Naan Ya Business!

Hey All,

So its been a while.  Winter was rough, no?  Late winter greeted us with lots of visitors, a renewed desire to leave the bear lair, and good healing and realizations on both our parts.  We also adopted a rescued pit bull puppy a few weeks ago.  We've learned he's surprisingly young for the shape he was rescued in, but will likely not get much larger.  He's been a bundle of fun and joy, albeit very destructive joy :)  His story is heartbreaking, I hope we can provide the happy and healthy home he needs to fully enjoy the rest of his time on the planet.

What does this all have to do with Naan?  Well, other than the circumstance, I'm not sure much.  About a week ago, I attended a local gathering of "those people".  Being a social gathering, of course, food was in order.  I had recently scored on cases (no, not just cases, 9 cases, and there were plenty more) of outdated yogurt.  I'm sure many of my readers just threw up a bit knowing that they ate cheese and naan made with outdated yogurt.  The funny thing about cultured milk products is that they are actually safer the longer they sit.  The increased acidity and "good" bacteria population overruns the "bad" bacteria and actually makes it safer.  The downside is that flavor goes out the window, depending on storage conditions, things may be sour, bitter, or otherwise funky....hence the reason well aged cheeses are aged in carefully controlled conditions, to make sure the flavor is going to be good after all that time.

 In this case the yogurt had turned into a cheesy mass that tasted like vinegar!  Why not turn it into cheese and naan.  Naan, as tricky and mysterious as it seems to the western world, is really a very simple bread made with yogurt or sour cream.  So here's the recipe that I've been asked for repeatedly, BTW, another batch is in the oven proofing right now!

So where does the pit bull come into play?  The night before I set out to make the naan, he devoured my prized sourdough starter, so I had to use regular yeast....I'll share both ways to do it:

Naan

1 pkg yeast (2 Tblsp starter if using sourdough)
1 tblsp sugar
1 tblsp salt (I prefer non-iodized since iodine can kill yeast)
1 cup hot water (I believe its 110°F, I just know its when my tap is running too hot to touch)
4 oz (1/4 cup) yogurt....the fancy greek varieties that are running around contain cheese cultures as well so they work very well)

Mix together and let set until able to touch.  It should start to get foamy on the top.  If you are worried about your starter messing things up, just the starter, sugar, and water in the bowl until it springs to life.

3 Cups flour

Mix for what seems like forever....it will form a ball, keep mixing until it starts sticking to the sides of the bowl.

Turn out onto floured surface.  Flour the top, and knead, adding flour....eventually, despite how much flour you add it will stick...its now perfect.  Coat a bowl with oil, roll the ball into it, making sure it doesn't stick anywhere.  Cover!

Let rise....now this is the tricky part.  Rising, I've learned is a very sensitive process and requires an inordinate amount of heat.  Conventional wisdom says put it on the counter covered for a while....no, you need heat, not like 350°F heat, but much warmer than your kitchen.  I put it in the oven with the light on for 2 hours if using packaged yeast, 8+ hours if using sourdough.  It should double in size and have noticeable bubbles throughout.

No need to punch down, what you are going to do next is plenty violent, but not enough to require another rise....pinch the dough in half.  Then pinch each half into 3 pieces, giving a total of 6 pieces.  Pat, squeeze, and knead the dough into a respectable round, about 1/8" thick.

Gently fry on an ungreased skillet.  The heat is tricky to get the hang of...I've burned plenty of naan until I learned let the skillet warm up (again for what seems like forever) on medium heat.  Then place the patted out naan on the skillet and cover, a few minutes later it will start to look like bread and puff up....flip it over to brown the high spots and VIOLA!

A fun variation on this is to make peshwari naan.  Traditiona peshwari contains onions (very few, finely chopped), raisins to taste, and coconut.  I mix these in when kneading.  The last batch I made, the pit bull had consumed my dessicated coconut earlier on, so it was just raisins and onion....it was still really tasty!

I'm sure the possibilities are endless, I've got an old apple that should probably be shredded into some naan with cinnamon and a pinch of clove......just an idea.

I've been keeping my binder....there are lots of recipes to share, just been under the weather.

3Day