Snowshoe naan

---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05
  
       Title: Snowshoe Naan
  Categories: Breads, Ethnic
       Yield: 8 Breads
  
   2 1/2 c  Warm water
       1 ts Dry yeast
   1 1/2 c  Whole wheat flour
       4    To 5 c unbleached hard
            -white or all-purpose flour
       1 tb Salt
       1 ts Nigella (black onion seed)
  
   Place water in a large bread bowl, add yeast, and stir. Add whole wheat
   flour and 1 cup white flour and stir well, then stir 100 times in the same
   direction to develop the gluten (one minute). Let this sponge stand for 1/2
   hour to 3 hours, covered. Sprinkle salt over the sponge, then add another
   cup flour and stir. Continue adding flour and stirring until you can stir
   no longer. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead
   thoroughly, about ten minutes, until dough is smooth and easy to handle.
   Clean out bowl, oil lightly, and return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic
   wrap and let rise in a convenient place for 2 to 3 hours. When the dough
   has more than doubled in volume, push down gently and turn out onto a
   lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into eight equal pieces and shape
   each into a flat oval shape, approximately 4x8" long. Leave these flat
   disks out on the work surface and cover with plastic wrap to let rise for
   approximately 20 minutes. Place quarry tiles or large baking stone on a
   rack in the lower third of your oven, leaving a 1" space between the tiles
   and the oven wall to allow air to circulate. Preheat oven to 450~. Five
   minutes after the oven has preheated, begin shaping the first bread. Place
   a small bowl full of cold water by the edge of your work surface. Using
   your fingertips, first dip them in the water and then, beginning at one end
   of the disk of dough, make tightly spaced indentations all over the surface
   of the dough, so that it looks pitted, though not pierced through. Now
   stretch the dough gently into a long oval strip by draping it over both
   hands and pulling them apart gently. The dough should stretch and give, and
   after several tries will extend to make a long oval about 12" long with
   attractive stretch marks along it from the stretched indentations (hence,
   the name "snowshoe bread"). Place the bread back on the work surface,
   sprinkle with a pinch (less than 1/8 ts) of black onion seeds, then using
   both hands, place the bread directly on heated quarry tiles or stone. While
   the bread bakes, begin to shape the next bread. Cooking time for each bread
   is approximately 4 minutes. You will soon develop a rhythm so that you can
   bake two breads side by side across your oven, one going in when the other
   is half done. When done, breads will have golden patches on top and a
   crusty browned bottom surface. To keep breads warm and soft, wrap them in a
   cotton cloth five minutes after they come out of the oven. Serve warm or at
   room temperature. Source: Bakers' Dozen, Alford and Duguid, TVFN. MM
   Waldine Van Geffen vghc42a@prodigy.com.
  
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