The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Poolish Naan

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Poolish Naan

Lucy loves naan more than she loves Indian food but she really loves Indian food the best of all.  So when she found out we were going to make Fusion Chicken Curry for dinner at 10 AM she was a little put off since she likes her naan to snea a long cold nap in the fridge just like pizza dough.

 

But, she thought she had enough time to at least get a poolosh going to increase the flavor a little bit, even though that might be a myth, when the poolish is only 5 hours old.  She mixed a pinch of ADY with 60g each of milk and AP to make it 20% of the total and put it on the heating pad at 82 F for it to do its thing.  The recipe for 5 naan is:

 

350 g of flour 100%

250 g of milk 71 %

7 g of salt

pinch of ADY

 

Some folks would throw some about a T of sugar in there but we don’t like sugar around here very much.  The key is to have a wet dough that isn’t sticky.  After 5 hours of poolishing we did enough slap and folds to get the dough smooth, non sticky and have little blisters under the skin – about 6 minutes for this little bit of dough.  Then we let it sit on the heating pad for 3 hours when it puffed itself up nicely after 1 S&F at the one hour mark.

 

We fired up Big Old Betsy to 500 F and moved the top and bottom stones a little closer together but leaving them far enough apart to get the naan between them without burning ourselves too much.  For 3 of us we divided the dough into 5 pieces and rolled the out several times to get it as thin as we could.  We don’t like thick naan.

 

We cooked them 2 at a time, 2 minutes a side by putting the first one in for 2 minutes and then turning it as we put the 2nd one in, then pulling the first one after another 2 minutes while turning the 2md one and putting the 3rd one in.  The naan were brushed with Mojo de Ajo as they came out of the oven.

 

Lucy say's not to forget the salad.   The naan were pretty tasty and held the Indian / Asian curry perfectly.  Fusion Curry has the normal Indian suspects in it using coconut milk to make the sauce and with the addition of broccoli, pea pods and tofu.  Breakfast and lunch were pretty good too ..using Friday's 50% whole grain 10 grain bread for a P&J  with the usual fixings.

Comments

CAphyl's picture
CAphyl

dabrownman:  Looks perfect!  We love Indian food and nan bread and this looks like quite a meal.  I agree with you on the sugar....you don't need it.  I like to make  sourdough flatbreads with olives and feta as well.  Hope you enjoyed your wonderful meal.  Best,  Phyllis

CAphyl's picture
CAphyl

dabrownman:  Looks perfect!  We love Indian food and nan bread and this looks like quite a meal.  I agree with you on the sugar....you don't need it.  I like to make  sourdough flatbreads with olives and feta as well.  Hope you enjoyed your wonderful meal.  Best,  Phyllis

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

needed another 30 seconds on each side for a total of 5 minutes.  Even an extra minute a side wouldn't have been bad if you like it really crispy.  It is fun to make a bread, every once in a while, that only takes half a day :-) I prefer the SD naan but no time. this time.  Even though we put yellow hot, Serrano, jalapeno and hatch green chilies in the curry. forgot the Thai chilies,  it wasn't hot enough for the chili heads around here and had to put extra habanero hot sauce on it to get it just right !  The bread was a delicious curry holder.  Glad you liked it Phyllis and

Happy Baking 

emkay's picture
emkay

I am the opposite. I like my naan on the thicker side.  I will definitely try a poolish naan instead of straight next time I make them. 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

A poolish is supposed to make for better flavor but I think it would be more discernible if the naan were retarded overnight like pizza crust.   Still the SD naan has so much more flavor.  Glad you liked them.   

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Beautiful Naan dabrowny...looking forward to baking up some this season myself.  Mmmm tandoori chicken...

Can't beat that sky either dammit.

John

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

when you come to visit this year.  A great hole in the wall with fine food and not expensive.  Glad you liked the naan it... was plenty tasty to go with the curry.  I ate way too much naan:-)

Happy baking John

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

You mean this Curry Corner? :)

It's a great little spot.  Top was a courtesy made Chicken Korma for my wife, and bottom was for me, the goat curry...very good but the goat was disappointingly very tough.  I am sure on a typical day, it is fall off the bone, but not that night.

John

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

The curry is great there - mine doesn't compare.  Nothing worse than tough goat though :-(.  it should be tender as can be and it is my favorite dish at The CC.  Their naan is to die for too and, once again, mine won't compare.  I was wondering how it compared to your Vancouver BC curry hole in the walls? 

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Well, considering there are a few municipalities in Vancouver that have the highest concentration of East Indians/Pakistanis outside of India, Vancouver's Indian restaurants are hard to beat.  But we were very happy with CC.  We are also home to Vikram Vij, who's restaurant, Vij's, was noted by Martha Stewart as the best Indian restaurant in North America.  Tough competition, but CC has some good tasting food.  I was very shocked at the goat.  A month ago at Vij's I even commented to my wife that goat was supposed to be tender and fall off the bone like that...not like at CC.  It was pretty much inedible.  I am not one to complain at restaurants so I didn't mention anything.  Everything else was amazing, or we would not have taken the photos!

John

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Great looking Naan!  I have this on my to bake list...if you can send over some of that chicken dish I will be all set!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

for each other Ian.  It isn't often we get a chance to eat this high in the hog around here.  Yo have a good bread to set it off was a real treat.  Happy Baking Ian.  Lucy says Hi to her cohorts.

CeciC's picture
CeciC

WOW Great Naan!! This is really really good. You cant go wrong with the lovely hot curry that go with it. 

Your other dishes are good as always!!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

anything else.  Maybe the curry has something to do with it because there isn't any of it left over either;-)

Glad you liked the food and the naan

Happy N=Baking CeciC