Naan with Nuts and Fruit (Indian Pakistani Kashmiri Naan)

Kashmiri naan with glazed cherries, almonds, cashews as main ingredients stuffed inside the basic naan bread.

Naan Dough:
1 cup maida or all-purpose unbleached flour
¼ cup milk
¼ cup curd (plain yogurt)
½ tsp. instant yeast
¼ tsp. baking powder
2 pinches baking soda
½ tsp. raw sugar
1½ Tbsp. vegetable oil or melted butter
sea salt

Filling:
15 badam
6 cashew nuts
10 glazed cherries
3 Tbsp. raw sugar

To make the dough, first place the flour in a mixing bowl. Add yeast, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda to it and mix well. Make a dent in the middle. Add curd, milk and oil.

Gather together to make dough and knead well for 5 minutes until smooth. Keep aside for 2 hours at least.

Keep covered leaving enough space for the dough to rise and cover the mouth of the bowl with cling wrap or lid. Let it be a warm space. The dough would have risen and doubled in volume. Punch down and knead again to make it smooth.

Soak badam in warm water for an hour and peel off the skin. In a blender, coarsely grind the glazed cherry, sugar, badam and cashews. Set aside in a bowl.

Divide the dough into 4 equal sized balls. In a well dusted counter top, use your hands to spread the dough into a small disk.

Spoon 2 Tbsp. of the ground sweet mixture. Cover and pinch the ends together as shown in the picture.

Again dust and roll out into thick, oblong naans. While rolling, if the naan shrinks back, drizzle some oil in the counter top and again roll out. Flip and roll both sides for even distribution of the mix throughout the dough.

Heat a pan and cook the naan in medium flame. You can cook covered to make it puff up as it makes the naan soft.

Flip and butter if desired and cook until brown spot appears here and there. Cook in low to medium flame for even cooking.

Makes 4.

Cook’s Notes: Please adjust the sugar according to suit your taste. Add nuts just as mentioned, too much of badam or cashew will give a raw smell otherwise. You can add red food colour too along with this stuffing to make it more colourful. You can make this without yeast too.

Important: I have used Instant yeast here. It is used less in amount than the other yeasts. Also it can be directly added to the flour without dissolving. If using active dry yeast, please dissolve 1 tsp. (for this recipe) of the yeast in lukewarm milk along with sugar, wait for 10 minutes to froth and then use this to make dough along with curd and oil, otherwise recipe and everything same.