Naan Bread - A MUCH Better Recipe

A few years ago, I posted a naan bread recipe. It was okay. Just okay.

I have a new recipe for naan that will make (in my opinion) naans that are as good as the naan bread on offer in the local curry house. You can make them fairly easily without the trouble and expense of getting a tandoor installed.

This recipe makes about six naan bread.
You will need:

1 sachet active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar3 tablespoons milk
1 beaten egg
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 cups flour
melted butter for brushing on the just cooked naan (very optional)

A flat skillet or griddle with a handle.

Dissolve the yeast in the cup of warm water in a measuring jug, add the 1/4 cup of sugar and stir. Let this sit until the yeast starts to go all frothy. Add in the milk, beaten egg and salt.
Put two cups of the flour in a large mixing bowl and add in the measuring jug of wet ingredients. Stir it until it is a smooth goo. Stir in the remaining flour until you have a nice dough. Scrape the dough out onto a clean floured surface and knead it until it is smooth. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with cling film or a clean kitchen towel and leave to rise. Depending on the temperature of the kitchen this can take as little as an hour or much longer. If you are making this dough ahead of time, cover in cling film so that the dough doesn't start to develop a dry skin. In the winter my kitchen is cold. I turn on the oven before I start making the dough and turn it off after kneading. I then open the oven and place the bowl with dough in the warm but-not-hot-enough-to-cook oven.

After the dough is risen and you are ready to cook the naan, divide the dough into what I can only describe as small handfuls of dough and on a surface that has been dusted with flour roll the dough portions into a smooth ball and roll them out until they are just about 1/4 of an inch thick. I never actually measured the thickness of the dough 1/4 inch is a guess. You don't want it as thin as a pie crust. Think American pancake or British drop scone thickness.
This is my griddle.

Heat a skillet or griddle and your oven's grill or broiler up and one by one place the rolled out dough on a skillet. Leave it to cook until you see small bubbles forming on the surface. Then WITHOUT TURNING the dough over, stick the whole thing, skillet and all under the grill/broiler. Naturally you have common sense and will leave the handle of the skillet or griddle sticking out and away from the grill/broiler element so that you can remove it when the naan is finished. DO NOT WALK AWAY from the bread at this point. You will have to watch it as it cooks very quickly. The bread will puff up. If the puffed bread touches the grill/broiler element, it will burn and you'll have to move the rack down a notch for the next one. When the bread is done on the top, it will be done on the bottom.

Tip the naan off onto a dish and put the skillet/griddle back on the flame to to do the next one. Brush with melted butter at this point if you want. Do this one by one until all the dough has been cooked into naan bread.

I make these just before I serve a curry so that they're still warm when we sit down to eat.