Khara biscuit literally translates to Spicy Biscuit. The recipe is easy and really tasty and goes along really well with both coffee and tea. Here at home, all of us have it really spicy, you can reduce the spicy level by adding fewer green chillies. This is one of those recipes that I made on my own, based on the ingredients I had at home.
The aroma is amazing when these biscuits are in the oven. My home smelt like a bakery for quite a while. I was bored making sweet biscuits all the while, this recipe was requested by a few people, it is one of those classic Bangalore type biscuits. Whenever any relative comes visiting, we usually go and get these from a shop near by. Decided to try and make these, the recipe was eyeballed. The green chillies I used were from a shop or chain called Namdhari. The chillies were really spicy, so I added only 5 of them. The secret ingredient I used in this recipe was Hing. A big pinch of hing gave it a really interesting flavour, along with the curry leaves it almost tasted of Oggarane!
Khara biscuit
Ingredients
- 240 grams all-purpose flour
- 170 grams butter
- 40 grams sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 5 green chillies
- 2 sprigs of curry leaves
- 1 teaspoon each of jeera and ajwain
- 1 generous pinch of hing
Instructions
Steps for making Khara biscuit:
- Keep the butter out of the fridge for an hour or two to soften
- Cream the butter, sugar and salt together
- Finely chop green chillies and curry leaves
- Mix the cut chillies and cut curry leaves thoroughly with the butter, sugar and salt mixture
- Mix all purpose flour or maida, by cutting and folding using a spatula
- Keep the spatula aside, mix the dough with your hands, until it no longer sticks to the edges of the bowl. (Similar to chapatti dough).
- Keep the dough aside to rest for about 10 minutes
- Now, pre heat your oven to 180C for 20 minutes
- Butter a baking tray and line it with baking or parchment paper
- Divide the dough into 18 rounds, roll them into small balls
- I bake around 8 in a tray, leaving an inch in between each division.
- Using a fork, make 3 rows (see the photos above as reference), this flattens to biscuit without spoiling the shape
- The biscuits can now go into an oven for about 15 minutes. Keep an eye to see the colour of the biscuits. This is the best indicator to tell you how much it has baked.
- Let them cool for about 15 minutes before eating them, they remain hot inside. The biscuit will be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. These biscuits don't spread as do most other biscuits.
- Enjoy these biscuits with a hot cup of coffee or tea.
