As I mentioned, I do not like Indian food. The only thing I enjoy at Indian restaurants is the yummy warm flat bread called Naan. When looking through recipes trying to figure out what I would make this week, I found a recipe for Naan. I'll admit, I thought it would be really difficult and complicated to make. Surprisingly it was really simple to make. The great thing about this bread is that actual cooking time only takes 2 minutes! The end result was so good that I had to stop Cory from eating it all as I pulled it off the skillet.
Naan starts like any typical bread recipe with dry yeast in warm water and sugar to activate the yeast.
I had to let this mixture sit for about ten minutes until the yeast starts to bubble and get foamy. While I was waiting on the yeast, I sifted together my dry ingredients.
In a large bowl I sifted together flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. By this time my yeast is nice and foamy. Can I just say that yeast kind of freaks me out. It's this live organism that eats sugar and grows. I was a little wigged out watching it bubble and foam. Anyway it makes yummy bread so I'll get over it. Behold the foamy yeast!
Now that the yeast is alive and active its time to add yogurt and olive oil to the yeast mixture.
After stirring the yeast mixture together until blended I added to my dry ingredients.
I work the wet and dry ingredients with a fork until it starts to come together. The dough is pretty sticky and feels like there isn't enough flour, but that's the consistency you want. Once the dough has started coming together I knead it with my hands into a ball.
I just covered the dough with a damp cloth and put it in a warm non drafty spot to rise for 2-4 hours. After the dough had risen for 3 hours it looked like this!
Look at that beautiful bread dough, that creepy yeast did its job. I have to admit I was a little worried it wouldn't rise but I just needed to give it time and it turned out perfectly. Now its time to roll out the Naan.
Now I took the dough and separated it into six not so equal balls. Each ball has been rolled in flour so they aren't so sticky when I roll them out. Next step roll out each ball into a tear drop shape.
Once I rolled out all the dough I dip my hands in a bowl of water and gently toss the dough from hand to to hand to moisten the dough. Also this is the time I am getting my cast iron skillet screaming hot! It needs to be so hot that it smoking. Side note: ( open all the windows and turn on the fans in your house if you want to make this bread, because it gets really smokey when cooking the bread. My smoke alarm went off while making it.)
Now that your skillet is hot, I put the dough in the skillet and let it cook on one side for one minute.
Then I flipped the dough over and cooked it on the other side for one minute this time with a lid covering the skillet. Once its done on the other side the Naan is ready. When it comes off the skillet I immediately brushed melted butter and its ready to eat. This bread is so good fresh and hot with warm butter you almost don't need dinner to eat with it.
I will have a picture of the final product in my next post about the Tikka Masala. I don't have a picture as they were coming out of the skillet because my photographer (Cory) was too busy actually eating the Naan to take pictures. I guess that tells you how good the bread is.
Now that I know how easy this is to make, Its going to be hard for me not to make it more than once a week. I am really happy I decided to make this bread with our dinner it really made me feel like I was in an Indian restaurant.
It also reminds me a lot of Native American Fry Bread, except its not fried, I think this bread would be awesome with butter and honey drizzled all over it YUM!!!! Maybe I'll have to try that next time I make it. I am excited for my other Indian dishes this week! :)
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