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.
3. Take a bowl and add your Whole Wheat + all purpose flour + baking powder + salt + oil in it. Mix in the mashed potato to the flour. And then add the frothy mixture and yogurt in the flour.
4. Add the rest of the milk and knead well. Keep adding more water as needed to make a really soft, sticky dough. Its important for the dough to be soft & sticky which will make our naans soft. Knead the dough well for about 5-8 minutes.
5. Once your dough is ready, take few drops of oil & coat it evenly. Place it in a bowl & cover it with a towel.
6. Let this rest for at least 1 hour. After an hour, the dough should have risen quite a bit. Just knead it for a minute to remove any air pockets which happens due to uneven aeration. Work with some dry flour while kneading since the dough will be sticky.
7. Pre-heat your oven to 500F along with Pizza Stone in it. If you don’t have a Pizza stone, no worries just use any baking tray. Just don’t put the baking tray in the oven during the pre-heating process.
8. While the oven is being pre-heated you should divide the dough into 2-3 equal parts depending upon how big & thick you want your naan.
9. I rolled out my naans in an oval shape by hand the old fashioned way. But you can totally use a rolling pin if you want to. Once you have shaped your naan then just stretch it a little bit from both sides if you want restaurant kind of look :).
10. [Optional]10.Brush the top with little ghee or butter & spread some finely chopped garlic & coriander on it. Just press it down a little bit so that the toppings stick to the naan & don’t come off.
11. Place this naan in the pre-heated oven for around 10 minutes. Please check after 7 mins since the ovens are different wrt temperature.
12. In order to get restaurant kind of uneven brown spot look, switch the oven to Broiler mode & keep the naan for under 20 secs. Don’t keep too long otherwise you will end up in a burnt naan.
13. [Optional]Just sprinkle your naan with some chaat masala on top. My mom would put some chaat masala on parathas at home & I loved those, so decided to put some on this Naan as well. And it tastes delicious.

Your restaurant style naan is ready to serve. You are sure to impress your guests by this recipe :).

You can even stuff your naan with different kinds of stuffings you prefer like -

• Potato Masala
• Grated Cauliflower mix
• Shredded Carrots mix
• Spinach mix
• Minced Corn Mix
• Rockstar Schezwan Chinese Mix

Watch out this space for stuffing ideas & recipes for above mentioned stuffings.

As always if you like my recipes PPC (please post comments)….Adios….

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