Pakistan, India, Bangladesh – Nankhatai

by Anaa Rajpoot

History

In the 16^th century, the Dutch set a bakery in Surat. At the time when they left, they passed the bakery to the Iranians. People didn’t like their sweets so the Iranians sell the dry bread at low cost to run their business. Soon, the dried bread started to catch people eyes. So the Iranians started drying the bread before selling it. This experimentation lead to world of Nankhatai.

Introduction

Nankhatai is a biscuit popular in India and Pakistan. They are not like normal biscuits. Rather being crunchy, they are really soft and have little bit of a crust at the bottom. They have a very refreshing color and are very sweet in taste. They are also very common in Iran and Afghanistan and are known as Kulcha-e-Khataye there. 

Time management

• Preparation time: 10 minutes
• Cooking time: 20 minutes
• Total time: 30 minutes

Nutrition summary

• fats: 12g
• Protein: 8g
• Carbohydrates: 22g

Serve with

we can serve it at tea time with

• tea
• green tea
• pink tea
• Kashmiri tea
• kehwa
• snacks
• coffee

Ingredients

• 1 cup Wheat flour
• 1tsp Baking powder
• 3tsp Semolina
• 1/3 cup Sugar
• 3 Cardamom seeds
• Less than a half cup Oil

 Method

• Crush the sugar with the cardamom seeds into fine granules.
• Mix all the ingredients and make a dough out of it.
• Make the biscuit shapes out of the dough with a pit in center.
• Fill the pit with cream and add any food coloring you like.
• Bake them on a medium heat for 15 minutes.
• Grate some pistachio and almond for looks and taste.

You can skip the pit part as most people do so.

And now time to dig in!