Birthday Tikka Masala and Garlic Naan

Lucy and I were talking about robots the other day.  I told her that I was pretty sure pets would be replaced by robots before people would be.  She thought about that and then said something truly profound.  She said I might be right.

No, that was not what was profound, but what amazed her about robots is that, even in their primitive stage today, robots with artificial intelligence are way better than artificial people who think they are intelligent.  I think she might be right about that too.  Then we started into Trans Humans where we do not agree on much at all and she is wrong about all of that as usual.

Monday was my daughter’s birthday, and like her Dad, she loves Indian food and is pretty much addicted to naan - especially garlic naan.  She loves Chicken Tikka Masala and I’m more of a hotter goat or lamb curry sort of guy.  I learned to make Indian food from a group of Pakistani Expat women who were in Saudi Arabia over 30 years ago – has it been that long?  Jeeze…. I feel a lot older than I am for some reason now.

I didn’t learn how to make a decent naan until a few years ago when I learned right here on TFL that you could make flatbreads on a gas grill.  Naan is an enriched yeasted flatbread that comes out perfect on the grill because it is supposed to have charred spots on it from the screaming hot Tandoori oven and the gas grill can get to 650 F and do the same thing……if you don’t walk away for even a second and the naan goes up in smoke.

Don't forget to have a salad with that Indian food

A robot would be perfect for this grill work and most grill work for that matter.  I want mine to make prickly pear margaritas too but that is another story.  My favorite naan is green onion, a touch of Indian spices and chili with some garlic but others aren’t so adventurous.  Since it was my daughter’s request on her birthday, it was CTM and Garlic Naan.  So, I made lamb stew for me the day before, it wasn’t a curry but close enough.

There are all kinds of naan out there - some with milk, cream or yogurt, some with butter or oil or both some without any, some have an egg and some don’t but most all have sugar in them.  Since the chicken in CTM is marinated in a very spicy yogurt sauce overnight before being skewered and grilled.

I put yogurt in this naan, with butter, oil, egg and sugar some fresh garlic and a larger pinch of instant yeast with enough water to get if to about 70% hydration. Word to the wise, if you are grilling naan you want to get some fat in there to keep it from sticking to the grates.   If you are making it in the oven or in a non-stick pan, you can get rid of some or all of the fats if you want. 

For this batch I took some of the dough flour and water and made a poolish while the rest of the flour was autolysing for 1 hour with the yogurt, egg and remainder of the dough water.  Since you don’t want elasticity and do want extensibility you want to use a flour that has lower protein and gluten like AP instead if bread flour – same with pizza dough.

We added the poolish and the sugar and did 50 slap and folds to get everything mixed.  For the 2nd set of 20 slap and folds we put in the softened butter and the oil in.  You always want to make sure the entire dough is well hydrated before putting in the fats.  The large clove of minced garlic went in for the 3rd set of 10 slap and folds.  Then 3 sets of 4 stretch and folds were done.  All the slapping, stretching and folding sets were done on 20 minute intervals.

Then it was shaped into a ball and placed in an oiled SS bowl for a 24 hour retard in the fridge.  We took it out 2 hours before we wanted to roll it out and put it on a heating pad to warm up and finish proofing.

We divided it into 6 pieces by eye with a dough scraper.  it takes about 300 g of flour in the mix if you are trying to get the recipes 6 naan - or up it for you needs.  I rolled it out pretty thin 3 times with a 5-minute rest in between each time to get it thin enough since the LaFama has a bit more gluten forming protein in it that most AP flours at 11.2% protein.

I did scrape the grill off and it is well seasoned so I didn’t oil it and it is a 4 burner one so I could od 2 larger sized naan at a time.  I heated the grill to 425 F and then turned it down to the lowest propane setting since my grill will hold 400 F at that setting.

I tossed them on, brushed the top with melted butter and then spun them at 1 minute.  At 1 ½- minutes I turned them over and brushed the grilled side with butter and then repeated the spinning at 1 minute more and took them off a half minute after spinning – 3 minutes total.  They were delicious as was the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Baby Girl was happy as pie.

Formula

Poolish -A big pinch of IY with 20% of the flour and a like weight in water.  Let sit for 1 hour as the Dough autolyses

Dough

80% Lafama AP

10% butter and sugar

2% oil and salt

5% yogurt

1 large clove of garlic minced fine for each 300 g of flour

Enough water to make 79& overall hydration

¼ stick of butter melted to brush on teach side while on the grill

 melted to brush on teach side while on the grill