Pan Naan (Tava Naan)
Soft yogurt dough cooked in a hot pan until puffed and blistered, then brushed with garlic butter: homemade naan with no tandoor needed.
- Prep
- 1 h 40 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Total
- 2 h
- Serves
- 6
- Level
- Medium
Ingredients
Tick off what you have ready.
Method
Tap a step when it's done.
The story of this dish
"Nan" simply means bread in Persian, and this family of breads is baked across a wide region stretching from Iran through Central Asia to India. In India naan is traditionally baked by slapping the dough onto the inner wall of a clay tandoor oven, which is why it was long associated more with court and restaurant cooking than with everyday home kitchens.
One of the earliest mentions of naan is often attributed, though not with complete certainty, to the poet Amir Khusrau, who lived in the Delhi Sultanate in the 13th and 14th centuries. Today, in homes without a tandoor, naan is commonly cooked in a heavy pan (tava); it lacks the tandoor's smoky char but gives a soft, puffy, blistered result.