Naan

Bread Challenge Week 45

Indian food is good. Okay actually it’s wonderful. Delicious. Delightful. Scrumptious. Heavenly. You could say we really like it. I’ve in my attempts to learn the art of cooking Indian food I have make lots of Indian breads. Pooris, chapatis, parathas, rotis, aloo parantha, and others. I’ve even tried a couple of naan recipes.

It’s confession time. My naan never turns out right. Never. Luke actually took some leftover Indian food along with my terrible excuse for naan to work for lunch one day. Luke happens to work with several Indian men. Imagine my embarrassment when they saw my naan. Imagine when they gave Luke advice to pass along with me. Their advice? Just buy it from the store. It’s actually kind of comforting advice to get. Apparently they have deemed it necessary to just skip the work, and possible failure, and buy their naan bread.

I keep trying though. This week I made naan from Best Ever Indian Cookbook, (not an affiliate link) by Mridula Baljekar, Rafi Fernandez, Shehzad Husain and Manisha Kanani. I followed the recipe step by step. I followed the ingredients listed to the T. I ended up with thick chewy bread. The picture in the book loos great. If only I could have had naan like that too.

Here’s the info. The recipe was easy to follow, with ingredients that all live in my cupboards on any given day. We were off to a good start. The dough was dry and tough and as I added more and more water to the mix it just didn’t seem to get much better. Okay so now we were not off to a good start. Eventually I got the dough to a workable point but it didn’t get any better from there.

The Chicken Saag came out great. Unfortunately for me even though this recipe is easy to follow, made with simple ingredients and relatively quick considering an hour of the total time is spent rising my resulting bread could not be considered naan. It tasted good but it was less puffed and airy and more throw pillow like in nature. We ate the bread. We might have even liked it a bit,, but it was no naan. That is for certain. I’m not giving up on naan. I’m stubborn like that. Will I make this recipe again? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m sure in this case my bread failure was something like 50% recipe and 50% baker fault. In the meantime if you have a good naan recipe pass it my way.

Flavor: 3
Hands on time: 3
Total time: 4
Recipe: 4
versatility: 2
make it again: 2
Catherine: 0
Luke: 0
Maddy: 0

Total Score: 18

(what is this Bread Challenge and how are recipes scored?)

Previous Bread Challenge reviews:
Chocolate Chip Cream Scones – Week 44
Indian Spiced Doughnuts – Week 43
Whole Wheat Brioche – Week 42
Pizza Dough – Week 41
Cinnamon-Apple Twist Bread – Week 40
Pumpkin Bread- Week 39
Winter Herb Bread – Week 38
Classic Pretzel – Week 37
Sweet Potato Bread – Week 36
Challah – Week 35
Whole Wheat English Muffins – Week 34
Pumpernickel – Week 33
Green Onion-Sesame Flatbread – Week 32
Beer Bread – Week 31
Country Seed Bread – Week 30
Cinnamon-Raisin Bagels – Week 29
Crunchy Crackers – Week 28
Ciabatta Bread – Week 27
Cornmeal Pancake -Week 26
Lemon Poppy Seed – Week 25
Sourdough – Week 24
Tortillas – Week 23
Honey Wheat Hamburger Buns – Week 22
Garlic Studded Baguette – Week 21
Quinoa Bread – Week 20
Asiago Herb and Garlic Bread – Week 19
Cranberry Pecan Rye Bread – Week 18
Rotis – Whole Wheat Unleavened Bread- Week 17
Farmhouse White Loaf – Week 16
Honey Whole Wheat Slow Cooker Bread – Week 15
The Easiest Loaf of Bread You’ll Ever Bake – Week 14
Hot Cross Buns – Week 13
100% Whole Wheat Bread – Week 12
Thin Wheat Crackers – Week 11
Irish Soda Bread – Week 10
Double Blueberry Muffins – Week 9
Oatmeal Batter Bread – Week 8
Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls – Week 7
Cheesy Pretzels – Week 6
Light Rye Bread – Week 5
Country-Style Whole-Wheat Pita – Week 4
Carrot Raisin Quick Bread – Week 3
Potato Bread – Week 2
Focaccia – Week 1