48. Nan bread

• December
• 21

10:46 pm Dough, Home Cooking, Just out from the oven

I know anyone who had tried their hands at making nan bread would say that it is easy. It is quite, actually. I am making quite a detailed explanation (more for my benefits because I tend to forget details easily) of this maiden attempt at nan bread.

It was too yummy, we just ate it on it’s own while it was still very warm.

Ingredients

• 2 sachet active dry yeast
• 4 TB sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 lb plain flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• About 200g natural yogurt in a tub
• 2 TB oil

Method

1. Warm the milk up in the microwave for 30 second on medium-high, then add sugar and yeast. Mix it well and let it foam and bubble up. This would take about 5 minutes.
2. In the meantime, add salt and baking powder to the flour, then sift the flour mixture. Make a well in the centre of the flour, then add the foaming milk, beaten egg, natural yogurt and oil. Mix to make a sticky dough.
3. Admittedly, I did not knead this dough as vigorously as I would a bread dough. I just knead it for about 10 minutes in all, and I floured my hand at the work surface while kneading too, because the dough was kinda sticky. not too much flour, dough, or the end result would be too hard.
4. Then, put the dough into an oiled bowl to rise, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This would depends on how warm the room was, too.
5. Preheat your oven to about 180 C with a heavy baking sheet in it. Why? If you add the rolled dough on a heated baking sheet, the bottom would be crisper.
6. Take the dough out from the bowl, knead it gently, then divide into 4. Roll each dough into tear shape (I manage to make rectangles), then roll the dough on the baking sheet using your rolling pin, or gingerly pick it up to lay atop the baking sheet.
7. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, and if the top does not get little bit brown, just grill it for a minute more. Drizzle some oil on these plain nans before serving.

Notes

• Do not roll out too thinly lest the baked roti would resemble thin crisps after cooling off.
• Using the amount given, the finished dough weighed about 2lb (32oz), so I basically divided that into 4 (8 oz each). When rolling out the dough to whatever shapes that works for you, please go light on the rolling pin. I basically tried to make a rectangle of each dough, to the size about 6 inch x 10 inch to fit the only heavy baking sheets that I have.
• And yes, I do add plain flour to the work surface before rolling the dough out.