Naan Bread
Soft pan-fried flatbread with bubbles, charred spots, and melted garlic butter.
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cook/bake time
- 15 min
- Total
- 1 hr 35 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Calories
Soft pan-fried flatbread with bubbles, charred spots, and melted garlic butter. Yogurt in the dough makes it particularly tender and moist, and a very hot, dry pan replaces the tandoor surprisingly well. In forty minutes you will have fresh bread for any curry.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Prepare the dough
Mix the flour, dry yeast, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a bowl. Add the yogurt, lukewarm milk, and oil, and knead everything for about eight minutes into a soft, slightly sticky dough. It should be significantly softer than a bread dough, because only then will the naan become fluffy instead of firm later.
- 2
Let it rise
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm place for about one hour until it has visibly increased in size. The additional baking powder alongside the yeast is not a mistake, but rather ensures the characteristic large bubbles in the hot pan.
- 3
Portion and roll out
Divide the dough into six equally sized pieces and shape them into balls. Roll each one out on a lightly floured surface into an oval flatbread about 3 mm thick. Pull one end slightly longer while rolling out, which gives the typical teardrop shape. Cover the finished flatbreads with a cloth.
- 4
Bake in the pan
Heat a cast-iron or heavy non-stick pan without fat on the highest setting until it is visibly hot. Place a flatbread in it and bake it for about 90 seconds until large bubbles form and the underside has dark spots. Turn it over and bake it for another minute.
- 5
Brush
Mix the melted butter with the grated garlic and the cilantro. Brush each finished naan with it immediately while it is still hot, then the butter will soak in and the bread will stay soft. Stack the flatbreads in a cloth so they keep each other warm and pliable.
