Naan Bread

I had to make sure that I got you the best, freshest, most delicious tasting naan bread recipe before the weekend. In the hopes that some of you will feel ambitious enough to tackle the tikka masala (easier than it looks!) over the next few days, you will need this naan bread to soak up the extra sauce.

Like any good carb addict, naan is my favorite part Indian food. When I dove into the Indian food at home idea, I knew that there was no way to make Chicken Tikka Masala, (or anything) without the naan bread to go with it- but as with the masala, I would not have had a aclue where to start. So thank goodness for the internet! I found this recipe on All recipes.com, submitted by someone named Mic, and changed it slightly. It was pretty darn easy, and I see a lot of room for tinkering with the flavor of the bread. I wished at the time that I had had green onions, or fresh chives to mix into the dough, as that would have been fantastic.

There is also clear room to just use this recipe as a wonderful flatbread or even sandwich breada s by daughter Pia did. I also only cooked half of the bread rounds, and saved the rest of the dough for throughout the week. When the girls wanted a snack, I would just heat up the grill, and 5 minutes later I would have fresh grilled bread- not bad!

Use your imagination and Enjoy!

Naan Bread
1 cup hot water (105-110 degrees)
1 Tbs sugar
1 (1/4 oz) package dry active yeast

4 Tbs milk
1 egg

4 ½ cups bread flour
¼ cup white sugar
2 tsp kosher salt

¼ cup butter melted
2 large garlic cloves, minced
pinch of kosher salt

In the bowl of a standing mixer combine the hot water (105-110 degrees), sugar and yeast. (I like to rinse the bowl with hot water before I do this so that the cold bowl doesn’t kill the yeast bloom). This should take about 10 minutes.

When the yeast is done blooming, it should be nice and fluffy.

While you are waiting for the yeast, beat the egg and milk together in a small bowl.

In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients together.

When the yeast is ready, add half of the dry ingrediens to the bowl.

Add the milk, and then the rest of the dry ingredients.

Mix until you have created a stiff shredded looking dough.

Then beat with the dough hook and the mixer on medium for about 5 minutes, (this

You could also knead by hand on a lightly floured surface. (see picture!)

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it sit a warm place at least an hour.

When the hour is up the dough should be nice and puffy.

Break off golf ball sized pieces and shape them into balls. Place them on a parchment lined sheet pan.

Cover the sheet pan with plastic wrap and let sit another 30-60 minutes until the dough has risen again.

When I went to roll the dough out on a marble counter, I did not even need any flour, but if you do, just use it sparingly.

Roll out the dough balls as thinly as you can and set them aside on the parchment lined sheet pan.

When you have rolled out all of the dough, you can heat your grill or grill pan to medium heat.

While waiting for the grill to heat, melt your butter and garlic together. (I discovered that a clove of garlic just infusing the butter was not a strong enough taste, so I wound up mincing the garlic and letting it sit in the butter.

Spray your grill with a little grill spray, and then brush each side of the bread dough with the garlic-butter.

Grill on each side just until there are grill marks on the bread, and the dough starts to turn golden, then flip. It takes about 1 minute on each side.

They are the very best when still hot. I stacked them in a large sheet of tin foil and wrapped them together to keep them steaming hot.)

Enjoy!