Homemade Naan

Basically, naan is an indian flat bread that goes well with anything that bread goes well with. Marinara sauce, a sandwich, a personal pizza, bread to soak up your gravies.... Naan is your man! (cheesy, I know)

I stumbled on this recipe on www.budgetbytes.com quite awhile ago but I kept putting off making it till now. I greatly regret not making this sooner. I made it to go along with some Butternut Squash Dal I had made. I'll post the recipe for that later. The naan came out even better than I dreamed it would. Soft with lots of pockets allowing it to hang onto that dal. Oh this was delicious. The best vote of confidence came from my 3-year-old extremely picky eater. She gobbled this up together with the dal. What's more, she went back for seconds! And thirds! This is unheard of unless it's pizza night.

So without further rambling from me, the magic get-your-3-year-old-to-ask-for-seconds recipe is as follows:

Naan

Prep time

1 hour

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

1 hour 25 mins

2 tsp dry active yeast
1 tsp sugar
½ cup water
2½-3 cups flour
½ tsp salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
⅓ cup plain greek yogurt*
1 large egg



In a small bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and water. Stir to dissolve then let sit for a few minutes or until it is frothy on top. At that point, stir in the oil, yogurt and egg until evenly combined.

In a medium sized bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour with the salt. Next, add the bowl of wet ingredients to the flour/salt mixture and stir until well combined. Continue adding flour a half cup at a time until you can no longer stir it with a spoon (about 1 to 1.5 cups later).

At that point, turn the ball of dough out onto a well floured counter top. Knead the ball of dough for about 3 minutes, adding flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking. I ended up using about 3 cups of flour total. The dough should be smooth and very soft but not sticky.

Loosely cover the dough and let it rise until double in size (about 45 minutes). After it rises, gently flatten the dough and cut it into 8 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a small ball by stretching the dough back under itself until the top is smooth and round.

Heat a large, heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat and spray lightly with non-stick spray. Working with one ball at a time, roll it out until it is about ¼ inch thick or approximately 6 inches in diameter.

Place the rolled out dough onto the hot skillet and cook until the under side is golden brown and large bubbles have formed on the surface. Flip the dough and cook the other side until golden brown as well. Serve plain or brushed with melted butter and sprinkled with herbs!

*I actually did not have greek yogurt on hand when I made this so I substituted with sour cream. I can guarantee you that there was no difference to the taste.


TIPS:
For the most bubbles, don’t roll out the ball of dough until just before it is ready to be placed in the skillet. I experimented with different skillet temperatures and found that a medium heat produces the most bubbles in the dough and does not burn the surface.

Enjoy!
Ash  :)