Naan Bread

Naan, Naan, Hey, Hey, Hey...Good Bread!

Did you notice the food pun in the caption? It's supposed to refer to the song that you hear at baseball games (for a history of the song which I have not verified, read this blog).  

Speaking of hilarious food puns, I'm going to do my first ever giveaway on this blog.  Whoever most accurately describes my humor in the comment section of this blog post wins ten bags of my charisma valued at $19.99 each and one exclusive picture of Littlest.  To help you understand just how valuable of a prize this is, I present to you the second most adorable picture of Littlest that I took today.  Just imagine how great first prize will be.

How can you resist those big blue eyes? You cannot.

Now that I've tempted you with a giveaway, provided link bait to another one of my posts, and generated value add content, I've almost completed my blog post to do list.  The only things left are to provide a second outbound link (Here's one to my favorite Buzzfeed of the week), and describe the drool-worthy food featured above.

Onto the real purpose of this blog post (is the recipe the point, or the link bait? You will never know).

Let's talk about Naan bread for a minute.  When most people eat Naan or a closely related flatbread cousin, they think, "I want to eat all the bread!!!!"

It's so delicious that for a long time, I thought that there must be some complicated trick for making it.  It turns out that it requires no trick at all.  Not even patience, which for those of us still growing in our Fruits of the Spirit, this is a great thing. 

For something that is incredibly simple to make, its perfectly divine to eat. Many areas of the world are more well known for their bread making expertise, but I think that India has gotten the shaft on that front.  I personally believe that Naan is the best unsweetened bread experience, anywhere, ever, period.

The soft chew of the interior and light crisp of the air bubbles make this bread the perfect texture.  Naan has all the flavor of freshly baked white bread, but the exact perfect density of the bread along with the complete lack of crust thrusts the entire Naan into exclusive space that it shares with only the interior of a French baguette.  Yes, the part that I tear out and bunch into a ball before eating. You do that to, so don't lie.

The best part about homemade naan is the ease with which you can make it.  It's a single rise dough, so you can go from dough to bread in about an hour and a half max.  Additionally, the ingredients are so...normal.  There is not a special thing on the list (unless you don't eat yogurt or keep yeast on hand).

Do yourself a favor and make this bread today!  You will thank me.  Oh, and if you comment below this post, I'll send you a free bag of charisma too.

print recipe

Homemade Naan Bread

by Hannah Rounds May-7-2014

This is the easiest recipe for delicious homemade naan bread, and it contains no weird ingredients at all.

Ingredients

• 2 Teaspoons Yeast
• Generous 1/2 Cup Warm Water
• 1 Tablespoon Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup Full Fat Plain Yogurt
• 2 Teaspoons Salt
• 3 Cups Flour + More For sprinkling

Instructions

1. Combine Yeast, warm water (1/2 cup only to start), and sugar in a large mixing bowl and allow yeast to bubble for about ten minutes. Caution- If your yeast isn't bubbly its dead (or you might have killed it with too hot of water. Start over now, or you will feel sad).2. Add egg, olive oil, yogurt and salt to the yeast and mix thoroughly.3. Slowly add the flour until you have to knead with your hands. To add all three cups of flour you may need a bit more warm water. The dough should be moist but not sticky, and it should be fairly easy to knead.4. Set your dough aside for a minute, give your mixing bowl a quick rinse, then rub the interior with some oil.5. Put your dough back in the bowl, and cover your dough with plastic wrap. Place the dough in a warm location and allow it to double in size. On a warm day this could be just 45 minutes, but on a cold day it could take two hours.6. Divide dough into 6 sections, and roll each dough to about 1/4 inch thick on a well floured surface.7. Heat butter or olive oil in a very hot skillet.8. Add one dough section to the pan and let it cook for about 45-90 seconds (long enough for large bubbles to form but short enough so it doesn't burn). Flip the bread and let it cook for about 30 seconds on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough, adding more oil to the pan when necessary.

Details

Prep time: 15 mins Cook time: 1 mins Total time: 2 hour Yield: 6 Naan