How to make the perfect naan bread

Felicity Cloake-Thursday 2 October 2014

Do you need a tandoor to make proper naans, are chapatis or parathas a better bet, and has
anyone mastered homemade stuffed flatbreads?
How to make the perfect kulfi
How to make the perfect saag paneer

Felicity Cloake cooks a selection of tried and trusted

popular recipes in search of perfect results

Felicity Cloakes perfect naan bread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian+++Im not scared of

taking on Indian food far from it, dal is a regular Sunday-night treat,
and my perfect kofta curry is a delicious work in progress. But in my house,
these things are always served with rice, due to my assumption that the
gorgeous, pillowy naans I love for soaking up that rich, spicy gravy were
beyond my abilities.
The naan, a word that just means bread in its original Persian, is a flatbread
native to west, central and southern Asia. It is baked in a clay oven, rather
than over a flame like the chapati, which gives it a crisp exterior, a fluffy
core and a distinctive charred flavour. Not being blessed with either the
space or the funds for a second oven, clay or not, Id long ago lumped
naans in with pizzas as things that werent worth attempting at home. Ive
since changed my mind on the margherita front, particularly after a
revelatory moment earlier this year involving a frying pan and a hot grill,
but I was still wary of attempting a bread that had no toppings to hide
behind. Well, turns out Im wrong again.

The flour

Madhur Jaffreys naan bread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

Though one poster online assures the world that real naan has a mix of
stoneground wheat flour (chakki atta) and white flour, I dont find any
recipes calling for this instead, the difference is between plain flour and

higher protein bread flour. Most recipes I try go for plain flour, but Madhur
Jaffreys Ultimate Curry Bible uses bread flour, and Rick Steins India sits on
the fence with a 1:3 ratio of bread to plain flour. Now, it is perfectly possible
to make decent naan with plain flour Meera Sodhas Made in India does so
but the more naans I munch my way through, the more I realise how
important their characteristic chewy, elastic texture is. A strong flour, with
its higher gluten content, gives the best chance of this.

Raising agent

FVivek Singhs naan bread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

P
T
i
aw
Though
theyre flatbreads, naans traditionally get their bubbly texture from
cin
etyeast (and, very traditionally, from wild yeasts). Some more modern
btevariations, such as that in Vivek Singhs Curry, use baking powder instead,
oer
with
Jaffrey also adding extra bicarbonate of soda. Like Steins, the recipe in
ore
ksCharmaine Solomons India and Pakistan volume of her Complete Asian
tCookbook uses yeast alone, while Sodha tops it up with baking powder.

The benefit of Singhs baking powder is that I dont need to leave the dough
to prove for hours after a mere 15 minutes under a damp cloth, it is ready
to shape. The snag is that, while it boasts a few bubbles, the overall texture
is more like a pitta bread. It is a decent-tasting quick fix if you need
flatbread in a hurry (an emergency that surely plagues us all from time to

time), but when it comes to texture, you cant beat yeast. The extra baking
powder doesnt seem necessary if you leave those microorganisms to do
their thing especially as baking powder itself gets to work immediately,
and will thus presumably be spent by the time the dough is ready to bake.
Stein, Jaffrey, Singh and Sodha use milk to wet their dough, with the first
two adding yoghurt as well, and Stein and Solomon topping it up with
water. Milk, and dairy in general, will give the naan a soft, more tender
crumb than water alone, but Im not sure you want to go too far down that
road, as you risk sacrificing that aforementioned chewy texture. A little
yoghurt for tang and richness, mixed with rather more water, seems a good
compromise. Solomon, Singh and Jaffrey also add egg to their doughs,
which only seems to make them tough. Some extra fat is welcome, though;
Solomon adds ghee, Jaffrey butter and Singh vegetable oil. Personally, I like
the flavour of ghee, but melted butter is a decent substitute.

Flavourings

FRick Steins naan bread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

P
T
i
aw
Everyone
adds salt and sugar to varying degrees the sugar helps the
cin
etyeast to get to work, while the salt does the opposite but is essential for
bteflavour. More interesting are the toppings; though I avoided garlic butter, on
oer
the
basis that it would give the breads concerned a very unfair advantage
ore
ks
t

(what doesnt taste good smothered in garlic butter?), I did allow Jaffrey her
nigella and sesame seeds and Solomon her poppy ones. Pretty as they all
looked, nigella was the only seed to contribute much in the way of flavour,
so which you choose, if any, depends on what youre serving it with. More
important, Id suggest, is a big dollop of melted ghee to finish, as wisely
counselled by Jaffrey.

Method and cooking

FCharmaine Solomons naan bread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

P
T
i
aw
The
two big beasts here, the Michelin-starred Singh and the legend that is
cin
etJaffrey, disagree on one fundamental point, possibly connected with their
btechoice of raising agent. While Jaffrey instructs you to give the dough 100
oer
strokes
with a wooden spoon to develop the gluten, Singh cautions you to
ore
be
ks careful not to work the gluten too much, or the dough will become
tstretchy. Stretchy is exactly what you want, in my opinion, so kneading is

a must. However, I must add that although a naan dough ought to be soft
and sticky, both Jaffrey and Steins are so liquid I have great difficulty
kneading them at all, and end up having to add more flour to both just to be
able to get them back into the bowl. As with all doughs, do it by feel: if the
dough feels at all tough or dry, add more liquid; it should be soft and
irritatingly sticky.

Having established my kitchen is a tandoor-free zone, cooking is necessarily

going to be a compromise. I find the best way to replicate the high heat and
charred flavours is with a very, very hot dry pan Singh and Solomons hot
oven leaves them too stiff, more like a pizza crust. You can finish them off
under a very hot grill, as Jaffrey suggests, but I find Sodhas pan method
simpler and more effective. Use the oven to keep your curries warm
instead.

The perfect naan bread

Felici
ty Cloakes perfect naan bread. Photograph: Felicity Cloake/Guardian

(Makes 6-8)
1.5 tsp fast-action yeast
1 tsp sugar
150ml warm water
300g strong white bread flour, plus extra to dust
1 tsp salt
5 tbsp natural yoghurt
2 tbsp melted ghee or butter, plus extra to brush
A little vegetable oil, to grease
1 tsp nigella (black onion), sesame or poppy seeds (optional)
Put the yeast, sugar and two tablespoons of warm water in a bowl and stir
well. Leave until it begins to froth.

Put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Stir
the yoghurt into the yeast mixture, then make a well in the middle of the
flour and pour it in, plus the melted ghee. Mix, then gradually stir in the
water to make a soft, sticky mixture that is just firm enough to call a dough,
but not at all dry. Tip out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about
five minutes until smooth and a little less sticky, then put in a large, lightly
oiled bowl and turn to coat. Cover and leave in a draught-free place (the
airing cupboard, or an unlit oven) until doubled in size: roughly 90120
minutes.
Tip the dough back out on to the lightly floured surface and knock the air
out, then divide into eight balls (or six if you have a particularly large frying
pan). Meanwhile, heat a non-stick frying pan over a very high heat for five
minutes and put the oven on low. Prepare the melted ghee and any seeds
to garnish.
Flatten one of the balls and prod or roll it into a flat circle, slightly thicker
around the edge. Pick it up by the top to stretch it slightly into a teardrop
shape, then put it in the hot pan. When it starts to bubble, turn it over and
cook until the other side is browned in patches. Turn it back over and cook
until there are no doughy bits remaining.
Brush with melted ghee and sprinkle with seeds, if using, and put in the
oven to keep warm while you make the other breads.
Naan breads: worth making at home without a tandoor, or are you better off
buying them to go with your homemade curries? Do you prefer a chapati or
a paratha? And does anyone have a good recipe for a classic stuffed naan:
keema, peshwari or even something a little more unusual?