Festival nankhatais

These could be perhaps the tastiest nankhatais you’ve ever sampled. Nankhatais are light and crumbly, have a melt-in-the-mouth taste, need just a handful of ingredients, and are very, very easy to make. You could say, they’re multi-grain cookies, but of the Indian kind.

Nankhatais are a super-delicious tea-time biscuit popular in India, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Their name is derived from the word ‘naan’ that means flatbread in Persian and ‘khatai’ the word Afghans use for biscuits.

But the original recipe is believed to have originated in India, being first developed by a Parsi baker from Surat in the 16th century. Five centuries later, nankhatais are still as popular as ever.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour (maida)

1 cup whole wheat flour (atta)

½ cup chickpea flour (besan)

2 tbsp semolina (rava)

¾ cup pure ghee (or butter) + approx. 1 tbsp later

½ cup + 1 tbsp (130 g) granulated sugar

(After powdering that will be 1 cup.)

½ tsp salt

2 tsp ground cardamom (1 ½ tsp cardamom seeds)

Chopped almonds and pistachios

Procedure

1. Sift the three flours and mix them.
2. Mix in the semolina and salt.
3. Grind the sugar to a fine powder. You could grind the cardamom seeds along with the sugar.
4. Cream ¾ cup ghee and the sugar well for around 5 minutes till light and airy.
5. Add in the flour mix.
6. Mix with a wooden spoon first and then move to working the dough with your hand.
7. Add in the remaining 1 tbsp ghee. Add more, if necessary, till the dough is soft and mouldable.
8. Break off small pieces around the size of a walnut. Roll each between your palms into a ball, flatten it into a disc around ½” thick, and press some chopped nuts on to the top.
9. Arrange the shaped nankhatais on a butter paper-lined baking tray around ½” apart.
10. Bake at 170C for 18 – 20 minutes till done. You’ll know they’re done when they’re pale brown at the bottom, change colour slightly on the top and develop a few cracks.
11. Let the nankhatais cool on a cooling rack and then store them in an airtight container.

(Makes around 35 nankhatais)

Enjoy!