Naan without tandoor?

Never having been to India, I've only had naan from Indian restaurants and frozen from the supermarket. That said, I have made it with some success before.

The best method I've used is to grill (American) it. You can do it with a gas grill (barbecue) set to high, or with the hottest of hot charcoal. It doesn't quite approach the 900 F (480 C) typical of a tandoor, but it's close, especially with charcoal. Simply oil the grill and do 2-3 minutes per side.

The next best method I've tried is using a pizza stone in a blazing hot oven. The cook times are similar.

If it's something you want to eat often, you could make your own tandoor, or use a large terracotta pot over your charcoal grill.

Although it doesn't simulate a tandoor, I stopped my quest for making the best naan after seeing the result from a Dutch oven on max heat. Fantastic. Lid on keeps the moisture in and stops it from going too crispy or hard, it bubbles up and parts of it get that slight charring.

Use a cheap Dutch oven as the charring marked my expensive one.

Try it, you'll be surprised!

I assume you're making the dough. I had a friend who tried it and said it wasn't that great. Then they were simply reheating those cardboard pre-packaged things.

Yes, you can make perfectly acceptable naan breads without the need for a tandoori oven.

The keys are very high heat, ie under a domestic grill (watch while they puff up and brown) and yoghurt. You can also make them with baking powder without the need for yeast, which produces surprisingly good results.

I've made naan on a (propane, american) grill with no problems, straight on the grate. (maybe singed a little bit, that's what you want for naan). Well, no problem grilling; I rolled them all out while I was still inside, and had them stacked up with dry waxed paper between them, and the weight of the stack meant that by the time I got maybe 5-6 of 'em done, the whole stack had glued itself together, which slowed me down quite a bit.

I've also done it stovetop in a cast iron pan to get a good sear, and then transfered to the oven to finish cooking while I made up the rest. As I was rolling 'em as I went, I didn't have that sticking problem.

I have tried baking with a pizza stone and tiles in the oven, but I get the best results from frying the naan in a cast-iron pan that has been lightly greased with oil on medium-high heat.

I admit that this is very far from a tandoor, but surprisingly naan that was fried turned out way better in terms of texture, air-bubbles, and flavour.

Admittedly I have never grilled it because I only cook one or two loaves at a time (keeping the dough in the fridge until it runs out), so I can't really justify firing up a charcoal grill.

I miss my naan and gave up cooking it at home when I found I couldn't replicate it.

However, I did find roti-chapatis that you can cook in seconds on a skillet and come out very tasty and fresh, despite keeping forever in the fridge.

It's still indian bread, very tasty, and not totally disimilar. I filled my need when cooking curry at home.

If you have a chapati pan and a gas grill then you can have a good go. I think the secret to naan is that both sides have to cook at the same time, so if you get the pan very hot and then put your naan under a preheated grill, that's probably the closest you'll get without a tandoor.

We can make naan at home on tawa and get the same look and taste too.

INGREDIENTS: Wheat flour (Maida), 1 TSP curd, water, pinch of salt, 1 TSP ghee or butter STEPS: 1. Mix all the ingredients and make a soft dough 2. Cover it with a muslin cloth and rest for 2 hours 3. Take a piece of dough, make it round 4. Roll it like a chapati and grease some butter or ghee and make a triangle 5. Now roll the triangle chapati 6. grease water on one side of naan 7. let the tawa or flat pan become a bit hot 8. place the watered side of naan on the tawa 9. let it be for 30 seconds 10. with help of tongs reverse the side of tawa/flat pan on the flame and try to provide flame to all sides of the naan and it will come out automatically. 11. The watered naan will have the same crust which a tandoor provides.