feed me vega
Recipe: naan pizza
Indian cooking difficult or intimidating? No, not at all—in fact, quite the opposite! With his new (and irresistible!) recipes, Dan Toombs, aka The Curry Guy, shows you how to quickly and easily prepare amazing dishes from Indian cuisine without a mountain of ingredients and techniques. And: completely vegetarian. But in such a way that you won’t miss meat or fish at all. What are you waiting for? Put on your apron and get cracking with that naan!
door Lauretta Baarends
Admittedly, naan pizza tastes best when you make the naan yourself. If you’re feeling particularly lazy, buy fresh naan and finish it according to this recipe.
How to make the naan dough
- Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl. Set aside.
- Bring 210 ml water to the boil. Pour into a jug and top up with 210 ml cold water. The water should now be at the perfect temperature to activate the dried yeast. Stir in the yeast and sugar and leave to foam for about 10 minutes.
- Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the yeast water. Mix with your hands for 1 minute and leave to rest for 2 minutes. Then knead the dough as well as you can for 5 minutes. The dough will be very sticky, but don’t be tempted to add more flour. Shape into a ball and leave covered in a warm place for an hour, until the dough has doubled in size (don’t worry if it hasn’t).
- Divide the dough into six equal pieces. Sprinkle with a little flour and shape into smooth balls. Place in a dish with a high rim and cover with a clean tea towel. Leave the dough to rise for another hour. When I make the naans in a tandoor, I place the balls on a floured work surface and shape them into naans with oiled hands. When I bake them in a pan, I use only flour.
- Roll each ball out into a circle or teardrop shape. Roll them out fairly thin if you want crisp naans. For softer naans, the circles should be about 5 mm thick.
- Heat a heavy-based pan (preferably cast iron) over high heat, until the bottom of the pan is extremely hot. Think tandoor! Slap the naans back and forth between your hands to remove excess flour. Have an electric stove? First bake one side until bubbles appear on top. Turn over and briefly bake the other side too. Have a gas stove? Wet one side of the naan with water and slap the dough firmly into the pan, moistened side down. The naan should stick to the pan. Bake until bubbles appear on top. Turn the pan over so that the gas flame browns the top. The bubbles will expand due to gravity, making it look as if the naan has come straight from a tandoor. Remove the naan from the pan with a metal spatula or something similar.
- Repeat with the other naans, wrap in aluminium foil and keep warm. While the naans are cooking, mix the melted butter or plant-based ghee with the chopped garlic and coriander. Brush each naan with the butter and serve.
How to make the naan pizza
- For the sauce, heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat and stir in the garlic. Let the oil absorb the flavour of the garlic for a few minutes, then add the chopped coriander stems. Fry for another minute, then pour in the puréed tomatoes. Simmer the sauce for 10 minutes, until it has thickened to the consistency you would expect from a pizza sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
- Divide the dough into four equal balls and leave them covered to rest for 5 minutes. Lightly flour the work surface and roll the dough out thinly with a rolling pin into four pizza bases of approximately 25 cm. I find it much easier to pre-cook my pizza bases in the pan, as I do with the garlic naans. This makes them easier to handle on the barbecue. Pizzas need to bake at a high temperature. Pre-cooking them gives them that delicious grill pattern more quickly, as if they came straight from a pizza oven.
- Prepare the barbecue for indirect grilling. The barbecue must be very hot! Once the barbecue is glowing hot, divide the sauce evenly over the four pizza bases. Top with the finely chopped garlic, red onion, chillies and paneer.
- Place one or two pizzas on the cooler part of the barbecue and close the lid. Bake for about 5 minutes, until the cheese is soft and the crust is golden brown. The pizza is ready when it’s ready, so don’t be afraid to leave it on the barbecue longer if you think it needs more time to bake.
- Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with the grated Parmesan cheese. Repeat with the remaining pizzas and serve hot.
Title: The Curry Guy Veggie
Author: Dan Toombs
Publisher: Good Cook
Price: €20.95
Read also:
