Thanks…just wanted clarification Some recipes explicitly say “discard” or direct from fridge
I’ve been out at our family’s cabin. No electricity. Water comes from a hand pump. Cooking is on an old-fashioned cookstove, mostly. I was cooking naan this week, directly on the stove top. It works great!
Here’s a picture of the kitchen taken last spring before I had set up the pump for the season. Here is a picture of the stove when it was in the shop being refurbished.
The oven works pretty well, but only on cold days!
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@Khasidi That cabin looks AMAZING! Oh, that stove! WOW! I’m totally impressed. I have enough trouble cooking/baking on a modern range/oven with electricity. To accomplish that in a completely different environment than what I’m accustomed to is extremely impressive.
MANY baking blessings (and cooking ones too),
Leah
Yesterday I decided I wanted to make a huge supply of naan. I ended up with a huge supply of pita-naan, which is lovely too. Most important is I have bread to go with the big vat of hummus I made.
I went with triple this recipe, but I knew I didn’t have even close to 600g sourdough starter (200x3). Not a problem. If you have the patience to let your dough rise for more time, you can put that missing starter into the dough as flour and water. (As long as there is some starter in the dough, of course.)
Here’s what I did to arrive at triple the original recipe:
825g flour (525g bread flour + 300g fresh-milled Kamut)
600g sourdough starter (235g actual starter + 182g additional water + 182g additional AP flour)
600g “dairy” a haphazard mix of lowfat yogurt and milk
3 tsp salt
The first rise was room temp most of the day until almost doubled and then overnight refrigeration…to enhance the flavors. Okay, the truth is that I didn’t want to tackle the next steps late at night : )
The next morning after shaping 29 dough balls (not a planned number), I covered them with a damp towel and let them proof for an hour. I decided to use my tortilla press for shaping and cook on my preheated pizza stone to make everything as fast as possible.
Apparently this approach is ideal for pita pockets. Only a couple dough rounds didn’t poof – ones I had stretched a bunch by hand just before placing on the stone.
I baked for 2 minutes on one side, flipped and 1 more minute. While 4 are baking, you can press out four more flatbreads (and take pictures 
).
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Seriously laughing here! A big VAT of hummus! 
Leah
@Fermentada I have a round pizza stone that’s easily almost 20 years old. It’ll only bake 2, maybe 3 if I’m lucky, pitas at a time. I just put 2 at a time on it. When I’ve made pita, I’ve cut the recipe in half so that I’m only making 4. It’s just the two of us and I’m starting to run out of freezer space 
Leah
It’s a little scary slapping the dough onto the hot stone. If I were more confident I could probably fit 6 pitas, but 4 gives me nice space for being a little spazzy in my maneuvers.
Here’s said vat 
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@Fermentada Now I want hummus! I’ve got 2 lowly pitas sitting in my freezer! I’ve got a can of chickpeas and some tahini in my fridge. I may have to whip up a batch…
Leah
Go for it 
I had just watched an episode of “America’s Test Kitchen” about falafel, a stew called harira, and a canned chickpea taste test (goya won fwiw). I think the chickpea flavor is less watery when I pressure cook dried chickpeas vs canned, but that wasn’t part of their test. Anyway that episode kinda tangentially inspired me into making hummus.
This vat of hummus is 64 oz – enough to fill my food processor twice and requiring about 10 spoons for tasting to get the tahini, garlic, lemon, salt, water, cumin and cayenne right.
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@Fermentada Goya won! Good to know. I’m the only one here who eats hummus. Four pounds of hummus would be a little much for just me. Then again… 
Leah
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Hi Melissa, I’ve made naan a few times, but instructions were always to cook in a skillet. Did yours puff up like pita pockets b/c cooked in oven?..or was it due to ingredient proportions? I may try that stone method next time to cook several simultaneously…yay
~ Patricia
Patricia,
Not ingredient ratios imo. I’ve had them puff up on a skillet, but it’s always more likely to happen on the stone in the oven. I believe the pocket-poof is due to the 500F heat and the thickness of the dough disk (3/16-1/4 inch).
The tortilla press seemed to get this thickness very consistently. The dough circles would come out thin, but then contract/thicken the right amount while waiting to go into the oven (gluten elasticity at work). The only ones that didn’t pocket are the ones I re-stretched a lot with my hands before placing on the stone.
Here’s Eric’s whole wheat pita recipe with a video that might be helpful to watch
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I love this recipe and have made it multiple times. I good variation is to use 50% wholewheat flour! I prefer to flatten them by hand much like you make a tortilla or a pizza, the irregularities of the shape are part of their charm.
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Lovely!
This recipe is fantastic for making naan/pita on the grill. I took the dough direct from the fridge, split off a ball, rolled in my hands and stretched it a little bit. No resting time at all. Direct on the grill of a hot Traeger, and it puffed up and was perfectly hollow within minutes. This is going to be the new go to for hot summer suppers!
Nice! Thanks for sharing the method. I love the ideas using the grill and of bypassing the countertop mess of dough dividing and rolling.
For me, it’s difficult to get the temperature of the cast-iron pan correct. I keep burning the Naan. What temperature do you keep the cast-iron pan on? Medium or lower?
It kinda depends on the size of the burner and the thickness of your cast iron pan. Also how much time/temp the pan heats up between each naan. The naan itself cools the pan a little and if the pan is empty for a long time between naans, it’ll get hotter.
I’m sorry to list so many variables – bottom line is to try a lower heat, but with a little sizzle if you sprinkle water on it. Too low and the bread will stick. Also check under the bread more often.
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