Whole Grain Butter Naan
Butter naan is always a good thing. When I was in Madhya Pradesh, India in 2014, I learned to make this naan. I sometimes make this for my husband when I make dal. While a tandoori oven is nice, it’s not necessary to make something similarly good in your own kitchen. It’s very easy to double or triple and store the extras in your freezer. Whole wheat flour makes these a tad healthier, however WW flour is much drier than all-purpose and may need extra hydration. You want to the dough to come together in a ball in the food processor, so keep adding dribbles of water as needed to achieve that result -worst case and it’s too wet, you can always add a bit more flour!
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons dry active yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup warm water
*salted butter for topping after frying
Method:
Place the flour - sugar into the food processor. Pulse for 3 seconds to mix.
While the food processor is on, slowly pour the water down the shoot until fully incorporated.
The dough must come together into a ball, if the dough is not doing this, slowly drizzle in more water as you pulse to achieve a nice ball of dough. Leave in the food processor to rise for 2 hours (or until doubled).
Carefully remove the dough from the food processor and cut into 8 equal portions. Rest the dough10 minutes.
Roll out each portion, using a bit of extra flour to prevent sticking. Roll each to around 1/4” thick.
Heat a cast iron or non-stick frying pan on medium-high heat. Pan fry approximately 2 minutes, flip and pan fry another minute or until done. You are looking for blistered brown spots on each side, but not burnt spots.
If we intend to eat these soon thereafter, I like to preheat the oven to 210F/100C and line a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment paper. Then as each naan bread is done I stack in the oven and place 2-3 small pats of butter on top and then stack the next hot one on top. Enjoy with your favorite Indian dishes.
If freezing, I place parchment paper between each naan bread so 1 can removed from the freezer without needing to thaw the entire stack of naan.