Are you tired of toast bread?? are you interested to try one of the easiest flat bread in the world at home?? Then, you’re gonna love the following recipe.
In Iran we have different types of breads such as Naan Lavash نان لواش, Naan Taftunنان تافتون, Naan Sangak نان سنگک, and Naan Barbari نان بربری.
All traditional bakeries in Iran, bake naan bread in a tandoor oven تنور three times a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner time. In front of every bakery is a long queue of customers so you can get very fresh and beautiful bread from bakeries.
When you are living abroad, like me, sometimes you miss those fresh and beautiful breads and it makes you think about baking bread at home. One of the breads that I’m going to introduce today, is called lavash bread or as we say in Farsi nan Lavash.
Lavash bread نان لواش, is one the thinnest and easiest breads in the world you can ever make..
Oh by the way, did you you know, bread means naan in Farsi?? So when you order nan bread in a restaurant, it means you say bread bread. It is interesting, is not it??
Lavvash bread ,is as thin as phylo/filo pastry. It can be soft or crispy like giant crackers and when you bite it, you can hear creanch crunch?? I love it 😍
After baking, lavash bread gets dry and crunchy quickly. Crispy -crunchy bread is wonderful but for those that prefer soft bread, there is an easy method, as my beloved grandmother used to do.
What she did to change a crispy crunchy lavash bread into a softy soft bread was to spray or sprinkle some water on it to rehydrate the bread and then wrap it with a damp towel for 1 hour before serving.
Iranian Lavash naan bread, was first baked in Iran at least from 800 years ago and this bread is popular in Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan .
You can make this gorgeous and tasty bread With very primitive techniques — simple facilities and with just a few ingredients including: flour, salt, water and oil, that are all available in any pantry.
You don’t need an oven to make Lavash naan bread and there is no yeast or eggs among the ingredients. And you know, too much yeast is not very good for your health, so lavash bread without yeast is a healthy choice. Lavash bread is used with kebab,, stew, curry, dips like, hummus, soup, it is good for sandwiches and wrapped with feta cheese and slices of tomatoes: mmmm this one is my favourite. So as you see, this bread goes well with quite everyyyyyyyyy thing.
Traditionally, Lavash bread نان لواش is baked in a clay tandoor but in modern time, we can make it in the oven or top of the gas stove at home. Maybe you ask, what is the shape of lavash bread??as I mentioned earlier, lavash bread is giant bread. It is shaped as a large rectangle- oval or round from 15 to 35 cm wide.
I have baked my Lavash bread with strong flour and also with wholemeal flour and that’s why some of my breads look with brighter colour and some are brwonish.
Lavash Bread
Equipment
- baking tray
Ingredients
- 200 g strong flour or very strong wholemeal flour
- 110 ml or 6tbsp+2tsp water
- 60 ml or 2tbsp extra virgin olive oil or other vegetable oil
- 5 g salt
Instructions
- Stir together flour and salt. Then, use a strainer or colander to sift the flour. Next, add water and oil to the flour.
- With a wooden spoon, mix all ingredients and then knead with yourhand. No need to knead the dough too much, just until the dough forms and comes together (that will happen in 4-5 minutes).
- Sprinkle some flour into the bowl and place the dough inside the bowl and sprinkle some more flour top of the dough. Cover the bowl with a lid/ cloth or cling film and let the dough rest for 1 hour.
- After1 hour, pull the dough up and then fold it.
- Then, divide the dough into small balls (35g each one). Place each ball on a floured surface and roll it. Make sure you roll the dough out very thinly for best results. But the key point is flour,YES flour 😎Make sure, you sprinkle a generous amount of flour top on each side of dough as you roll it out until paper thin..So, keep dusting the dough.
- To bake these Lavash bread, you can use a baking tray. Place a baking tray upside down on the gas hob and warm it up.
- And then , slide the thin dough onto the back of the baking tray and bake 2-3 minutes on each side, until bubbles appear on top of the bread.
- While it is baking, rotate the bread on the baking tray until lightlybrown. It is a delicious bread and although it won’t last long, you can freeze leftover lavash bread in ziplock freezer bags up to 2 months.
