Making Naan Bread - Day 23 - 31 Days of Food

'This is great, I love it.' He said hands full of dough, and flour puffing around us like smoke.

We were making naan bread. No bowl just flour, yeast, sugar, and salt mixed together on a work surface, with a well made in the middle & milk and oil added.

We had to work quickly to make sure the liquid didn't flow onto the floor and instead when worked into the flour became a pliable dough.

Completely absorbed in kneading the dough Mr T sprinkled more flour on his hands and the work surface to stop sticking. Pushing with the heel of his hand he prodded and pushed the dough, working it into an elastic ball.

'This is the best fun'

As I heard these words I thought your right, it really is fun to make bread, but its even more fun to be allowed to do it as a child.

Seemly random ingredients when weighed and measured, and worked with in a certain way, create a new form. If you've never cooked before as many 21st Century children haven't then being allowed to make something and make what seems to be a mess, as part of the process is magical. To see ingredients come together and take a new form we can eat is astounding if you've never done it before.

In fact it still astounds me. The sense of creation. The thrill of knowing I made that with my own hands.

Making bread is connecting, therapeutic and brings a peace to the mind because regardless of what else may happen in our lives, or how crazy our day, the simple welding of the most basic ingredients together will every time make dough which can be baked into bread.

Showing & in turn teaching a child to make bread is perhaps one of life's greatest simple blessings both to the adult and the child. The sense of passing on a skill and the thrill of learning a new skill is compelling to the giver and receiver.

After all why cook if we don't give it away.

We used this fantastic receipt for Naan Bread.

Ingredients
SR Flour 250g
Plus more for dusting
Quick yeast 1tsp
Caster Sugar 2 tsp
Salt 1 tsp
Milk 140- 150 ml
Olive oil 2-4 tbsp

Method
Weigh and mix dry ingredients well
Place on a clean lightly floured work surface
Make a well in the centre
Add the oil to the milk whisk well
Pour 1/2 into the flour & work Quickly to bring it into a dough adding the rest of the liquid as you go
Knead lightly but well for 10 minutes
Place in an oiled bowl &
Cover with a dampt tea cloth for up to an hour
Knock back the dough on a Clean work surface & roll into 8 very thin disc like shapes
Cook directly on the floor of the top oven of the Aga with the door open for up to 3 minutes per side
If you don't have an Aga heat your oven to its highest temperature, then per hear a pizza stone or baking tray
Cook the naans one disc at a time, when the dough rises into largish bubes turn it over using a palate knife
Serve immediately with curry or as a dipping bread, or cover with garlic butter & place all in a large platter in the middle of the table.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable