naan usually contains yeast, and take many hours to prove. This one is based on soda, and takes a couple of minutes.

Into a warm bowl (warm with very hot water), add an egg and a large dollop of curds, and some salt. Add plain strong bread flour, and a large 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Stir, adding more flour to make a dry mix. Turn onto a floured board, cut into naan quantities, and flatten to half a centimeter thick. Cook in a dry pan or on a tawa. Spread with butter. Kalonji if you wish.

An excellent product, if I say so myself. Now I'll have to try the restaurant type keema naan, or even Peshwari variant.

[trying to make amends after my faux pas while replying to Mamta's sour dough recipe]. :?)

Lapis, not a faux pas at all...

I think one of the best things about our discussion board is that people feel able to leap in and discuss, like you would in a real life conversation with friends...

It would be a shame if people only contributes when they were 100% sure of everything.

Discussion and suggestions and thoughts and ideas are all good!

x x

Don't worry lapis, i am the queen of faux pas!

If you are making it with baking powder, why do you need strong flour? I am sure it will work with plain flour.

A long time ago, I had a friend in Sweden, who always made her Pizza dough this way, instant pizza!

Mamta

PS Let us know how your keema naan comes out.

I used strong plain flour, not self raising flour. I did this for two reasons. I have not seen strong self raising flour, and I am not sure how old the self raising flour is, so I don't know how much it will rise. So I buy fresh baking powder, which I know will give me the raising I need.

I think the strong flour contains more gluten, which this recipe needs, as the rising is rapid (hence the hot bowl). The crumb (the innards of the bread) has a very good texture, I urge you to try this recipe, cooking it on a tawa.

Hello Lapis

I didn?t mean you should use SR flour. What I meant was that if you are not using yeast/lactobacilli to ?raise? the dough, why do you need a high gluten, strong flour? Baking powder/soda should work just as well on ordinary, plain flour, shouldn?t it? Or do these agents also need high gluten to work better? If that is true, I didn?t know it :-(!

Mamta

PS If possible, do a recipe for us for Instant Naans, with pictures :-). I am sure I don't have it here.

OK, Mamta, I misunderstood you. must be my age! Just as well we all get on so well, here!!

The strong flour is said to rise better (well, that is what it says on the packet!) and I put that down (in part, anyway) to the higher gluten levels. The curds, as you rightly say, is a source of lactic acid from the lactobacilli, and will help the baking powder produce carbon dioxide for rising. The egg I like to add to naan, it seems to keep it more moist.

The end result was far better than I had imagined, the crumb is perfectly cooked.

I'll try the recipe a few more times (just to check it wasn't a fluke) and estimate the amounts. This time I just chucked in the ingredients, not expecting the reward I was given.

Pictues are a little more difficult, as I've lost the charger to my camera battery. As soon as....

Me thinks it could make a perfect base for quick naanzas? In which case I would cook one side on a tawa, and then place under a grill for the topping.

Well Lapis, you can?t be as old as I. I saw your picture that you had posted somewhere, can?t remember where!

"Me thinks it could make a perfect base for quick naanzas?"

Your quick naan dough will make a perfect base for a quick pizza. As said, I have eaten it, though not recently.

I wonder if you can make an instant bread loaf without yeast!

I often use bread dough interchangeably with pizza dough. My recent bread loaf from naan bread dough made a great, slightly sour, bread. The texture was great. I am actually going to right it down, already have some pictures. People in India are very good with making naans, they just haven?t thought of using the same dough for bread loaf. Now that most middle class families have an oven in their microwave, they can easily make it. Most people only have access to a mass produced, rubbery, plasticky, pre-sliced, tasteless, horrible bread, when they could easily make their own at home.

By the way, Dan Lepard's Easiest bread in the world; 10 minutes 3 quick kneads, followed by 30 minute rise, then shaping the bread and final rise of 30-45 minutes, is also pretty fast and makes superb bread. You can do it while you are pottering around in the kitchen.

well, next year I will be one year away from a milestone birthday, three score!

I'm having naanzas for tea, along with dhal soup, 'cos its cold in London, even snowed for a while today.

A good friend in India ivnented a bread tin which is triangular, so you don't have to cut the bread diagonally to make a sandwich, how clever is that?

The recipe I developed is similar to soda bread (without the egg, and soda bread uses sour milk instead of curds, but is very similar). Soda bread, fresh from the bakers, is my favorite of all bread.

You are still younger than me ;-)!

"curd" - will Greek Yoghurt do??

Good morning Tim.

Yes it will do. Are you using baking powder as a raising agent?

Mamta

PS - thanks, Mamta.

PPS - how about Nigella's Naan Pizzas? Just great!!

Hello Tim

I haven't seen Nigellas recipe, but I have made Naan Pizzas for a long time, and I still make them regularly. I make them on whole naan now, without splitting it into it's 2 layers.

Mamta

PS Naan dough also makes an excellent Loaf of bread.

Over the holidays, I visited a flour mill, and talked to a baker, who made bread and sold it on the premises. She said it used British flour, but because it did not have a high gluten content, it was mixed with (foreign) flour, which did. She confirmed that high gluten levels aid raising, but didn't know why. Discussing this with my SIL concluded that the gluten may 'stick' the dough together better, holding the bubbles of carbon dioxide more effectively, aiding the rising of the bread.

I made some more instant pan bread for my SIL, and although OK, was not as successful as that developed in my kitchen. Same flour, same new baking powder but different yoghurt. I use the kind Indians use in London, my SIL only had Tesco brand. However, as I didn't measure any amounts, this difference could be just due to an inappropriate ratio of flour to liquid; the dough did not seem as light.

It is one of my complaints of some recipes (NOT YOURS, Mamta) that they are not tested for ruggedness, that is, slight changes in ingredients and/or cooking methods. Many recipes are rugged enough, but some are 'on the edge'.