Quick Naan Recipe - The Tortilla Channel (2024)

FAQs

Can you make naan with a tortilla press? ›

Naan bread is oven-baked—although we'll be using the tortilla press here—leavened flat bread. It's an amazing cuisine in many countries, such as India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. It's composed of yogurt, dough, and flour, making it the premiere appetizer for any restaurant with a tortilla press.

Naan is yeast raised and often contains yogurt, which softens the bread's texture. Tortillas can be made from corn or flour and are unleavened, meaning no yeast. Naan is baked in a tandoor, which is a dome shaped brick oven with a fire burning at its bottom.

Rolling Vs stretching dough: Naan is always hand stretched and not rolled with a rolling pin. Sometimes rolling toughens the dough and suppresses the bubbles making dense flatbreads. Hand stretched naan have a lovely fluffy & light texture.

Naan bread is soft, fluffy, and chewy, whereas pita bread is denser with a slightly crispy texture on the outside. Naan bread also has a buttery flavor due to the ghee and buttermilk in the dough, which adds an extra dimension of flavor compared to pita bread's more neutral taste.

After the initial success of those tortillas, which I ate piled with red chile beans and pickled onions, I found myself making more kinds of flatbread just as an excuse to use the press. I used it to make naan bread, pita, and scallion pancakes.

Tortilla Press Uses

Flattening doughs for flatbreads, pita bread, and thin-crust pizza bases. Making patties out of certain meats for foods like hamburgers and salmon patties.

Skip: Naan

And like those fluffy spuds, this soft flatbread has little nutritional value. Most naan recipes call for Greek yogurt to give it that airy texture. But that's more than offset by less healthy ingredients like white flour, sugar, and oil.

While it may contain more carbs and sugars, it earns its reputation as a healthy alternative with its relatively generous amounts of protein and fiber. Despite its high carb content, naan can be considered a more nutrient-dense alternative to white bread and pita.

Rice is far healthier than naan. Brown and wild rice are the healthiest types of rice. Problems with naan: naan is calorically dense due to the refined flour.

you put it on naans to keep them soft.

Why does naan need yoghurt? ›

The extra protein from the yogurt eliminates the importance of advanced gluten development. The yogurt also adds some fat. The fat keeps the dough nice and soft and prevents the naan from hardening too much during the cooking process.

It's ok if it more than doubles – mine is probably closer to triple. But if the dough rises way too much (as in even more than triple), then the yeast can run out of oomph and not rise properly when cooked. Try to limit proofing to doubling in size!

Traditionally with Indian food, naan (or other various Indian breads) is served as an accompaniment to curry, chutney, saag paneers, etc. to scoop the contents of your meal up. In Italy, bread is served with your meal, and used to scoop the remaining pasta sauce from the bowl ('fare la scarpetta').

Naan is another flatbread traditionally served in Indian restaurants but the difference is that there will already be a filling inside these flatbread pockets. Naan may be stuffed with curd, fresh desiccated coconut, butter, nigella seeds, and raisins.

The biggest reason why they taste so good is because they are cooked in a clay oven the method of preparation and the heat of the this amazing oven changes a regular dough to the best tasting bread ever. Naan, a traditional Indian bread, is loved by many people around the world for several reasons.

You can use a tortilla press for everything you make with masa, flour tortillas (although a rolling pin is better since flour is more elastic and needs to be rolled rather than pressed), and various Indian breads such as roti and paratha.

My initial weeks of roti making using this press were bad . Rotis were hard, dry or I should say unpalatable. After a lot of trial & error, I got the desired rotis. Now, I love my tortilla press more than any other appliance in my kitchen(I still love my dishwasher, juicer & microwave !!).

If you do not have a problem with gluten, then you can have tandoori roti (which is cooked in the very hot oven/tandoor), ordinary roti (cooked on a hotplate/tawa), or one of the numerous varieties of roti e.g. Rumali roti, Punjabi style roti, Gujarati style roti (where the dough is made with some oil and boiling water ...

I've decided not to do that though because I don't think it would cook it evenly on the top of the tortilla. Well, you don't cook them in the press. You press them in the press, then cook them on a griddle or skillet. If you're asking just for grins whether it's possible, the answer is not really.