Chouxfly is one of the best bakers I know and he's a guy.

Trader Joe's makes very good frozen naan - plain & garlic. I usually just stash a few packets of that in the freezer. This looks simple enough I may give it a shot.

Athena wrote:Trader Joe's makes very good frozen naan - plain & garlic. I usually just stash a few packets of that in the freezer. This looks simple enough I may give it a shot.

That's the very naan I was disappointed with for New Year's Day.

pairs4life wrote:

Athena wrote:Trader Joe's makes very good frozen naan - plain & garlic. I usually just stash a few packets of that in the freezer. This looks simple enough I may give it a shot.

That's the very naan I was disappointed with for New Year's Day.

How did you prepare it?

Athena wrote:

pairs4life wrote:

Athena wrote:Trader Joe's makes very good frozen naan - plain & garlic. I usually just stash a few packets of that in the freezer. This looks simple enough I may give it a shot.

That's the very naan I was disappointed with for New Year's Day.

How did you prepare it?

Followed the directions. Butter & oven or butter & nuked. The bread was just too thick & dense.

It's great as regular bread, just not naan.

There's nothing inauthentic about naan being that thick. It can be thick or thin (though too thin & its not naan).

I find it preps better if you nuke it for 20 - 30 seconds to thaw, put it in a toaster & then butter. Puffs up very nicely & looses some of the frozen denseness.

pairs4life wrote:

Athena wrote:Trader Joe's makes very good frozen naan - plain & garlic. I usually just stash a few packets of that in the freezer. This looks simple enough I may give it a shot.

That's the very naan I was disappointed with for New Year's Day.

I'm also not a fan of the Tj product. P4L - perhaps you might enjoy my cheat - El Milagro Fajita style Flour Tortillas - the ones that say "CASERAS" on the pckage. They are thicker flour tortillas, and when I can't get good naan, I use those instead - kind of happily too. I don't use it thinking of naan, but it's more of a good medium for eating with your hands. When those thick tortillas soak up sauce, they get kind of chewy. I normally set out a platter with the grilled tortillas on the bottom, sprinkled with basmati rice, then covered with the different parts of the meal in sections. Kind of like how the Ethiopian places present their platters with the injera on bottom. The tortillas that get soaked with the different curries are the prized bits at the end of the meal.

Naan is rising, but I'm baking it today,not tomorrow. Served with Bittman's braised tofu & peas in curried coconut milk all because I defrosted coconut milk by mistake.