Khaari Shankarpali (savory)

Savory crispy fried crackers/ donuts. Made typically for Diwali but are a great home made tea time snack, any time of the year! My personal Diwali favorite 🙂

Just like my Sweet shankarpali recipe, this recipe too has been handed down by my dearest granny 🙂 Needless to mention, she makes THE BEST khaari shankarpali. She would make this for me in summer vacations, when Diwali was nowhere on the horizon, and family and friends were jealous of how much my grandmom pampered me! she would make any thing I demanded. Recently when I try to eat healthy or am fad diets, she is the most disproving. 

I recently started doing the intermittent fasting diet, and she is so disappointed with me that she told me she did not have fun hosting me because I eat only twice a day and that she cant make me eat all that she would like to <3 She is the sweetest! Touch wood!!

You will need:

One cup milk – any size cup/ measuring unit, just use the same one for all the ingredients. Use a bigger cup if you want to make more shankarpali, smaller one if you want to make just some!

¾ cup ghee

salt to taste as per the cup measure you use. 

Shahi jeera – Indian caraway seeds – again as per the measue you use. Refer to the pictures to get an idea on the use level.

5 cups all purpose flour

Refined oil for frying

Now, I know that technically shahi jeera is caraway seeds, but the caraway seeds you get in western stores are completely different tasting (and horrible to me, I hate them). So try and get this from India/ an Indian grocery store.

Instead of shahi jeera, you can also use chilli flakes, cracked black pepper, kasuri methi or you can be innovative and try blends or new ingredient. My favorite is with Indian shahi jeera or Kasuri methi! I like to dust the kasuri methi ones with some chat masala after frying, tastes fantastic!

But the classic Diwali one is with shahi jeera, so here goes!

Procedure:

• Boil the milk and ghee together, bring to a rolling boil 

• Let it boil for a couple minutes – stir continuously.

• Pour is a flat container and let it cool thoroughly
• Add salt and the shahi jeera (or any other condiments) in the cooled down mixture.
• To the cooled down liquid mixture add the flour mixture and knead dough. You should get a soft dough. You should not need to add more liquid. If the dough starts feeling too hard or dry, omit some flour.
• Knead the dough very well and rest it for 20 minutes

• Heat oil for fying
• Divide the dough in manageable portions and roll out a thin layer (about 2-3 mm thick)
• Check if the oil is hot by putting a small pieces of flattened dough to it – it should sink and float right back to the top and should puff up
• Cut small diamond shapes from the rolled out sough (length about 1 inch) and fry a bunch at a time. They will not stick, so don’t worry
• Stir them while frying and keep pushing them in the oil and flip continuously
• Fry until golden brown and remove in a dish lined with paper towel

• Try one when its cooled, to check if they are crispy like they should be
• Store in an air tight jar once completely cooled down. Stays crunchy and fresh tasting for 2-3 weeks! Better so in colder weather.