My whole family loves naan bread. We love it with Mediterranean food, as pizza crust, or just with hummus. So yesterday, I thought I would try making it at home. I was probably a bit too ambitious and tried to double the recipe I used from Half Baked Harvest. Since the bread in this recipe is baked in a cast-iron skillet, I was in the kitchen for a while, standing at the stove. I also made quite a few mistakes during my preparation.
Click here for the Naan Recipe I used…
The dough before I mixed the yogurt/milk/yeast mixture into the flour mixture.
The first part was easy. Proof the yeast for 10 minutes, and mix up the flour and other dry ingredients.
This might be where I made my first mistake. I did not have Greek yogurt in the fridge, just plain yogurt, so that is what I used. Maybe I should have gone to the trouble of draining the plain yogurt to get the Greek-style texture.
The dough was very, very sticky! I don’t like working with sticky dough, so I added a little flour to make it more workable.
Maybe the moisture of the plain yogurt threw off the proportions of the rest of the ingredients.
My biggest mistake! Expecting these uncooked flatbreads NOT to stick together. I thought sprinkling each side with flour would keep them from melding together but it didn’t work.
Next time, I will definitely keep them all separated. I don’t think there is enough room in my kitchen to put 16 naan breads on a flat surface, so I will make a smaller batch.
Since my two little piles had collapsed together into a mass of dough, I just oiled my palms, pulled off a hunk of dough, and patted and stretched it using my hands into a rustic-shaped bread with an estimated 1/4 inch thickness. I think my estimate was a little off though. Then, into the skillet they went. After cooking the second side, I brushed the top with olive oil and sprinkled coarse salt over the bread.
The finished product! They are nowhere near perfect but at least, they got made!
My kids loved these! “They taste like pancakes with salt on them, Mommy!” Um… no, I don’t think they’re supposed to taste like pancakes… but I’m glad you like them anyway! Hence the name of this post: Homemade Non-Naan Bread.
What did we do with these? For dinner last night, we ate them with Korean BBQ (Bulgogi) and fresh lettuce from our garden to make a kind of Korean BBQ flatbread. The Korean BBQ was very easy. I might write up a separate post for that. For lunch today, I turned them into cheesebreads with Havarti and Provolone for lunch. Tonight for dinner, I made a pasta casserole and I used the naan left to make garlic naan. And now the naan is all gone. Boy, that was fast!
I think my next attempt at these I will bake them. It is much easier to bake 16 at once than 16 one at a time!
-Lynn
Note:this is the look I am aiming for. ? more work to be done!
That’s a pretty ambitious project. My recipe makes 6 … I bake 2 at a time on a metal baking sheet removing them as they puff up on both sides and then throwing on another 2.
I used this recipe for the dough but baked them at 500 deg F for 5-6 min
https://kitcheninspirations.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/draft-indian-dinner-party-naan/
If they are large pieces then 6 would work for us. I just wanted to make a lot because I knew they would get eaten quickly. But I guess it’s ok if there are none left after one meal. ?
They’re a decent size. It’s a question rolling them out to the right size/thickness cause you don’t want them too thin or they’ll dry out but too thick and they’re kind of doughy. I like when they puff up during baking.
Mine aren’t very authentic, I guess: I use my regular white bread dough. I tear off a chunk, stretch it into a flattish blob, placing about four or five on a pizza screen and baking in a very hot oven. It’s pretty easy to make a big stack that way.
Sounds about right to me 🙂 mine just weren’t right in thickness and texture. It usually takes me two or three times to figure out a recipe, so I’ll try again soon. I will definitely be baking them.
The naan bread sounds Indian. Do you like curry?
I knew a group of Indian friends like to eat naan bread with curry.
I do like curry but I’ve only eaten it at Thai restaurants. What is interesting about curry to me is that I don’t like the way it smells but I like the way it tastes! Naan bread would be a good companion to curry.
The food serve in Thai restaurant are mainly known as Tomyam rather than curry. Tomyam mainly have the chili and sour taste but curry is slightly different.
By the way, I just started the blog. Do drop by often so that we could share recipes. Talking about curry, probably I should post some curry recipes.