March 13, 2008 - 3:36pm
baking naan on the stovetop
At some point not long after turning the oven on to preheat our bread stone, a fuse blew. We didn't notice until after putting the first two naan in the oven. Luckily for us though, we remembered that we had once made pita on the stovetop. So we quickly grabbed the tava (shallow pan in photo) and started heating it on the big burner.
And disaster was averted. By adding only an extra ten minutes of cooking time, we were able to tuck in to our fabulous Indian style dinner. Yes, indeed, rogan josh with beets & turnips, broccoli and naan is delicious!
Here is our recipe for naan with instructions for baking in the oven. Look at the pita recipe for instructions on how to bake on the stovetop. (Also included in the list are our recipes for beets and rogan josh):
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Comments
Your meal looks fabulous. It is just the sort of thing that I like to make for dinner when I have time. Plus your ingenuity pulled you through as well. Great job.
Thank you, Caryn. I must say that the dinner tasted fabulous too. Amazingly, this doesn't actually take all that much more time to prepare than any other dinner. Most of the time is spent out of the kitchen letting things slowly simmer.
And if the oven is working, the bread takes no time at all to bake. I work at home and usually put the naan dough together around noon or so and let it rise in the oven with only the light turned on. But if I have to be out all day, I make the dough in the morning and leave it on the counter. Our kitchen is pretty chilly in the winter (around 16C) so the dough will be unlikely to over-rise.
And the beauty of naan is that they don't have to rise after shaping. They are cooked pretty much immediately after shaping.
-Elizabeth
I'm sure that they are both delicious, but how do they compare? Any differences in texture, taste, etc? Just curious. Absent installing a tandoor (yeah, the wife would reaallly like that), which cooking method makes the superior naan?
Mr. Peabody
For my taste, oven naan are superior to stovetop naan - but just by a fraction. The thing I like about the naan made on a stone in the oven (or on the barbecue) is that they are just a little crispy on the outside and soft and fluffy inside.
If we had planned to make the naan on the stovetop, I suspect all would have gone more smoothly. I would have flattened them a bit more before putting them on the tava. That's the beauty of using the stone to bake. The bread can be a little thicker. As it was, the thicker shaped naan took a little longer than desired to cook through and the result was a slightly heavier bread.
No difference in flavour though in oven, stovetop or barbecued naan.
-Elizabeth
P.S. I'm with Mrs.Peabody; a tandoor would be a fantastic addition!