Garlic Naan Grilled on Oven Grates

Naan Dough

Garlic Butter Topping

Pantry swaps

Method

1. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and dry yeast in a bowl. Add the yogurt, oil, and the first 200 ml of milk or water. Start mixing with a spoon and add just enough additional milk to make the dough come together – no more. If you are using bread flour it may need a fair bit more milk; you will not know the moisture level for sure until you get your hand in and knead.
2. Knead until the dough is reasonably smooth and elastic. It should be pretty dry, just barely sticky. The yogurt makes the surface look a little rough no matter how much you knead; that is normal. This stage does not need kneading to death.
3. Cover the dough with a wet towel and let it rise until doubled – at least an hour, probably two.
4. While it rises, prepare the topping: peel and chop a bunch of garlic, chop a bunch of cilantro, and melt some butter.
5. Punch down the risen dough and divide it into 4 chunks. Knead them just a little more, shape them into balls, cover, and let them rest for at least 15 minutes – they will roll out much easier.
6. Put a baking sheet or a big piece of foil on the bottom rack of the oven to catch drips; it makes cleanup easy. Turn on the top element (the broiler, called the grill in the UK) – it gets red hot in seconds and replicates the intense direct heat of a tandoor.
7. Roll out a dough ball almost as thin as you possibly can, using a little flour if it sticks. Smear on the garlic-cilantro topping and roll it into the surface firmly – for this oven method in particular the toppings need to be really stuck in.
8. Flip the dough and put it topping side down on the oven grates under the broiler. The baking pan below catches anything that falls through. Close the door to maximize the heat.
9. After about 2 minutes, check it. If giant bubbles form, tamp them down with tongs before they burn – not with your hand. When the first side is golden, flip it; the top side needs a minute at most. The naan is done when the top has some brown bubbles but most of the surface is still doughy – that contrast is key.
10. Brush the hot naan with melted butter right away. If your butter is unsalted, dissolve some salt in the butter or sprinkle salt on top. Repeat with the remaining dough balls – you can fit all four in at once.

Notes

Servings: 4 (per serving). Per serving: about 640 kcal, 19 g protein, 96 g carbs, 17 g fat, 3.5 g fiber. Dough quantities are exact from the narration; the extra milk beyond 200 ml, the garlic, cilantro, and brushing butter are estimates. Fiber comes from the flour.

Why the grates? A baking sheet would shield the dough from much of the heat – it would take too long to bake, the big steam bubbles would never inflate, and the inside would be dry by the time the outside browned. Direct contact with the grates imitates the intense heat of a tandoor better than even a very hot pizza stone, and unlike the tawa method you can bake many loaves at once, all equally hot and crisp at the same time.

If loaves start sticking to the grates after baking for a while, the grates are getting dirty or very hot. Clean them with a grill scraper (the junk falls onto the pan below), or grease them with an oily paper towel – no need to clean after; such a tiny film of oil just burns off, and sticking becomes impossible.

The video also links a traditional no-yeast dough in the description: very similar, but lots of yogurt with active cultures instead of yeast, left to sit overnight. Ragusea finds it makes naan with better texture, while the yeast dough has better flavor.

Source: Adam Ragusea, “Garlic naan grilled on oven grates” (YouTube, 8:48).