baking.





Another (slightly tardy) installment in the baking series. Last week I tried making naan. That's right: naan, the delicious, Indian, soft, flat bread. Actually, I think it's made in other Middle East countries, as well, like Iran, Pakistan and whatnot. Unfortunately, my lone Indian cookbook doesn't have a recipe for it. What's up with that? So I had to fall back on my good ol' standby: the JoC.




I had a few issues with making this. First, the recipe states to mix the dough by hand, or with a mixer. I don't have a mixer, so I had to do it by hand. When I added the ingredients, they wouldn't stick together. I had to add more yogurt and water. I wonder if this is a problem of mixing by hand, or a problem with the recipe.




The second problem occurred during the kneading portion of the program. It said: knead by mixer, or by hand for 8 to 10 minutes, until the dough is a smooth and elastic ball. At 8 minutes, the dough looked like a smooth, round ball to me. Mind you, I have no idea what it should look or feel like. This is the same problem that occurred in the tart crust debacle. Moving on, the dough has to rise. Only mine didn't rise much. I let it sit (in the oven with a pilot light) overnight and it still didn't rise much. I think something went wrong there.





The product? Looked like naan, but it wasn't very soft (I have a picture to post here). At least, it wasn't as soft as I'm used to. Tasted fine though, especially with some butter, roasted garlic and beer. And when the leftover dried out a bit, it made a great pizza crust! Weeee. Adventures in baking.