After I made daal yesterday, I realized I had not made my own naan bread before. So, as I do oftentimes when I haven’t done something before, I researched it. The dough recipes I came upon were remarkably like pizza dough. And pizza dough is remarkably like the dough for a Hungarian dessert frybread I had as a kid called langos (pronounced lawn-gohsh). So my forays to different spots in the world brought me to one dough. And these adventures were the result.
BASIC SPELT DOUGH:
2-1/4 cups Gold Forest Grains spelt flour
1 tsp salt
3/4-7/8 cup warm water
2 Tbsp amber maple syrup
1 tsp active dry yeast
1/3 cup Mighty Trio Organics cold pressed flax oil
In a large bowl, combine the spelt flour and salt. Make a depression in the centre of the dry ingredients. Add the warm water, maple syrup and yeast. Stir the yeast into the liquid with a fork and allow to rest for 10 minutes or until it starts to bubble at the surface.
Add the flax oil to the yeast mixture. Start to incorporate the dry ingredients into the centre of the bubbling yeast mixture. Keep stirring with a fork until the dough starts to come together into a soft dough. Turn the dough on to the counter and knead with the heel of your palm for 7-10 minutes or until soft, smooth and no longer sticky, adding a tablespoon of flour and kneading more if the dough is too sticky.
Add a tablespoon of canola oil to a large bowl, place the smooth ball of dough in the bowl, turn the dough to coat it in a thin coating of oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size (about an hour). Makes enough dough for 8-15cm/6″ pizzas, 16 naan bread, or 16 langos.
SALAMI-PEPPER PIZZA:
1 recipe Basic Spelt Dough, split into 8 equal balls of dough
1 cup Roasted Tomato Sauce
1 Doef’s Greenhouses sweet bell pepper, cored, stem and seeds discarded, thinly sliced
12-16 slices Hungarian garlic salami, cut into 1cm(1/2″) wide strips (or your favourite salami or pepperoni)
2 cups Sylvan Star Cheese, gruyere, shredded
Preheat oven to 210C/425F.
Stretch a ball of dough into a rough 15cm circle. The dough should be stretched thin enough to nearly see through.
Invert a baking sheet so the bottom side is facing upwards. Oil the surface lightly. Place the dough on the oiled, inverted baking sheet. Top the stretched dough with a tablespoon or two of Roasted Tomato Sauce. Sprinkle with two tablespoons of shredded gruyere, strips of salami and peppers.
Top with a tablespoon or two more shredded gruyere and bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes or until deeply golden along the bottom and edge of the crust. Repeat with remaining dough. Note: I can usually do two pizzas on one baking sheet to speed things along. Serves 8 as part of a multi-course meal or 4 as a meal on its own.
NAAN BREAD:
With one recipe of Basic Spelt Dough, split it into 16 balls of dough.
Preheat a cast iron pan on the stovetop over medium high heat until the pan has rippling waves of heat rising from it, but not quite smoking. Stretch the dough similarly to stretching the pizza dough. You should be able to see though it and if you tear the occasional hole in the dough, in this case, that’s fine since it will help cook the bread faster. Place the stretched dough in the preheated cast iron pan and count to 15. In that time, you can stretch the next ball of dough. Turn the stretched dough in the pan and griddle for another 15 seconds. Remove and quickly brush with butter or Mighty Trio Organics cold pressed flax oil. Repeat with remaining balls of dough. Makes 16 small naan breads. Serves 8 as a part of an Indian-inspired meal.
LANGOS (Hungarian Frybread):
1 recipe Basic Spelt Dough
1/3 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)
2 cups Mighty Trio Organics cold pressed canola oil, for deep frying
Split the dough into 16 equal balls of dough.
In a wok or wide pot, add the oil and, using a thermometer, bring up to a temperature of 180C/350F over medium heat. Stretch a ball of dough similarly to pizza and naan, so it is thin enough to see through and, like naan, it is preferable if you tear an occasional hole in the middle to allow for faster heat permeation and cook it faster. Lay the stretched dough in the hot oil and fry for 30 seconds on one side.
Turn the langos over with a pair of tongs and fry the other side for a further 30 seconds until golden. Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining dough.
Most commonly langos, once fried and still warm, is dusted with icing sugar until it is completely covered.
Alternatively, langos can also be served with a drizzle of chocolate sauce, or served savoury with a sprinkle of garlic powder. This dough can be also grilled and used like a flatbread for a wrap and is a common street food in Hungary.
