Mingle it up

Couple weeks back my husband felt like eating Chole Bhature. Chole Bhature is a popular North Indian entree. Chole = Garbanzo Beans curry & Bhatura =Leavened fried indian bread.

I don’t prefer frying. In fact I think I have fried just 2-3 times. But I didn’t want to dissapoint him and decided to cook up some Chole Bhature.

As it generally happens with me, I didn’t end up making Bhaturas but made some Naans. Naan is also an Indian leavened bread but baked in hot tandoor(Indian oven). I have made Pizza dough before and I thought making Naans should not be very different. They came out really well and we both were very impressed :-D. The truth of the matter is I owe a lot of my naan’s success to Manjula Aunty from whom the naan recipe is inspired. I wanted to make mine whole wheat so I altered the original recipe to add my signature healthy touches.

You can use White Flour (All-purpose flour) alone if you don’t want to use Whole wheat flour. The recipe is tasty both ways.

Lets get started. Here is what you will need

UPDATE - I recently made the Naans with Whole wheat flour only and it turned out just as delicious & soft. So you can completely skip All-purpose flour & use Whole wheat instead.

• 1/2 cup Whole wheat flour (Or 1/2 cup All-purpose flour for original naan)
• 1/2 cup All-purpose flour
• 1+1 tsp of oil
• 1 small potato
• 1 tsp dry yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/4 tsp of baking powder
• Upto 1/4 cup of warm milk (2 tbsp + 2tbsp)
• 2 tbsp of smooth yogurt
• 2-3 tbsp of water

Toppings (optional)

• 1-2 tsp of ghee/clarified butter
• Finely minced garlic
• Finely chopped coriander
• Chat Masala

Makes 2-3 naans

Oven Temperature -500F

1. Boil your potato & nicely mash it. Generally lots of Naans have eggs in them to make them soft but since we don’t do eggs I have replaced an egg with potato.
2. Add your yeast to 2 tbsp of lukewarm Milk along with sugar. The dry yeast is inactive and it becomes active when added in warm water or milk. Bacteria in yeast will die if the liquid is hot. Sugar in the mixture facilitates the growing process.In about 10-15 mins the mixture will become a little frothy & murky cream color. If its not frothy at all then your yeast might be weak & may not work as well.