Epic Nan Fail - Zero bubbles

[vindapoo]

This is the recipe I used:

300 grams of Self Raising Flour, 
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder, 

[natterjak]

Not all recipes are good ones! If that's a recipe from this site I trust you will report back your experience in the relevant thread. Only in this way can people judge which recipes are worth making.

[uclown2002]

Not all recipes are good ones! If that's a recipe from this site I trust you will report back your experience in the relevant thread. Only in this way can people judge which recipes are worth making.

That is CBM's recipe by the look of it, so would expect it to be fine.

[Geezah]

I imagine you didnt let the dough rise enough or you punched all the co2 out of it when neading it back down.

this is my recipe / method

INGREDIENTS:

2 cup plain flour
1 cup self rising flour
0.5 Tsp of bread yeast
1 egg
0.5 Tsp salt
0.5 Tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cupl warm water
1/2 cup milk
vegetable oil

METHOD

1. Sieve flours, add yeast, baking powder, salt, sugar and mix in bowl

2. Whisk egg, milk, 1 tsp oil

3. Add warm water to flour mix and hand mix for about 15 seconds

4. Slowly add egg, milk, oil mixture, little at a time. Do this step quickly after adding the water, or the mix will be lumpy.

5. Mix and knead with your hands until the dough is smooth, and no longer sticks to your hands or the bowl. This takes about 5 minutes.
(rub oil all over your hands to stop the dough sticking so much)

6. With your hands, rub oil on the dough ball. Cover dough with a damp towel, and rest for 2 to 3 hours (room temp) it will double in size.

7. After 2-3 hours, punch down the dough and split into 4 balls. Knead and roll the divided dough into 4 balls. Cover again with damp towel and rest for 30 minutes until you are ready to cook.

8. Take a ball of dough and flatten it and pull it (or do the hand to hand throw thing) until you have a 1-3mm thick bread. Add garlic, mustard seeds or anything else you like at this point to the dough.

9. Fry the dough on a thick bottomed frying pan or tawa for 1-2 minutes then grill and 'toast' the bubbles

repeat

[vindapoo]

thanks will give that a shot, I did think missing the yeast was a bad idea.

[Whandsy]

I haven't made naans in a while but having made a lot of pizzas and bread recently I would suggest you ensure you have a good dough texture that's well kneaded and stretchy.  Aim to get the thickness about 3mm. (Slightly damp dough will be your friend as the cooler cooking temp will draw moisture from the dough as it will take longer than a tandoor)

The real secret though will be the extremely hot temperature, don't worry too much about the yeast, just allow the dough to rest for a while before rolling and cooking so the flour can absorb the liquid ingredients

Good luck

W

[Graeme]

I use a small amount of yeast.

regards.

[Geezah]

thanks will give that a shot, I did think missing the yeast was a bad idea.

Even when I have left out the yeast the naans were still good, just no huge blisters.



..and I know why they didn't blister huge...

I was trying to replicate naan's I had eat in Delhi which were ultra thin & crispy, so I rolled these out very thin before cooking.

I  still stand by that the OP didn't allow enought time for the dough to rise or he punched it all back out.

[George]

Here's the image on the wikipedia entry for naan. This would be the sort of appearance I'm aiming for, but haven't got close to achieving, so far.

[vindapoo]

Thats nan nirvana that!

Next time I'm in the takeaway I'm going to get some of their dough and then try making it on my Tawa just to see if its the dough or the cooking technique thats letting it down.

To me nan is like base gravy in that unless its bang on the meal is no better than a sharwoods jar curry so have to get this cracked!