Naan

Ingredients

Dough

• 500 gplain flour or maida
• 7 gdried yeast
• 1 tspsugar
• 1 tspsalt
• ½ tspbaking powder
• 150 gplain yoghurt
• 150 mlwarm milk
• 3 tbspoil or ghee
• 1egg, optional

To finish

• melted ghee or butter
• nigella seeds, kalonji
• chopped coriander

Garlic naan

• 4 clovesgarlic, finely chopped
• mixed with the butter

To serve

• with any North Indian curry, dal or grilled meat

Directions

1. Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and baking powder, then work in the yoghurt, warm milk and oil. Knead for eight to ten minutes until the dough is smooth, soft and slightly tacky.
2. Keep it softer than a bread dough, since a stiff dough gives a dense naan that will not puff. Resist adding much extra flour while kneading, and oil your hands instead if it sticks. Let it rise, covered, until doubled, which takes an hour and a half to two hours.
3. Divide it into six pieces and roll each into a ball, then let them rest for fifteen minutes. The teardrop is not merely traditional: it is the shape a round of dough takes when hung over the hand and slapped onto a curved tandoor wall.
4. Roll them to about half a centimetre thick, which is thicker than a chapati. Press nigella seeds and coriander into the surface as you roll, so they stay put. Heat the pan dry over the highest heat for several minutes until it is genuinely smoking hot. Now wet one side of the naan lightly with water and lay it wet side down in the pan.
5. Take great care with this, since you are holding a hot heavy pan over a naked flame, and use a long oven glove. It will fall away from the pan when it is ready, so hold it over the hob rather than the floor.
6. Preheat the tray for a full thirty minutes, since a cold tray gives a pale flat bread. Cook the naan for two to three minutes until puffed and charred in patches. Brushing them hot is essential, since the butter soaks in and keeps them soft, and a naan brushed cold stays dry.
7. Stack them in a clean cloth as they are made, which traps the steam and keeps them pliable. Serve them hot, torn by hand, with curry or dal. They are at their best within minutes and they go leathery within the hour.

Technique

• A home oven cannot reach tandoor temperature, so home naan differs genuinely.
• Naan is leavened white bread, unlike unleavened wholemeal roti.
• Wetting one side makes it stick to the pan the way it sticks to a tandoor wall.

Substitutions

• Any plain flour in place of maida.
• Milk with a squeeze of lemon if you have no yoghurt.

Variations

• Garlic naan, brushed with garlic butter.
• Peshwari naan, stuffed with coconut, almond and sultana.
• Keema naan, stuffed with spiced minced meat.

History

A leavened flatbread whose name comes from Persian, and whose technique, wet dough slapped directly onto the hot inner wall of a clay tandoor oven so it cooks in under a minute, arrived in South Asia through Persian and Central Asian influence carried by the Mughal Empire from the 1500s onward, though simpler flatbreads existed on the subcontinent well before that. Naan remained largely a food of Mughal royal courts and later urban Muslim communities for a long stretch of its history, distinct from the everyday roti and chapati eaten by most of the population, which use different, unleavened dough and are cooked on a flat griddle rather than a tandoor. It only became a broadly everyday bread, in India and internationally, over the 1900s.

Frequently asked questions

What is Naan?

Naan is a bread & pastry from India: soft leavened tandoor bread, often brushed with butter or garlic. A leavened flatbread whose name comes from Persian, and whose technique, wet dough slapped directly onto the hot inner wall of a clay tandoor oven so it cooks in under a minute, arrived in South Asia through Persian and Central Asian influence carried by the Mughal Empire from the 1500s onward, though simpler flatbreads existed on the subcontinent well before that. Naan remained largely a food of Mughal royal courts and later urban Muslim communities for a long stretch of its history, distinct from the everyday roti and chapati eaten by most of the population, which use different, unleavened dough and are cooked on a flat griddle rather than a tandoor. It only became a broadly everyday bread, in India and internationally, over the 1900s.

How long does Naan take to make?

Naan takes 20 min plus 2 hr rising of preparation and 15 min of cooking. The recipe makes 6 breads. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Naan?

Yes, within limits. Any plain flour in place of maida. Milk with a squeeze of lemon if you have no yoghurt.

What is the most important thing to get right in Naan?

Take great care with this, since you are holding a hot heavy pan over a naked flame, and use a long oven glove. It will fall away from the pan when it is ready, so hold it over the hob rather than the floor.