Gluten Free Flatbreads - Part I - Gluten & Dairy Free Garlic (or not) Naan Bread!

I had a baking night tonight (and very successful if I do say so myself!)

So...this sort of happened tonight because I forgot to defrost the meat for DJ's famous, fabulous jalapeno-chili burgers that *was* on the meal plan for tonight. And he had to work late which meant that I had to throw something together on the (not so) fly. See - I have contingency plans in my weekly meal planning - we design the meal plan to be *FLEXIBLE*(!) because sh*t happens and even though I'm anal retentive enough to make a weekly meal plan (ha!), I know that life (and/or my memory of fail) can often get in the way. So usually I'll have a night or two of frozen leftovers that we need to use up on the menu that we can swap nights with. (It keeps me sane okay?)

Okay. So luckily the food on the menu for tomorrow night was curry that we had previously made/frozen, meaning that we would only have to make some fresh pilau rice (white for DJ& brown for me). Spicy chicken curry for DJ, and his mild lentil/veggie curry for me. He honestly makes some of the best curry I've ever had.  But eating curry always kind of makes me sad, because I can no longer have naan bread. And I used to *love!* naan bread.

Now granted, we don't exactly have a tandoor oven or anything, but I was totally craving something bready and delicious to scoop up my rice and warm curry with, something yeasty & delicious to add to the fragrance and sop up the curry sauce so as not to waste *any* of it's sumptuous slatternly beauty as she spreads itself across my plate, taunting me with oozing tendrils...oh yes. I needed some naan bread tonight or I would have been licking my plate!

So I have done some google searches before, and looked for some recipes online but they all looked hard and had confusing instructions and/or weights, or had (apparently) difficult to handle dough...and just seemed like way more work than reward. But today - a new link showed up and I found an easy(!) recipe with ingredients that I had - and it turned out SOOOOOOOO delicious OMG!

So - the original recipe is here: http://fireandsalt.blogspot.com/2010/09/gluten-free-naan-bread.html

I do not have one of those "fancy" kitchenaid mixers - to be honest it wouldn't fit in our kitchen (lol!), so I've rewritten the instructions for those of us who still hand mix everything. Old skool yo! *mangles gang sign with fingers*

OK so here we go:

GLUTEN FREE GARLIC NAAN BREAD!

Ingredients
2 tsp quick rising yeast

2 Tbs sugar
1/2 cup warm water (110 -115 degrees F)
2-1/4 cups GF flour mix (I like ones with legume/bean flours but that's personal preference)
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 egg
1-1/2 Tbs milk (or coconut milk to keep it dairy free)
Butter/oil for frying *I suggest grapeseed oil because of it's high burn point*

Instructions

1. In a bowl or Pyrex measuring cup, add the warm water, sugar, and yeast. Proof the yeast for about 3-4 minutes. The mixture should foam up slightly.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, xanthan gum, minced garlic, and garlic powder. 
3. In a separate bowl beat together lightly beaten egg, and the milk. Add the proofed yeast mixture and stir.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix by hand until a dough forms. It will be pretty sticky.
5. Cut dough into 4 (or 8 for thinner/smaller naan) equal sections.
6. Put parchment paper over a baking sheet or cutting board and lightly dust with GF flour.
7. Flour hands and press dough into four flat rounds larger than your hands (for thicker naan), or until desired thickness (for thinner naan - just be *really* careful because the thinner dough is tricky to lift/put on roti pan as it cracks/falls apart a bit - be forewarned that it will probably be a huge pain in the ass)
8. Cover the pressed/shaped dough with a clean towel and place in a warm area to rise for 20-30 minutes. The dough will only rise a bit so don't be disappointed when it doesn't double in size.
9. Preheat heavy skillet or roti pan. Brush with oil. 
10. Place naan on oiled pan. Oil the naan bread side that is facing up (the oil on the pan will be absorbed by the other side, so this is actually necessary - lessons learned the hard way)
11. Fry the naan bread for 60 - 90 seconds per side (depending on thickness).
    WARNING: The first naan will be the guinea pig naan and will probably fail. Adjust heat and length of cooking time as necessary.
12. Once all the naan are cooked off - wrap them in foil and place them in a warm oven (250 - 275 degrees F) for 3-5 minutes. Apparently the steam inside the foil adds a nice chewiness!

So to sum up the changes I made:

• I don't have "quick rising yeast" - just regular old bread yeast. It worked just fine. I also proof it at a higher temperature (110 - 115F) and have had good success with that.
• I pumped up the garlic (doubled the garlic powder). I'm a garlic slut. Yes. Okay now move on.
• Instead of dairy milk I used coconut milk
• Instead of the "rice flour" mix suggested by the recipe, I used my "nutsonline.com GF flour" mix which includes chickpea flour, potato starch, tapioca flour and fava bean flour. More protein and I like the legume flours for rotis/flatbreads. It just seemed right and I wasn't really "feeling" like mixing up more rice flour mixes that I would have to use up (so annoying!)
• I also had a SECRET WEAPON - THE ROTI PAN OF AWESOME! (also known as a "tawa") We borrowed it from DJ's Trinidadian mother for the winter while she snowbirds it up down south. It's basically a cast-iron flat circle pan that you put on your stovetop and cook flatbreads on. It rocks my socks. (Seriously.) If you come visit I'll show it off! I can't wait to make rotis on that bad boy!
• We put the roti pan on the stove, heated it up (surprisingly *not*on a really high heat - we had the best results with it turned up to about 1/4 power which on our stove is 2 or 2.5 on the dial), brushed the pan with grapeseed oil (high burn point - I almost exclusively cook with it because I am normally so good at burning things!), put the naan bread on the pan, brushed the naan bread (the side facing up) with a bit of grapeseed oil, flipped it after 90 seconds and baked it for 90 seconds on the other side.
• THAT'S IT! OMG so simple. 
• We found that the "a little bigger than your hand" sized naan that the recipe suggested was a bit too thick/big - I will definitely make the bread a little thinner & roll it out more like a roti bread for next time (and perhaps use some millet flour)
• Also if you like a more traditional naan take out the garlic. (personally i thought it was delicious.) Alternately, add some fennel or cardamom or caraway or whatever the hell you like to the dough. I'm sure it will taste WONDERFUL!
• I had some Bhangra beats going while I pranced around the kitchen and that *DEFINITELY* helped a lot too! ;)

UPDATE:

Here is a pic of the (mostly eaten) naan - *hehe*
It really was *that* good!