Finished NaanYou feel more like family when you reach over to the communal platter of bread, tear and share, and use it to eat the delicious, steaming hot masala.

(Here’s a link to the recipe for the Masala: Masala recipe)

Naan Ingredients:

4 cups flour
1 TB yeast
2 cups plain yogurt
1/2 stick melted salted butter
2 TB melted salted butter

Mix together the 4 cups flour and the 1 TB yeast. Stir in 2 cups yogurt. When it’s pretty well blended, stir in 1/2 stick melted salted butter.

Knead the dough until it’s smooth. Put it in a buttered bowl, turn it once to coat the dough with butter, and cover it with a towel.

Start making your masala.

After the naan dough has risen 30 minutes, fold it on itself, cover it, and let it rise again.

Naan Cooking in OvenAbout half-an-hour before you’re ready to serve your masala, put a stone baking sheet on the middle rack of your oven. (Take out all the racks above that one, so you don’t burn your wrists when you toss the dough on the hot stone). Heat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Divide the dough into four balls. Take one ball (leaving the others covered and in the buttered bowl) and, on a floured surface, roll it out thin. Brush the entire top with melted salted butter. Bravely pick up the floppy, buttered dough pancake-like thing, and throw it onto the super-hot stone, buttered side up. Cook it 7-8 minutes.

While that one is baking, take the next lump of dough, roll it out, and brush the top with the butter.

When the first naan is through baking, take it out of the oven, and bravely throw the second buttered, floppy dough on the hot stone baking sheet. Repeat this process till all four naan are baked. Serve immediately with the masala. (You tear off pieces of the naan and use it to eat the masala.)