so the thing about naan...

in general, anything with yeast tends to scare me. the temperature and conditions have to be just right. pretty much everything online says "warm, but not TOO warm" how's a girl to know?! and it makes me nervous that in 1-2 hours, i'll have the same size of dough as before and dense bread people have to pretend to like. however, it turns out, it's not too bad.

we made naan last night. a lucious middle eastern flatbread. here's the low down:

i *loosely* followed a recipe and it turned out delicious. arguably better than our favorite pakistani restaurant... and this is no props to me, because i had not a clue what i was doing. i had attempted making bread ONCE before, and it failed because my flour was too cold (i think).

our recipe is as follows:

1 1/2 tsp dry active yeast
3/4 cup warm water (but not TOO warm) whatever that means. the water i used was just under "hot." like bearable to the touch. it will cool as it sits out with the yeast, so i tried the warmer side of "warm." zero ambiguity, right?
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
4 tbs oil (i used olive. i'm sure its fine to use canola or whatever)
3 cups flour

Mix the yeast with the warm water and let it dissolve and bubble, usually about 10 minutes. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix (i use my hands, but am taking donations for a kitchenaid). add in more flour until it's not sticking to everything. let it rise in a greased bowl covered with plastic wrap (i read for 1-2 hours) but i forgot to do this ahead of time and company was coming in 45 minutes, so i only let it rise for 30 minutes and it turned out fine...

after it's risen a bit, take off pieces and roll them into roughly golf ball sized balls. roll them out flat on a floured surface to roughly 1/4 inch thick. we sprinkled salt in them, but here's when you can get crazy. garlic, butter, cilantro, green onions, whatever you want to smush in them is just fine.

heat a pan with a sprinkle of oil and throw it on for 2-3 minutes, or until the bottom is getting golden brown and delicious looking. flip 'er on over and do it again, but it only takes about 1 minute on the bottom. do them one at a time so as to give attention to each one. stack them up in a tea towel to keep them warm and serve with anything your heart desires. but your heart should desire lentil soup, falafel, and hummus. trust me.

and this is what happens. i only made 2 per person. it hardly seemed like enough...

however, making this was such an encouragement in the bread product making department! even though it didn't rise long enough, it still turned out so well. making things that require yeast isn't so scary after all. so un-scary in fact, that i have a loaf of bread baking in the oven currently, and naan on the menu tonight. three cheers for saturdays.