Topic: Ultimate Naan Bread?

[chriswg]

I'ev recently been trying and failing to make decent Naan breads. In the absence of a tava I've been tring the grill or hot oven methods which have been very poor. Looking through the forum the two main recipes seem to be UB's and CA's. Both are over 2 years old. Is that because they are perfect or because no one has been able to improve on them yet?

It seems the tava method is the most popular. Are there any other ways that give equally good results? Would the tava method cook a raw keema mix all the way through? They seem to be rolled out very thin which woudlnt work well for a keema naan.

Now I'm happy with my bhajis I'm going to explore naans for a while, starting with these two recipes and methods. it would be great to hear others input into new methods or recipe changes that improve on either of them.

Thanks
Chris

[Stephen Lindsay]

Chris

I look forward to your experiments. I have tried yeast and non-yeast nan recipes and never really got anywhere, though in all fairness to us on the forum I have eaten some takeaway nans that are no better.

Good luck!

[Malc.]

Chris,

Following your example I have attempted a proper go at making bread useing Dipurajah's dough recipe. I followed the doh recipe to the letter only halving the quantity. Whilst the doh was resting, I made my Keema recipe only replacing the gram with 1/2 a can of chickpeas which I smashed to a pulp. As I was cooking shami kebabs as well, I chose not to pre-cook the mince which allowed me to test the theory as to whether the mince would cook in a Keema Naan.

The cooking process I chose to employ was as follows. Pre-heat the grill for 30 mins. Then on a hot stove, heat my heavy based frying pan until smoking hot. Roll out the naan and place in the pan and immediately transfer under the grill at a distance of about 4-5 inches from the element.

Plain Naan
Before attempting the Keema Naan I chose to try a normal Naan bread. The only addition was to sprinkle water to the underside of the naan before adding to the pan. At first attempt, I waited until I could see bubbling in the dough and then placed it under the grill. This then really encouraged the dough to rise and gain that characteristic burning on the top of the blisters.

The result was quite good. I felt the timing to grill should be shortened as the base was a little hard. However, the dough was soft. It could probably use some salt and maybe worth tying yeast in the mix to make it lighter. The bread whilst tasty and looking like a naan, was more like pitta bread in taste and where the doh had gone crisp, was textured similar to pitta as well.

Keema Naan
The second attempt was the Keema Naan. I prepared the dough in a 5 inch circle with most of the dough bunched in the centre and the edges thinned out. I placed the same amount of Keema as dough in the centre and bought the thin edges together and pressed them gently. Lightly floured and gently rolled out being careful to get an even spread. The Naan was cooked as before with the timing reduced to grill.

The result was again good but the Naan did not resemble BIR in that it had not blistered like the plain Naan. One thing I have mastered is the Keema and managing to get it spread evenly in one sheet, along with the flavour which is superb for me. What I did notice is that I could have perhaps rolled it a little thinner. This comes with experience I didn't want Keema splitting out of the dough. I was very pleased that the bread was also still very moist and soft. But I think the Naan needs to be prodded in certain places to try and get the dough to stick and prevent the whole thing puffing up in one big bubble. This may also be attributed to the dough being slightly thicker.

[millsoni]

Naan bread is a problem!  I do not have a tandoor, a pizza stone or hot grill (nor a proper oven for that matter), so I have only a gas hob to work with.  Given that, I am quite pleased with the results I get, and never have any bread leftover when I cook for friends or paying customers.

The dough recipe I use is as follows and was found on this site (I think) but I can't find it.  If anyone knows where it is then please post a link.

480g      plain flour
1 tsp      baking powder
200ml    water
30ml      oil
45ml      milk
1/4 tsp  bicarb
1tsp      salt
2tsp      sugar
5tsp      yoghurt
1tsp      dried yeast (optional)
             butter / ghee for brushing (optional)

Sieve the flour, salt, bicarb, baking powder, yeast into a large bowl.
Whisk yoghurt, sugar and milk
Make a well in the flour and add the liquids (water and whisked milk), mixing until everything is combined into a smooth dough.  Leave for 10 minutes.

Turn the dough onto a suitable flat surface and add the oil.  Knead until the oil is
absorbed and the dough is smooth and elastic.  Leave for a couple of hours in a
warm place.  The resulting dough will be quite a bit wetter than normal bread dough
but with a bit of practice it is not hard to handle.

Divide the dough into balls, and using oiled hands manipulate into flat naan shapes (or shaped to fit the pan!).  The dough has to be quite thin using my cooking method
because the steel pan gets really hot and can burn the naan before it cooks through.

Very lightly oil the pan and heat, but reduce the flame before adding the dough.  Cook
until blisters start to appear on the top surface, checking that the underside has
coloured nicely, then turn over.  Cook for another minute or two.  Brush with butter or
ghee if desired, and serve.

The dough can be frozen or stored in the fridge for a couple of days.

Because I rely on a gas hob I use a steel pan which would normally be for paella.
I have a tava waiting to be brought over from England which may work better.

I find that this method does produce tasty, soft and authentic smelling bread.  Not
quite a true naan; the blisters get broken when the bread is turned for example, but
pretty good given the limited facilities available to me.

This photo shows a (very small) portion of chicken jalfrezi (CA's recipe), mint raita,
naan and pilau.

[Malc.]

I watched a few video's on the web yesterday and it sounds like you could do to try the inverted method. The naan is placed in a dry pan so it sticks to the pan, cook until blistered and then invert the pan over the flame to toast the blisters.

I am annoyed that I didn't take pics of the plain Naan I did yesterday as that resembled a naan at least. But so far and judging by sight only, CA's naan looks better. I am sure UB's works well, but I can't see how I can create a Keema Naan with a very wet dough.

[Vindaloo-crazy]

Axe has it right, we need to cook naans in dry frying pans over a reasonable heat.

I've done loads here and they are spot on, the keema can be a problem but you need the naan rolled really thin to cook the lamb. In a BIR the keema is showing in  a keema naan, that shows you how thin the dough is rolled before it goes into the tandoor.

medium/hot heat, with a lid on and turn it over after checking the base.

[millsoni]

Thanks for the suggestion on using a dry pan, I will try that next time.   

[lardman]

I've tried several times with Dipurajah's dough recipe and failed each time. They always come out like pita bread.

I grabbed a recipe from the web a few weeks ago but for the life of me I can't find it again, it was pretty close to the right thing cooked on a Tawa.  There was no yoghurt in it and it was 2 cups SR flour and 1 cup plain flour but I can't remember the rest.

[JerryM]

millsoni,

for defo switch to a dry pan and turn the heat down a little - u'rs from the pic is too hot (causing black before the naan is cooked). try to shake any loose flour off before placing into the pan too (tends to go brown and gives poor flavour to the bread).

tarva will be big improvement over paella "frying" pan.

[JerryM]

for everyday i now make SR (self raising) flour naan which i'm sure is what BIR's do.

however when u need to go all out or that extra mile i use the KD1 yeast naan recipe:

150ml milk
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp dry active yeast
450g plain flour
0.5 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp veg oil
150 ml plain yogurt
1 off egg
melted butter to brush on when cooked

i put all the dry in a bowl mix then add all the liquid and mix using spoon. knead the dough (rosemary shrager method), leave till x2 volume. roll into long sausage and cut into individual dough balls. roll out and cook on gas bbq.

makes 6 naans or enough for 4 off people.

u can leave out the egg and baking powder if u want. the yeast must be "easy bake" or that for hand baking.