Naan is on the Afghan table at every meal, with rice or without it, torn into pieces and used to carry everything else to the mouth. The everyday loaf is long and flat, made with wholemeal flour, pressed all over with fingertip grooves and scattered with nigella. It is the work of the naanwai, the neighbourhood baker, who slaps each stretched sheet of dough onto the hot clay wall of a tandoor and peels it off a few minutes later. Its shape has earned it a nickname in English, snowshoe naan. The bread travelled with the Afghans who left, and the naanwais who settled in Bhogal, in South Delhi, bake it the same way. A home oven cannot reach tandoor heat, so this version builds flavour first, starting the dough as a wholemeal sponge, and then bakes each loaf fast on a stone heated as hot as the oven will go.
INGREDIENTS
- 600 ml lukewarm water
- 1 tsp active dried yeast
- 310 g wholemeal flour
- 2 tsp fine salt
- up to 480g plain flour (plus more for kneading)
- 1 tsp neutral oil (for the bowl)
- 1 tsp nigella seeds
METHOD
- Stir the yeast into the lukewarm water until dissolved, then stir in the wholemeal flour. Cover and leave somewhere warm for about 1½ hours, until puffed and frothy.
- Add the salt and about 125g of the plain flour and stir, then keep adding plain flour a little at a time until the dough is too stiff to stir.
- Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and supple, adding flour only when it sticks.
- Oil the bowl, return the dough, cover and leave somewhere warm for about 2 hours, until a little more than doubled.
- Set a pizza stone on the lowest shelf and heat the oven to 230°C (220°C fan) for 45 minutes.
- Divide the dough into four, flatten each piece into an oval about 15cm by 10cm, cover and rest for 20 minutes.
- Dip your fingertips in cold water and press close, even rows of deep grooves along the length of one oval.
- Drape it over the backs of both hands and draw them gently apart until the dough stretches into a long oval about 40cm long. A few small holes do not matter.
- Scatter with a quarter of the nigella seeds and lay the dough on the hot stone.
- Bake for 4 to 5 minutes, until the top is just golden and the base lightly browned. Shape the next loaf while the first one bakes.
- Cool each loaf on a rack for a minute or two, then wrap the breads in a dry cloth to keep them soft and warm.
