Garlic naan grilled on oven grates

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My old video about the tawa method for making naan at home:    • Garlic naan in a cast iron skillet — ...  

**BAKING DIRECTIONS, DOUGH RECIPES ARE BELOW**

Position one oven rack near the top and another underneath. Put baking tray or a sheet of foil on the bottom rack to catch any stuff that might fall. Start the boiler/grill (the top element) heating on it's maximum setting right before you start rolling out your dough.

Roll your dough almost as thin as you can get it — it might need flour to prevent sticking or it might not. Smear your toppings on the — the garlic and cilantro, in this case — but hold off on the melted butter for now. Use your rolling pin to roll the toppings securely into the top of the dough.

Lay the breads topping-side-down on the top oven rack below the broiler/grill. If you're nervous about putting your hands in the oven, flip the bread topping-side-down on the counter, roll it up around your rolling pin, stick the pin into the oven and unroll the bread onto the grates. Just make sure they're topping-side-down.

Bake for a couple minutes until the breads are brown. If any huge bubbles inflate, try to tamp them down with your tongs. Then use tongs to flip the breads around to bake the topping side. Baking for another minute or so until you have some dark brown bubbles but most of the surface of the bread still looks doughy. Take the breads out and brush them with melted butter (and sprinkle on salt if the butter is unsalted).

The odds of the breads sticking to the oven grates increase as you bake subsequent batches and the grates get both dirtier and hotter. You can clean them with a the kind of brush you'd use on an outdoor grill/barbecue, and the burned stuff will just fall onto that tray you left on the bottom rack. If sticking is still a problem, you can rub the grates with a very thin film of oil using an oily paper towel bunched up in your tongs.

But the virtue of this method is you can cook a lot of naan at once, so I recommend cooking it all at once! Consider baking one giant loaf, rather than a bunch of small ones — the giant one is easy to handle if you wrap it around your rolling pin to put it in.


**YEAST DOUGH RECIPE, MAKES 2 NAAN OF THE SIZE FROM THIS VIDEO**

Dough:

2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup (100mL) milk or water, plus more as needed
1 tablespoon yogurt (ideally with live cultures)

Toppings:

grated or chopped garlic
fresh chopped cilantro
melted butter (if using unsalted butter, also top the finished naan with a little more salt)

Combine all the dough ingredients and knead — adding additional milk/water as needed — until you have a dough that is soft, springy, and only a little sticky. Leave the dough in a big bowl covered with a wet towel and let it rise until doubled in size, 1-2 hours, but longer is good too.

Knead the dough again right before baking, divide it into two balls, and let them rest for about 15 minutes before you roll them out.


**NO-YEAST DOUGH RECIPE, MAKES 2 NAAN OF THE SIZE FROM THIS VIDEO*

Dough:

2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup (100mL) milk or water, plus more as needed
1/4 cup (60g) yogurt (ideally with live cultures)

Toppings:

grated or chopped garlic
fresh chopped cilantro
melted butter (if using unsalted butter, also top the finished naan with a little more salt)

Combine all the dough ingredients and knead — adding additional milk/water as needed — until you have a dough that is soft, springy, and only a little sticky. Leave the dough in a big bowl covered with a wet towel and let it rise for at least an hour, but this dough works best for me if I let it rise overnight.

Knead the dough again right before baking, divide it into two balls, and let them rest for about 15 minutes before you roll them out.