Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Teek Biscuits ~ Spicy Masala biscuits


These masala biscuits brings back nostalgic memories from my childhood. My uncle always had a stock of these biscuits in a transparent pearl pet jar. As a child I never understood why he loved these over sweet and melt in the mouth nankhatai's. These were spicy! Every bite had a sharp taste of pepper and green chilli with a hint of sweetness. As a Child the taste was absolutely confusing!How could any one like savory biscuits was something I never understood  Over  a period of time, these were forgotten until one day I landed on kudpi maam's blog.These biscuits reminded me of home and my uncle's box!  I decided to try his recipe for my hubby  P who loves savory stuff over sweet any day. The house smelled delicious as these baked. The first batch was over in no time and I was forced to bake another batch! These were so good that even I who never liked savory biscuits fell in love with these! Bake a batch and enjoy these with a nice cup of coffee!

Click here to read the original recipe
Ingredients:
11/4 cup All Purpose flour
1/2-3/4 tsp Salt (Original recipe suggests 1/4. I found that the salt was very less hence added more. Use 1/2 tsp and if you feel its not sufficient add more)
3/4 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
100 gms or 7 tbsp +1 tsp  Unsalted butter at room temperature
 2" finely chopped Ginger
 3-4 finely chopped Green chilli
2-3 sprigs finely chopped Curry leaves
2 tsp crushed peppercorns
2 tbsp plain yoghurt
1/2 tsp powder hing/asafoetida
1 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 tbsp finely chopped cashew
2 tsp( I used around 3 tsp of organic raw sugar) powdered sugar

Procedure:
1)  Mix hing powder well with yoghurt. Beat the butter well with spoon until it turns creamy and lump free.
2) Sift flour, salt, powdered sugar and turmeric powder. Mix in the butter and rub well until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
3) Add in the chopped curry leaves, ginger, green chilli, peppercorns, sesame seeds and cashew bits.
4) Add in the yoghurt and mix them all together to form a dough. Shape the dough into a log and chill it in fridge for 30 mins.
5) Preheat oven to 350 F/ 170 C  for 10 mins. Cut the log into equal sized cookies.  Place it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper with a distance of 1mm between them.
6) Bake at 350 F / 170 C for 5 mins, then turn down the temp to 300 F/145 C and continue to bake for another 10-15 mins or until the base of  cookies turn golden brown.
7) Remove on to a cooling rack and cool completely before storing them in air tight container.