To naan, or not to naan

So, Indian food was on the menu a few nights ago. I've got a cabinet full of basmati rice and Indian spices, so I didn't even have to call for takeout. Dinner was ground meat with peas, spicy green beans and basmati rice. So, of course, with Indian food, one needs Indian bread. Naan bread. Back to the flour...

Naan bread is a yeast dough with added yogurt. Making the dough is actually the easy part - figuring out how to bake the stuff is something else entirely. Traditionally, naan is cooked in a tandoor, a clay oven. Don't know about you, but MY kitchen didn't come with a tandoor, so I had to adapt. My recipe called for an oven and a "grill", which I think is British for a broiler. Since I have an oven, but don't have a separate grill, I went a-surfin' to see what I could find out about how to bake the stuff. Lucky for me, there are lots of places to get web advice, even YouTube, which has a lovely video about how to make and bake naan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXOSO6nU_Z8 I tried the YouTube approach, with the grill rack and ended up scraping the bread off the rack, as it puffed DOWN rather than up. Watching the video again, I see grill marks on top of the bread as she pulls it out of the oven, so she must have flipped it over during the baking. Live and learn...

So, to make naan (as adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking)

5 oz. warm milk

2 tsp sugar

3 tsp yeast

about 1 lb (around 3 cups) of flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbl + 1 tsp vegetable oil

5 oz. plain yogurt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Mix the milk, 1 tsp. sugar and yeast in a small bowl and allow the yeast to proof. Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl (I use a large stainless steel bowl from the restaurant supply store). Add the remaining sugar, the yeast mixture, 2 tbl oil, yogurt and egg. Mix everything together to form a ball. If its too sticky, all a little more flour until you have a nice springy dough. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes (I just leave it in the bowl and knead away - I'm lazy about cleaning my kitchen, so this contains the mess really well) until it is smooth and "satiny" (I'm not really sure how dough can be like satin, but that's what all the cookbooks say, so that's what it must be). Roll the dough into a ball and transfer it to a clean mixing bowl. Pour the remaining 1 tsp of oil over the dough, and roll the dough around to coat it in oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a dishtowel and let it rise for about 90 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees and put your largest, heaviest baking sheet into the oven about 1/3 of the way down from your heating element. Dump the dough onto a floured cutting board and divide it into 6 equal parts. Flatten two pieces into rough teardrop shapes, then open your oven and slap the dough onto the baking sheet. Let it bake for about 3-4 minutes, until it puffs up. Using tongs, grab the dough and turn it over on the baking sheet. Let it bake about another 5-7 minutes, until it is brown and puffy, then pull it out of the oven with the tongs. Shape and bake the remaining dough in the same way. Serve the naan hot with your favorite Indian meal (take out is fine - I won't tell :)