Recipe: Naan

I've gotten a lot of practice with this recipe and have put lots of little tweaks to make it work for my ingredients and cooking space.

Recipe: Naan
(adapted from The World's Greatest-Ever Curries)

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat bread flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 square of fresh yeast
• 5 TBSP milk
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 4 oz honey flavored greek yogurt
• 1 egg
• 2-3 TBSP melted butter or olive oil for brushing

Directions

In a small bowl, cream the yeast with the milk and set aside for 15 minutes.  Sift the flour and salt together into a large bowl.  Add the oil, yogurt, and egg to the flour and mix together while the yeast mixture sits.  It will be fairly dry and clumpy.  

Stir the yeast mixture before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.  Mix until the spoon is no longer effective and then switch to kneading on a floured surface until the dough is smooth, has an even consistency and no longer sticks to your hands.  If it is too dry, add a little more yogurt.  If it is too moist add  a little more flour.  

Return the dough to the bowl, cover it with a towel and leave in a warm place for about an hour.  For me, the warm place is usually the oven heated to 150F and then turned off.  

Remove the dough from the oven, set-up the top oven rack 4-6 inches from the top element and pre-heat the oven using the broil setting.  Pre-heat a baking sheet in the oven.  

Return the dough to the floured surface and knead for a couple minutes.  Then, divide the dough into six even pieces and roll the pieces into balls.  Roll or press each ball of dough into a tear drop shape or a long oval.  I usually bake the naan in two batches because the dough puffs up well.  Place the naan on the baking sheet and bake for 3-4 minutes.

Remove the naan from the oven and brush with butter or olive oil.  I personally go back and forth better the two and can't decide which I prefer.