Indian Food Part II: From Sulpicia's Kitchen

For the leftovers, I decided to make some of my own naan. I found a recipe in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Bread. It was pretty good. Cerinthus (who sadly left today) gave it a "solid 8 out of 10" which is pretty good for my first try. I was not particularly rigorous in my picture-taking, but I will post the recipe from Whole Grain Bread page 80 (modified, as is my tradition).

As Cerinthus is not the greatest fan of whole wheat, I used 50% whole wheat, 50% all purpose flour. It worked quite well. I also used canola oil instead of butter and 2% milk instead of yogurt.

Ingredients

• 227g Whole Wheat Flour
• 227g Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 380g 2% Milk
• 3g salt
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

Directions

1. Mix together the flour and the salt.
2. Mix together the milk and the yeast, fully hydrating the yeast, and the mix the milk into the dry ingredients. Let it hydrate for 5 minutes.
3. Put the dough in a lightly oiled bowl. Use the 40-minute stretch-and-fold technique.
4. Place the dough in the refrigerator overnight.

The Next Day...

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator.
2. Turn it onto a floured surface and divide it into five pieces.
3. Gather the pieces into balls and let them sit under plastic wrap or an overturned bowl.
4. Let rise for 2 hours at 70 degrees or about 1.5 hours at 75 degrees.
5. Preheat the oven with an ovenstone to 500 degrees F.
6. Stretch the pieces into disks about 1/4 inch thick.
7. Go back to the first piece and stretch it about 1/8 of an inch thick.
8. Punch a lot of holes in the dough with a fork. Make sure the holes go all the way through.
9. Load the naan onto a peel and let it cook for 3 minutes or until it puffs up significantly and is dappled with brown. If it puffs to much, dock it again with the fork.
10. Brush with toppings and eat while hot.

 

 

 

My Garlic Naan

Right after the naan came out of the oven, I brushed it with olive oil (mixed with a pinch of white pepper and garlic salt) and crushed fresh garlic as well as chopped cilantro. I thought it was heavenly.