I've made naan before, and this uses exactly the same basic recipe, but this time I made one of those kitchen mistakes that turns into a serendipitous discovery.
I put the dough on in the breadmaker and went out for a nice walk with my husband. I came back and floured a worksurface, and rolled the dough out into two large thin pieces: about half a cm thick, and each piece was the size of a baking tray. I usually find my naan is too thick so wanted to get it nice and thin so it would cook quickly at a high temperature. I popped each piece onto a large baking tray and left it for 10-15 minutes to rise. Crucially, I forgot to flour the baking trays!
We had decided to cook the naan on the bbq, since it's not entirely dissimilar to a tandoori oven, and thought the charcoal-y taste might be appropriate. So I brought the baking trays outside to the hot bbq, and tried to transfer them. But without flour, the naan had completely stuck to the baking trays, so as we pulled the dough off, it stretched and deformed and tore in places. I didn't want to roll it out again, because it had already had enough rising time, so we just shrugged, sprinkled a bit of flour on the mangled dough, and cooked it as it was, for about ten minutes in the hot bbq (lid down).
Eureka! Perfect naan: loads of crispy bits, doughy bits, tasty yoghurt-y charcoal-y yumminess... loads of fun to tear into and mop up the spicy curry we'd made to go with. So I guess the lesson is, roll out the dough so it's thin enough, but then mistreat it a little so it's not uniform, and you'll end up with a perfect naan :)
I put the dough on in the breadmaker and went out for a nice walk with my husband. I came back and floured a worksurface, and rolled the dough out into two large thin pieces: about half a cm thick, and each piece was the size of a baking tray. I usually find my naan is too thick so wanted to get it nice and thin so it would cook quickly at a high temperature. I popped each piece onto a large baking tray and left it for 10-15 minutes to rise. Crucially, I forgot to flour the baking trays!
We had decided to cook the naan on the bbq, since it's not entirely dissimilar to a tandoori oven, and thought the charcoal-y taste might be appropriate. So I brought the baking trays outside to the hot bbq, and tried to transfer them. But without flour, the naan had completely stuck to the baking trays, so as we pulled the dough off, it stretched and deformed and tore in places. I didn't want to roll it out again, because it had already had enough rising time, so we just shrugged, sprinkled a bit of flour on the mangled dough, and cooked it as it was, for about ten minutes in the hot bbq (lid down).Eureka! Perfect naan: loads of crispy bits, doughy bits, tasty yoghurt-y charcoal-y yumminess... loads of fun to tear into and mop up the spicy curry we'd made to go with. So I guess the lesson is, roll out the dough so it's thin enough, but then mistreat it a little so it's not uniform, and you'll end up with a perfect naan :)
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