Naan help please

I've mastered Chapati to our liking and it's quite a good approzimation to what we remember. Not very difficult I admit.

Naan is another story. I've read our Indian cookbooks, looked at online recipes, watched cooks make it on YouTube and I still don't like my results.

Any recipes or hints for making naan would be greatly appreciated.

distaff half of hfot2

how are you cooking the naan... the key in any tandoori cooking is the intense heat.... 800 degs C inside a tandoor thats what cooks the food. be it a naan or a tandoori chicken or a sekh kabab.

you will find countless recepies but the end result depends on how its cooked as well....

There are some things that simply won't taste "right" without the correct tools, in this case a tandoori oven!

I've just given up ever trying to make naan and order lots of them whenever we eat at any Indian restaurant that has a tandoori oven.

To me, they are a delicacy that taste best steaming hot from the Tandoor!

Most other Indian breads can be mastered at home.

you can buy portable tandoori ovens that you can roll out to your back yard for a... a... well lets say tandoori cookout? several companies import them from india and sell them in the US...

there is some thing you can try.... my mom uses a fairly large cylindrical vessel made of aluminium to cook tandoori rotis.... ive never asked her about cooking naans this way but you guys could try....

Its basically a cylindrical vessel used to boil rice in mainly made of aluminium... what she does is lays it on its side on the flame with the top open and lets it get really hot. after a few minutes (or is it seconds i gotta ask her, i dunno) when it is sufficiently hot she just places the dough on the upper part of the inner wall of the vessel... right opposite to where the flame heats the outside... the rotis are crisp enough.... the trick is the heat.... the hotter you can get an oven the better your rotis or naans....

i found a pressure cooker method link a while back but closed the window accidentally before i could save the link or read it..... hold on it should be in history.... here it is....

http://food.sulekha.com/recipes/post...dian-bread.htm

this is a bit more complicated than i imagined.... damn shoulda paid attention in the kitchen.... i dont know if mom goes through the same heat all sides of the roti routine but at least the open mouthed cooker bit is the same....

Deep Tandoori naan is pretty good in my opinion.

http://www.houseofhalal.ca/id143.htm

arrrghhhh....

Eight hundred?

No, that would melt the Tandor!

OK, that is an exaggeration, but steel is red hot at 800C. You may find these kinds of temperature in a kiln, not an oven!

Take a look -->here

sorry thats what an article quoting a tandoor importer in the us mentioned...... lemme see if i can find it... or maybe i am mistaken and it is 800 deg F...

found it....

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/25/di...esticated.html

i got the number mostly right but the facts incomplete... the article does not specify which scale the temp is measured in....

You can get tandoors elsewhere. I should check out an importer in Berkeley. I believe the quote I had was for less..

The tandoor is not my worry at this time.

I have a stone-lined gas oven that produces marvelous pita and pizza.

What I need is a great recipe for naan.

Do Indians make the naan dough with baking soda? baking powder? yeast? - what leavening is authentic?

Does anyone have a terrific recipe for naan?

distaff half of hfot2

Yes Baking Soda is used in naan making !

the link i gave mentions baking powder... weve never made naan at home so dunno...

It's American; they use F.

This post makes me hungry. Anyone done this at home.?