Having always wanted to make naan at home, the social distancing restrictions provided the perfect opportunity since we cut way down on eating out from maybe once a week to zero, to try it. I browsed several recipes: some that didn't use a conventional oven needed the tawa to be inverted over the stove. I use a heavy cast iron tawa. That was out. Some used the traditional tandoor. Out. By elimination, I settled on recipes that used an oven. Of these, Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe seemed like a good fit. And that's what I settled on. He isn't very clear on how long to bake, so I had to guess. The result: the naans were a bit chewy. I followed his instructions to keep the dough very moist and I think that made a huge difference in the texture. I'm sure I'll try this again, and maybe will hit the perfect temp and the cooking time. For this recipe, I preheated my oven to 500, which was the max my oven would go. And cooked the naan for approximately 5 minutes.
| Prep Time | 30 mins |
| Cook Time | 5 mins/naan |
| Passive Time | 1 hour 30 mins |
| Servings |
naans
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Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1/2 packet or 1 1/4 tsp yeast I used active dry, not instant because it helps gluten to develop if you take the time to rest the dough
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup warm water
- water as needed for the dough roughly 1 cup, maybe a bit more
- 2 tsp or as needed oil to coat the dough
- 2 tsp chopped cilantro, green chilies
- butter as needed for topping
Ingredients
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Instructions
- Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water, add sugar. Rest for 5 minutes - if the yeast is good, you'll see it blooming after 5 minutes. If you don't throw it out, and start with good, unexpired yeast.
- Add the flour, salt, and water and give it a mix with a fork. Let the dough be on the looser side, a little more moist than say, chapathi dough
- You won't be able to knead the dough. It's ok. Pour into a bowl and keep it covered for about an hour, coat it in oil. After an hour, it would double in size. Preheat the oven to 500 (or the max your oven would go to)
- Transfer the dough to a kneading/rolling out surface, and roughly knead it. Divide into 6 pieces. Using flour on the surface and on the dough, make balls of the dough, and leave it covered for another 30 mins
- In the meantime, prepare whatever toppings you plan to use. I chopped garlic and green chilies into tiny bits, heated some butter and made two toppings - one with garlic and cilantro, and one with chilies. I kept some melted butter plain.
- Now shape the balls into rounds, and take each in your hand, and just stretch on one end to make the traditional naan shape. I admit, it wasn't easy to roll out, so I just hand tossed them to get the shapes - which were not perfect, as you can see
- Spread the toppings on the naans. I made two garlic buttered, 2 chili buttered, and 2 plain buttered. Transfer them to a pizza stone (if you're using a pizza stone, you could preheat it) 2 at a time, and watch it closely. Mine started looking done in about 3 minutes. I then flipped them to the other side, and finished with 2 more minutes
- Cook all the naans in batches of 2. Enjoy warm, with your favorite side dishes. We had ours with dal makhani, and kadai paneer.
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