Indian · Bread
Garlic Naan (Stovetop)
- Intermediate
- 1 h 40 m
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with aromatics blooming from the first bite, richness that coats and comforts, lifted green at the very end.
Ingredients
- 300g flour
- 150g yogurt + 60ml warm milk
- 1 tsp each sugar, salt; ½ tsp baking soda + 1 tsp baking powder (or 4g yeast)
- Garlic butter, cilantro
- Cast-iron skillet
Equipment
Skillet
The skills inside
Tandoor breadsCharring over open flameResting dough: the pause that does the work
The words inside
GarlicCopper & Enameled Cast IronCast Iron
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Knead a soft, slightly tacky dough; rest 1 hour covered. 60 min
- Roll teardrops; wet one side with water.
- Slap wet-side down onto a ripping-hot dry cast iron; when bubbled, flip the pan over the open flame to char the top.
- Brush with garlic butter immediately.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Charring over open flame 31 recipes
- The surface met the fiercest heat available (flame, a broiler, or bare hot metal) with nothing between them, and it shows as true blistering and blackening rather than gentle, even browning.
- The char matches the surface’s fate: where it will be eaten, black sits in patches over deep colour with every face having had its turn, and where the skin is to be peeled away, it may go to an even black, because the char there works on the flesh below and then leaves with the skin.
- It smells of smoke and toasted surface with no acrid edge that stings the nose: acrid means it went past, and acrid does not cook out.
- Just under the char it is cooked (softened, steaming, collapsed, or puffed, whichever the dish wants) because the flame did the surface and the trapped heat did the rest.
- A taste carries the smoke without mouthfuls of ash: the black that flakes away is a seasoning, not a layer.
Where it goes wrong It was left on one face too long or held too close, so one side carbonised to ash while the rest stayed raw, and the smell turned acrid, which follows the dish through every later step and cannot be seasoned away.
Resting dough: the pause that does the work 71 recipes
- It actually rested, covered, for the time stated, not cut short because the rest of the schedule was tight.
- It rolls and shapes without fighting: it stays where it is put, and it does not spring back or shrink on the bench between passes.
- The surface is smooth and supple rather than dry, cracked, or skinned over.
- It is at the temperature the next step needs: cold where the fat must stay solid, cool and relaxed where it must be rolled thin.
- Baked, it holds the dimensions it was shaped to rather than shrinking back from the edges of the tin or the rim of the dish.
Where it goes wrong The rest was skipped or shortened, so the gluten was still tight: the dough fought the pin and sprang back thick and uneven, then shrank down the sides of the tin in the oven.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauvignon Blanc (Sancerre)
- Also Right
- Grüner Veltliner
- From the Taps
- Berliner weisse
- Zero-Proof
- Cucumber-lime water
Green plates want green wines: vinaigrette’s acid meets its match, and the difficult vegetables surrender to Grüner.
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