It's hard to tell if you've done this before

[venta]

Shortly I will get round to doing sensible grown-up posts about new year resolutions and the like.

But in the interim, has anyone ever made naan bread with any degree of success?

I love naan bread. From a restaurant, that is. Those vacuum-packed heat-up-in-the-grill things you can buy in supermarkets are a snare and a delusion. They don't taste right, they don't have the right texture. They don't even look right.

I realise that the first thing to overcome with cooking my own naan is that I don't have a tandoor in my kitchen (and am, realistically, never likely to). However, I do own a book of recipes which - far from claiming to be in any way authentic Asian cuisine - reckons it provides you with recipes for making curries like they do in the Indian restaurants of Britain.

So far, so good. Naan bread, it says is "a huge, light, fluffy bread" and goes on to give a recipe. Which is simple enough - dissolve yeast in warm water, mix into flour, add water as required to knead into firm dough. Prove, knock back, roll out, brush with ghee, stuff under grill[*]. Simple.

Oh, yes, and there's the bit where you knead wild onion seeds and sesame seeds into them. Which I failed at a little because I couldn't find wild onion seeds in my quick scout round the Asian grocer's on Uxbridge Road. Note to self: using fennel seeds instead was a terrible idea. Way too strongly flavoured.

But anyway, spices aside, this was not a success. The naan breads I made might - in a good light, with a biased audience - have been judged to be nearly as good as the vacuum-packed travesties sold in the Co-op. They certainly weren't any better. They were thick and hard and planky. And dense.

I think I rolled the dough out too thickly, which probably didn't help. Possibly I cooked it too hot or too cold (see note below). But I just don't quite believe that grilling these things is ever going to give a decent result. Even before I tried, my instinctive reaction was that it wouldn't work well. However, if some sort of responsible cooking person tells me it does work, I'll persevere.

Has anyone got any good suggestions for making naan at home? Is it even possible?

Mind you, if I did learn to make a decent naan I fear I might never leave the house again. I'd just sit there making and consuming fluffy bready goodness :)

[*] Though, irritatingly, it says to set the grill to maximum and put the grill pan at the half-way position. I feel this isn't very helpful if you have an electric grill which is part of your oven.

Comments

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

I use milk and sunflower oil in my naan, and a fair bit of sugar. If you set the oven at max and put a baking sheet on the top shelf, you can get a fair result if you put the naan straight onto the hot sheet. It also needs to rise a little bit between rolling it out and putting it on the sheet; not long, just for 10 minutes or so. Too thick and it won't rise and will be soggy, too.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oven at max does sound a lot more sensible than a grill. Although our oven has a mysterious habit of switching itself off completely if turned up past about 220, so could be risky :(

If you have the time, would you be able to let me know the quantities for your naan, please? (The recipe I used was really quite minimalist - and also surprised me by saying that you could substitute yoghurt for yeast, which was a new one on me).

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

(Warning: these are opinions and have no basis in fact)

Naan's not a bajillion miles away from pizza dough, so I would try stronger flour and maybe cooking in a skillet in a hot oven that's got a few bricks in it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Bricks? Huh?

(I mean, I know what bricks are... just not sure what the thinking behind putting them in the oven is. I guess they act like storage heaters - do they make a significant difference?)

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

It's the same reason as for the skillet: you want to transfer a lot of heat into the dough quickly, so a pile of bricks with a skillet on top will store it and transfer it quickly to the bread. Much the same as those "pizza stones" that you can get in Lakeland.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. I thought those were just for swank :)

It would, though, require me to acquire a skillet. Which is on the list. But is below various other things, like a casserole dish which will go on the hob and in the oven.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Also, when I said "flour" I did mean "strong white bread flour". The recipe recommended using half and half bread flour and chapatti flour for preference, but the smallest quantity of chapatti flour I could purchase was 5kg - which I just don't have the space to store!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

You might find onion seeds being labelled as kalongi or nigella in Asian shops.

I've never made naan (though I do make excellent chapati and paratha). I will have a look in my Indian cookbooks tonight and see if I can find a better recipe. I would have thought that a very hot baking sheet in a very hot oven would be the best bet though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha! Thank you :)

I did indeed find nigella seeds in the shop, but didn't realise they were the same thing.

I'm aware of nigella seeds being a thing you're supposed to put out if you want to attract goldfinches (I think!) to your garden, but had no idea they were also onion seeds.

Paratha I can take or leave, but chapati might also be worth a shot :)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

That's niger seeds for goldfinches. Are they the same thing? Not sure they are...

[venta.livejournal.com]

They are not the same (or so says Wikipedia).

However, I'm pretty sure I was told you want nigella seeds for finches. Presumably by someone who was confused, mischievous, or plain wrong :)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Sadly so, I'm afraid, unless the bird seed catalogue on my desk is also incorrect ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

The world contains bird seed catalogues?

Truly, it is a great and surprising place :)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

It does if your father asks you to buy him a bird feeder from a specific web site for Christmas, apparently. ;)

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Chapatis are really really easy - it's basically just flour (either chapati/gram flour or any fine wholemeal) and water with a little bit of vegetable oil or ghee for malleability. You have to knead the dough really well and then let it rest in a cool place for a couple of hours, then you just pull little bits off, roll them out thinly and cook them in a dry frying pan.

Paratha are fun - it's a bit like making puff pastry. Same basic recipe as for chapati, but when you roll out the breads, you brush them with melted ghee, fold them into quarters, roll them out again, brush again, roll again etc - that's what makes them go crispy and puffy. If you want you can then sandwich two together with a filling and cook them like that.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. Interesting. I think I've only ever met paratha in the post-sandwiching phase, so thought it was an integral part of their nature.

[alethia-juturna.livejournal.com]

For chapati's I do:

1) 2 parts wheat or chapati flour
2) 1 part water
3) Bit of oil
4) Mix, wait for 30 minutes
5) Divide into balls (4 balls per 1 cup flour - don't know that in grams)
6) For each ball
-- pat into flat shape on one hand with other hand
-- coat in oil
-- fold over once, pat into flat shape about size of hand with other hand
-- coat in oil
-- fold over once again, pat into flat shape about size of hand with other hand

(can you see how to do that - am i describing well enough?)

That gives you a piece of dough that has four layers, with oil between each layer - it gives them the "puff" when you grill them

7) Roll each ball into circular shape (mine look like ameba's - the indian woman who taught me this could have used hers for maths classes they were so perfect)

8) Grill on each side on DRY hot pan until they brown and "poof"

Does that make sense? I hope so.. ;-) If you want more info, feel free. Don't stint on the oil - it's what gives it the texture!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I guess the woman who taught you was from south India? I had heard that they incorporate layers of fat to puff up chapatis down there. Sounds more fun than the flat kind prevalent in the UK (where almost all 'Indian' cookery is from the northern part of the subcontinent).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, that makes sense. Maybe I'll give them a try, too :)

[erming.livejournal.com]

You can buy Nigella in stores?

Sounds like a bloke's perfect present a sexy woman who smolders while cooking.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Hear that grinding noise? That's the cause of feminism being turned back 50 years.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Does this mean Nigella Lawson has a real (and cooking related) name and isn't just named after her dad with an 'a' to feminise it?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Nigella (the plant) is also known as love-in-a-mist. It's perennial and self-seeds, and it's quite pretty, so ideal for the idle gardener.
(Not sure what this says about Ms Lawson's parents' choice.)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Nigella will happily grow like a weed, if you have any garden space. I harvest ours every year and that gives plenty enough seed for cooking purposes.

[keris.livejournal.com]

I made some once, they definitely had yoghurt in them though. And they went in our gas oven which doesn't go that hot. They were on the nicer side of okay. This isn't a very useful comment :)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I make naan bread from a recipe that came with my first breadmaker. Breadmaker makes the dough (which does indeed have yoghurt in), then they go under the grill for a couple of minutes each side.

I think they're very nice, and certainly fluffy, but they might not meet your standards.

[venta.livejournal.com]

If they can be called "fluffy", then they'd certainly be an improvement! Might I meet your breadmaker's recipe? I don't have a breadmaker, but it might be useful for comparison purposes (I'm under the impression that breadmaker recipes don't work well if just made by a human).

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I found the best naan I ever had in a vacuum pack *in* the Asian grocers on the way to work (one of). Supermarkets are smell, but have a slow scout in that shop...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Best naan ever? Wow. That's quite a recommendation.

I have seen packaged naans in Asian grocers' before, but since they looked the same as the bad supermarket ones I'd passed them by. Next time I meet some I'll give it a chance!

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Alas, I've only made unsuccessful naans, though I'm not so bad at chapatis.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

You should have had a poll, with a 'naan of the above' option :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm disappointed no one spotted my Na(a)n Turner song lyric used for the subject :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I've never even heard of Nan Turner, so it was well wasted on me :-) Would she repay closer attention?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was a joke with an audience of one (me :)

I'm not sure I'd specifically recommend her... I only know odd songs here and there. Antifolk singer, very girly voice. Really surprisingly little web presence, it turns out :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

A non-LJ colleague recommends this recipe:

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_display.php?id=10108

Uses yoghurt and yeast...