Bread

Blistered Naan

Name: Blistered Naan
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 300 g plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting; 120 ml milk, warmed to lukewarm (about 40 °C / body temperature); 60 g plain yogurt, at room temperature; 1 tsp sugar; 1 tsp instant yeast; 5 g fine sea salt (about 1.5% of the flour); 30 g butter, melted, to finish; 2 garlic cloves, crushed, to finish; coriander, chopped, to finish

You don't need a tandoor — a cast-iron skillet hot enough to scare you gets you blistered, pillowy naan in minutes. Makes about 6.

1 hr 30 minServes 4 mild

Method

This is a yeasted dough, so the only slow part is the rise — about an hour of doing nothing. The cooking itself is fast and needs a properly fierce pan, so don't start heating the skillet until the dough is shaped and ready.

Wake the yeast. Whisk the lukewarm milk, sugar and yeast together and rest 5 minutes until foamy on top. No foam means dead yeast or milk too hot — start over; milk above ~50 °C kills the yeast.
Make the dough. Add the flour, yogurt and salt and mix to a shaggy dough, then knead on a lightly floured surface for 6–8 minutes until soft, smooth and slightly tacky but not sticky. Tacky is right — too much flour makes a tough, dry naan.
Prove. Cover the bowl and leave somewhere warm for about 1 hour , until roughly doubled and springy — a fingertip pressed in should leave a dent that fills back slowly.
Shape. Knock the dough back, divide into 6, and roll each into a teardrop about 4 mm thick. Keep the rest covered so they don't dry out.
Heat the pan properly. Set a dry cast-iron skillet over high heat for a few minutes until it's smoking-hot — a flick of water vanishes instantly. This fierce heat is what blisters the naan; a moderate pan just dries it out.
Cook. Lay one naan in the dry pan. In about 60 seconds it will bubble up and the underside will char in dark spots; flip and cook the second side 30–45 seconds until puffed and blistered. Keep them under a towel as you go.
Finish. Stir the crushed garlic and coriander through the melted butter and brush over the hot naan.

Cook's note. Cover the pan for a few seconds right after flipping to trap steam — it keeps the inside soft while the outside chars.

Most likely things to go wrong: Naan won't puff — pan not hot enough, or dough rolled too thick; get the skillet smoking and roll thinner. Dense, tough bread — over-floured or under-proved; keep the dough tacky and let it fully double.

Rigorously developed and consistency-checked; bake one test batch to learn your pan's timing before publishing.

The story

Naan reached the Indian subcontinent through Persian bakers and the Mughal courts, where leavened bread slapped onto the wall of a clay tandoor was a luxury of the royal kitchen. The word simply means bread in Persian; the blistered char is the signature of that fierce tandoor heat.