I used to make naan every now and again (whether it was authentic or not, I do not know, but it was good!) back in my wheat days, now that those days are alas gone, I thought to try it again on the gluten free frontier. I found several recipes, but all the best call for yogurt, and being unable to eat dairy and reluctant to eat non-dairy-dairy substitutes, I wasn't quite sure what to do, then I remembered my old friend Figgins. I have an on-again-off-again romance with a sourdough culture affectionately named Figgins, who has appeared in both a gluten and gluten free version, but basically it is one part flour to one part milk to one part sugar plus a teaspoon of yeast to get it going (an amish friendship bread starter) and let it sit a few days until the worst of the bubbling is over.
I've replaced buttermilk in recipes with sourdough starter, why not yogurt? But what about the milk? Replace it with non-dairy milk (was there ever such an oxymoron?) or water or even coffee creamer (1 part dry coffee creamer to 2 parts hot water). In a previous incarnation I used 100% oat flour but this time around I used 1 part each tapioca, corn starch, and brown rice flour, which I don't really like for this purpose as it get really sticky on the bottom leaving the rest rather thin. But I used what I had and went ahead with it (I'm a little impatient sometimes!) and tried making naan last night. I was using 'gluten free on a shoestring's' recipe, substituting oil for butter and the sourdough for yogurt. I need to adjust the water because it really got soupy and I had to add extra starch, but even then it was still sticky and hard to work.
It made some really good bread, not quite the texture of the wheat version, but good in its own right. Maybe if I leave it more of a batter and treat it like a pancake it might be easier to work but I don't know what that would do to texture. I'll have to play with it and see what I come up with, maybe I'll post a recipe if I can get this madness (or genius?) to work!
